Rapola Manor

In a cadastre from 1543, seven farms were recorded in the village of Rapola. Around the middle of the 16th century some of the farms were abandoned and were acquired by Timoteus Särkilahti, son of Vicar Paavali Särkilähti of Sääksmäki. The farms were combined in 1564 to form an estate known as Timilä. In 1575 Timilä became an estate providing cavalry service for the crown, and was held by the military families of the Särkilahtis and the Ruuths. The farm had suffered from the crop failures and famines of the late 17th century.

Rapola Manor was abandoned during the so-called Great Wrath, the Russian occupation of Finland in the early 18th century. The owners, the Ruuth family, fled to Sweden, where Margaretha Ruuth married Pehr Gustaf Svinhufvud. The couple moved to Rapola in the mid-1720s, marking the beginning of ownership by the Svinhufvud family.

Pehr Evind Svinhufvud, President of Finland, was born at Rapola on 15 December 1861. Following the death of his father, he spent his early childhood in the care of his grandfather Provincial Treasurer P. G. Svinhufvud. Later Svinhufvud moved to Helsinki with his mother and sister. He graduated as Master of Arts in 1882 and as Master of Laws in 1888. Svinhufvud served as president from 1931 to 1937.

The main building of Rapola Manor from the south. Photo: Soile Tirilä.

In 1932 President P. E. Svinhufvud of Finland visited Rapola

Manor where he was born. Local festivities were held in

honour of the occasion. Archives of A-M Kuuliala.

The impressive stone cowshed of Rapola manor was built by Treasurer P. G. Svinhufvud. Photo: Heidi Toivanen.

This period of the Svinhufvud family in Rapola ended in 1868, when the estate was auctioned to the farmer Kustaa Pietola. In keeping with the custom followed in the Häme region, he took the name of the property as his surname. Rapola was inherited by Kustaa Rapola’s grandson Juho Kuuliala and his wife Enne in 1915. It remained in the Kuuliala family until 1993, when the Finnish state became its new owner through an exchange of land. Rapola Manor was given into the care of the National Board of Antiquities, and it currently comprises some 140 hectares of land and 16 buildings and structures.

The oldest buildings of Rapola Manor are its main building (from 1813), currently rented for private use, and a large stone-built cowshed from the 1860s. In addition, the farmyard area includes a dairy room, stills, storehouses and shelters for animals. In recent years, the buildings and garden of Rapola Manor have been refurbished by the National Board of Antiquities.