Helsingin Vanhakaupunki (Gammelstaden i Helsingfors)

English translation (from the Finnish)

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Description

Helsingin Vanhakaupunki is the first location of the city of Helsinki, 1550-1640. The site of the town founded in 1550 by King Kustaa Vaasa at the mouth of the Vantaanjoki, as a trading place to compete with Tallinna, is a significant immovable archaeological monument from the historical period, comprising, among others, the church site, the churchyard and the foundations of buildings.

The city of Helsinki was located until the 1640s at the mouth of the Vantaanjoki, on the west bank of the rapids, on the slopes of the present-day Kellomäki and Annalanmäki and in the valley between them. A small-scale map of Helsinki drawn up by Hans Hansson in 1645 has survived. The map shows the town plan of the city's final years, which in its basic features is largely medieval. Streets and blocks follow the shapes of the natural landscape, and the plots extend through irregular, narrow and long blocks. In medieval fashion, the blocks extend right down to the sea wherever this was possible. Two main streets can be distinguished in the street network, into which the smaller streets lead. The only building drawn on the map is the church.

The old town has been possible to delineate more precisely through archaeological investigations. Traces of buildings found beneath the town-period layer have been dated to the end of the 15th century and the first half of the 16th century. The buildings were still in use in the early years of the town period and belong to the medieval village of Koskela, which is first mentioned in historical sources in 1417.

The ruins of the wooden church built in the 1550s in Vanhankaupunki, its nave, its armoury and the associated burial chambers, as well as the graves outside the church, were studied in the early 1930s. The stone foundation of the church, which was in use until the 1670s, is exposed as a result of the excavations. A replica of the gravestone of Hans van Sanden, originally a Dutch burgher, found in Vanhakaupunki in 1866, rests inside the church ruins at the site of the grave.

Villa Anneberg, located on Annalanmäki, is a summer villa and estate built in the 1820s by commercial counsellor G.O. Wasenius; the heritage of the estate as a model farm in agriculture and horticulture is cared for by Hyötykasviyhdistys.

History

King Kustaa Vaasa decided in 1550 to found a new town on the coast of Suomenlahti. The aim of the measures against Hanseatic trade was to route Finland's foreign trade past Tallinna.

Helsinki was founded at the mouth of the Vantaanjoki and built on the lands of the medieval village of Forsby, also known as Koskela, where according to sources from 1417 there were five farms. The advantages of the site included, among others, the inland connection offered by the river, a sheltered harbour at the head of the bay, and proximity to important main roads. On an island between the rapids of the Helsinginjoki, now the Vantaanjoki, King Kustaa Vaasa decided in 1550 to found a royal manor, which for a couple of decades served as an administrative and economic centre, a military supply centre and a model agricultural estate.

The king gave detailed instructions on the town's layout, the aim being a regular grid plan. This was not realised, and the town remained largely medieval in structure. The town was a disappointment economically; its location at the head of a shallow bay proved poor, and in 1640 Helsinki was moved to its present site on Vironniemi (now Kruununhaka). After the town moved, the Vanhakaupunki area was left with a hospital with its church, as well as mills and inns.

According to the 1645 map, the area had two long, narrow blocks west of the main square and a third block on the upper terrace. Archaeological investigations of the area found some twenty building foundations, a log-built well, small vertical-board and log-framed cellar pits, a dry-walled cellar, refuse pits, ditches and abundant town-period artefacts. Most of the buildings were residential. The streets were unpaved. Excavations of the Vanhankaupunki meadow found a vast quantity of town-period finds from the 16th and 17th centuries, which show that Helsinki followed the fashions of the time, since similar object types are found at urban excavations across north-western and northern Europe.