Vesikosken historiallinen tehdasalue

English translation (from the Finnish)

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Description

At Vesikoski on the Loimijoki river there is a milling tradition beginning in the 17th century at the latest, and a varied industrial past. The core of the early industry of the agricultural Loimaa region has been at Vesikoski and the neighbouring Hirvikoski. Alongside the mills, the rapids have had engineering workshop activity from the end of the 19th century, and at Vesikoski also a wood-grinding mill and, from 1919, a leather factory.

In the place of the Vesikoski leather factory there was earlier a nail factory, and in the early part of the 20th century a wood-grinding mill. The three-storey red-brick leather factory, the so-called Nahkalinna, was built on their site. The oldest part of the present property, a paper factory, was built at the very beginning of the 20th century, and the factory complex was extended again in the 1980s. After the factory activity ended, the premises housed cultural activities, including the Loimaan teatteri. The factory complex also includes a manager's residence built at the beginning of the century, a brick boiler house with its chimney from the 1950s designed by architect Paavo Tiitola, a storehouse with a säteri roof, and two log residential buildings dating from the 19th century. Next to the factory at Vesikoski there is a regulating weir and a power station from the early 20th century. On the north bank of the Loimijoki river at the rapids stands an old log mill building. The present museum presenting the milling heritage of the Loimijoki river was in operation until the 1960s.

Part of the industrial landscape and history of the two most significant rapids of the Loimijoki river is the Ferraria factory, located one and a half kilometres away at Hirvikoski. The oldest red-brick production buildings of the nail factory are the repair workshop from the 1890s, the factory building originally built as a hinge factory from the 1920s, and the chain factory from 1934, which was later extended. Next to the repair workshop there is a brick chimney. The area also has buildings from the 1950s and 1970s. Along the tree-lined avenue stands a former manager's residence from the turn of the 19th to 20th century.

History

There were several mills at Vesikoski and Hirvikoski on the Loimijoki river already in the Middle Ages. In the 1640s a residential manor of the Loimaa barony was built on the southern bank of Vesikoski. The site is a hill known today as Kartanonmäki, where the Loimaa old people's home is located. A mill and sawmill were established at the rapids. In the 1780s the first sarkatamppi, or fulling mill, of the region was built on the northern bank of Vesikoski. The fulling mill later came, in the 1890s, first into the ownership of the nail factory and later of the paper factory.

Vesikoski and Hirvikoski were the most significant milling sites of the region in the 19th century, and after the Turku-Toijala railway opened to traffic in 1876, their appeal as production sites rose. The nail factory was established at Hirvikoski in 1886, and in the early 1890s it expanded to Vesikoski, where production began in 1892. In the late 1890s the Hirvikoski and Vesikoski nail factories employed about 120 people. The production buildings were wooden, except for the brick-built repair workshop, engine room and chimney at Vesikoski. Apart from the wire-drawing works on the northern bank of Vesikoski, these were the only buildings to survive the 1903 fire at Vesikoski.

The Hirvikoski and Vesikoski nail factories passed to the Ferraria group in 1903, and a new power station was built for the factories in 1908. Nail production was discontinued, but the Ferraria factory at Hirvikoski continued making metal and engineering products. After the wars, Ferraria was the most significant industrial plant in the locality. In 1907 a paper factory was established at Vesikoski, the only one in Finland to use sawmill waste as the main raw material for wood pulp. The factory did not, however, prosper, and in its place the Nahkayhtiö factory was founded in 1919. The Loimaa Electricity Works bought the former paper factory's power station in 1921. Due to the rapids' small drop in water level, the power station did not long satisfy growing electricity demand.

The leather factory expanded several times and before the Second World War employed nearly 200 people. Operations at the factory ceased in 1996. At the beginning of the 21st century, work began to convert the leather factory for cultural use.