Padise Manor and its Neighbours

ihterpalu, which was situated near the sea, about twenty kilometres to the north-west of Padise was one of the lands granted to the Riga burgomaster Thomas Ramm by king Gustavus II Adolphus in 1622. It was a forested area, and the number of serfs was considerably smaller than at Padise: while there were 1385 serfs at Padise there were only 535 at Vihterpalu in 1732. For a long time both manors had the same owners and it was not until 1788 that Vihterpalu was separated from Padise and came into Carl Gustav von Ramm’s possession. The surviving two-storeyed Late Neoclassical building was erected in about 1830, when the title to land had passed to Gustav von Knorring, the husband of Carl Gustav’s daughter Elisabeth. The main distinguishing feature of the manor was the Vihterpalu River with its steep banks: while the mansion, which was surrounded by the extensive flower beds and paths, was on the left side of the bank, auxiliary buildings were mostly situated on the other side of the river. In 1853 the Vihterpalu manor was transferred to the Ramms again and the last owner before the land reform was Julius von Ramm’s daughter Sophie, who was married to Baron Alfred von Rosen from the Russalu manor.

In 1920 the local elementary school moved into the Vihterpalu manor house, and worked there until the early 1960s. After that the building was empty and had fallen into disrepair when, in 2000, it was taken over by Timo Juhani Lemberg, a Finnish businessman, who began an extensive renovation. Today there is a hotel and a conference centre in the Vihterpalu manor house.

manorial estate was established at Hatu, about a dozen kilometres to the west of Padise in 1609, when Corporal Lars Svensson was granted the lands for his dutiful service; his offspring were soon granted a tiitle of nobility under the name of Silberarm. Hatu manor was in the hands of the Silberarms until 1716, thereafter the owners were the Mohrenschilds from Järva county, and in 1792 the ownership was transferred to the Ramms from Padise. As much as we know it was a small manor: when serfdom was abolished in 1816 there were only 150 peasants of both sexes and the manor house was just a shabby wooden building. By 1853 even this had fallen into ruin. The building of the surviving one-storeyed stone mansion in the Historicist style was begun in 1862, when Adolf von Ramm became the owner of the manor; the mansion was completed by autumn 1864. The last lord of Hatu manor was Fridolf von Ramm.

In 1925 a school was opened in the Hatu manor house and it functioned there until 1963. Thereafter the building stood empty for a long time, now it is gradually being renovated.

his is one of the few manors in Estonia, whose foundation date is exactly known: it was on 17th March 1825, when the two sons of Carl Adolf von Ramm, the lord of the Padise manor agreed that the younger son Clas would receive his father’s lands, except the former cattle farm of Vasalemma and the miller’s place of Alavainu, which would be separated from the eastern part of the estate and would pass on to the elder brother Thomas. The new manor was less than a quarter of the size of the Padise manor and the number of peasants, who lived there, was not more than 480.

Thus the Ramms obtained one more manor, but they did not plan to put up any substantial buildings there, at least initially. In spring, 1874 it was even decided to sell it, the buyer, Theodor Boustedt, resold it to Josephine von Baggehufwudt, lady of the Saku manor, eleven years later. The latter did not want the place for herself, but for her son Eduard, who had a mansion in the Neo-Gothic style built in 1892–94, one of the most imposing in the whole of Estonia. When looking at it from a certain angle, it seems like a medieval knight’s castle: a tall crenellated tower on the north-eastern corner, a romantic balcony above the main entrance, triangular stepped pediments on the north and south sides, etc. The architect of the building is unknown, but its groundplan is very similar to the Laitse manor house or Glehn Castle at the edge of Mustamäe in Tallinn, so the architect may have been Nicolai von Glehn. It is not impossible as Eduard von Baggehufwudt’s wife Elsbeth was Nicolai von Glehn’s daughter.

Because of the building material – local Vasalemma marble – the structure looks all the more impressive. Baggehufwudts were very proud about the stone quarried on their lands and even invited specialists from Silesia to organise limestone processing better. In the early 20th century the local quarry sent polished and carved slabs in several sizes to St. Petersburg – about 200 wagonloads a year. In addition, the owners tried their hand at some unusual types of farming, for example, breeding exotic birds (pheasants, guineafowl, canary birds, peacocks, etc) and different breeds of rabbits and dogs. Thus, in 1912, 1500 wagonloads of exotic birds and approximately 25 000 eggs were sent to the market. To generate electricity a huge wind turbine was put up in 1913 and its base, a stone tower of about a dozen metres high, is still visible on the other side of the road from the manor house.

In 1919 the Vasalemma manor house was transferred to the Tallinn Society of Teachers and three years later an elementary school was established there. The Vasalemma school is still functioning and, during the last years, the building has been thoroughly renovated, and an effort has been made to restore the hall and the adjoining former dining room with an English-style wood-panelling to their original state.