Rosenlund vicarage

Puutarhakatu 6 A-C Pietarsaari

Vicar Gabriel Aspegren (who also received the Finnish honorary title of rovasti) ordered the building of the vicarage. The house was completed in 1765, but it soon fell into decay and was torn down in 1797. Vicar Erik Brunnius contracted local carpenters and artisans to build a new two-storey main building in 1798, financing it partly with money received from the parish and the city. The stone cellar of the former vicarage was preserved under the new vicarage. In 1817, the building was covered with board cladding, given a tile roof and painted yellow.

During his term, Gabriel Aspegren managed to establish a large garden on the barren and rocky Rosenlund hill. The garden was symmetrically divided into sections and surrounded by a stone fence. Aspegren used his own funds to build the garden. He was apparently among the first in the region to cultivate potatoes. Aspegren also ordered the building of a cowshed in the 1770s. The large grey-stone byre for cows, horses and sheep was progressive in those days. The Rosenlund vicarage yard is bordered by workers’ cottages, also from the 1700s. Aspegren extended the farmlands and had crofters on his lands, who provided him with additional income. Aspegren died after a short illness in the spring of 1784.

In the first half of the 1800s, Johan Höckert, a former trivial school teacher and principal from Oulu, served as vicar at Rosenlund. One of his students was J.V. Snellman, who characterised his teacher as an ‘exceptionally fine man of the world’. Maria Aspegren, Höckert’s grandmother, was Gabriel Aspegren’s half-sister. Höckert served as vicar for 34 years. He often expressed concern for the poor, hungry and sick people in the region and sometimes managed to help them through, for example, food aid.

All the buildings at Rosenlund are open for visitors, carefully repaired and restored. The Pedersöre Local History Museum operates in the stone byre. The Aspegren garden as a whole has been reconstructed according to old documents and plans. In addition to useful and ornamental plants, the garden features medicinal plants typical of the 1700s, which were used in home pharmacies. The garden is surrounded by an old stonewall with gates.