Sockenstuguberget

Kirkkokatu 2–4 Uusikaarlepyy

The border between the town and the rural municipality used to cross Sockenstuguberget (Pitäjätalon kallio, “the parish house cliff”). According to folk memory, a parish house stood on the cliff already in the 1600s. The last parish house built on the cliff in the 1820s was demolished in the early 1970s. It was customary to arrange administrative and ecclesiastical meetings and court sessions in parish houses, usually led by priests. Moral issues, social welfare and education were among the themes addressed in parish houses.

Still in the 1860s, the riverside slope of the cliff featured “church cottages”, in which faraway churchgoers were accommodated with their horses. At some point, these cottages also housed many kinds of less advantaged people, and they were finally torn down. The old parish granary located in the area was moved elsewhere in the early 1980s.

The cliff featured a punishment place as well: a mobile whipping post, to which convicts were tied by the neck and put on public display for some time before their sentence was carried out. During the whipping, the convicts’ hands were tied to the stake with rope or chain. The events were watched by an audience of all ages, so they also served as educational performances. The last punishment at the whipping post took place in 1870.

The old Town Hall is situated next to the cliff, with its oldest part from 1729 and an ancillary building from the mid-1800s. In the same place as this building, there used to be the first trivial school of Ostrobothnia, established by Per Brahe the Younger in the early 1640s.

In the historical centre of Uusikaarlepyy, by the Lapuanjoki river (Nykarleby älv), there is a church and bell-tower from the beginning of the 1700s.