Porin Vanha hautausmaa

English translation (from the Finnish)

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Description

The Porin Vanha hautausmaa is an example of an early 19th-century cemetery situated apart from the church and the urban settlement. It reflects changes not only in burial practices but also in the aesthetic ideals of garden art and grave memorials.

The former cemetery on the west side of the old grid-plan area of Pori, now no longer in use, is an impressive ensemble. The park-like cemetery, bounded by a stone fence, contains some three hundred grave memorials. Among the memorials are sheet-metal, cast-iron and stone grave markers, characterised by classical forms and motifs. Many family graves are surrounded by cast-iron fences.

In the park south of the cemetery fence, bounded by the uniform street scene of district VI, stands the functionalist red-brick water tower designed by architect Bertel Strömmer in 1935. It is part of the period's key building typology of industrial, storage and technical facilities, in which the formal language of functionalism found its realisation. The tall tower is significant for the townscape.

History

After the great fire of Pori in 1801, it was proposed that the dilapidated cemetery around the church be moved outside the town. The cemetery in the centre was considered to spread putrid fever, which was common at the time, during damp summers. The town's new cemetery was established at Hampustenmäki, next to the poorhouse, on the west side of the town's city blocks. The cemetery was consecrated for use in 1809. The new cemetery was initially just under one hectare in size. In 1830 it was first extended to almost twice its size, and again at the end of the 1850s to about three hectares.

The cemetery area was first enclosed with a temporary fence, which was fairly soon replaced by a stone wall built on the south and west sides. Two iron lattice gates were made in the fence. The extensions of the cemetery were also enclosed in the same way with a stone wall, in accordance with an earlier plan.

The town was expanded in the 1860s with a new VI district south of the cemetery. On the basis of the Health Care Decree of 1879, the use of the cemetery, which was located in the middle of settlement, had to be discontinued almost without exception by 30 June 1890 at the latest. The actual use of the old cemetery, which needed extension, ended in the 1880s, and the Käppärä cemetery was established as the new cemetery, with burials beginning there in 1884.

At the end of the 19th century the old cemetery began to be maintained as a park, and the gardener Fr. Söderberg apparently already at that time drew up a park plan for the area that roughly corresponds to the present situation. In the 1890s the cemetery, which had by then already gone out of use, was slightly reduced in size when land was purchased from its Russian section for the railway.

Planning for a water supply network in Pori took place in the first half of the 20th century. The final decision to build the works was made in 1934, and in August of the same year the contract was awarded to Oy Yleinen Insinööri-toimisto. The water tower designed by architect Bertel Strömmer was completed in 1935, and the municipal waterworks was brought into use the following year.