Knuutla

History

In 1756, the owner of the land was a person named Knutell. In 1800, the plot belonged to Ephraim Ilvan, a bourgeois who was poor.

Fire insurance

The fire insurance was taken out in 1847 by the bourgeois Carl Gustaf Rosbäck. There was a residential building on the plot, built of new materials in 1836 and a small part in 1840. The building was unlined and painted red. The rooms consisted of an entrance hall, two halls, three chambers and a covered gateway. A porch made of tarpaulin was attached to the building. There were 12 windows and one half window. Judging by the dimensions, the windows were six-paned. There were 11 windows in the attic and six semi-transomed French doors. There were also two board doors and an external door, which was a double door of double board. Above it was a window. Three of the ovens were flat yellow glazed ovens, one brown flat and one round yellow. The attic stairs led from a cupboard in the hallway. The second building consisted only of a kitchen with a stove and a frying oven. The building was built in 1847 and had not been boarded up or painted. The building had one window and one half window. The door was a double board door. It was in fact an addition to the courtyard, on the west side of the building.

An old, in fair condition, log outbuilding, unplanked, but painted with red paint. The building had a baker’s pantry and hall. Apart from the baking room with its oven, the building also had a vaulted sauna oven. There was one window and one half window. The exterior door was plank and the two interior doors were plank. The building was located on the east side of the property and was attached to the main building.

The exterior was built of new materials in 1840. It had two dining halls and an attic with stairs. It appears to have been a barn. The second outbuilding was also built in 1840. It was not boarded up. There were stables, a barn and a chalk house. The gate, with a separate access gate, was also insured.

In 1882, the house was insured by the master baker Isak Viktor Grönfors. The street front of the main building was now planked and painted with oil paint, the other sides were painted with watercolour. The roof was boarded. The rooms consisted of an entrance hall, a hall, four chambers and a shop with an entrance porch from the street. There was also a porch in the courtyard, painted with oil paint. The kitchen was still mentioned as a separate building. The gateway and the bakehouse at the east end of the building had been demolished.

The eastern end of the street-side building now formed a separate building. Its roof and east side were planked and painted with oil paint. The other sides were unplanked and painted with mixed paint. It had a tiled roof. The building also housed a bakery. The inside of the bakery oven was made of refractory bricks and the wall itself was reinforced with iron anchors. Adjacent to the bakery building, on the eastern boundary of the plot, was a shed built in 1881 from boards and painted red. There was no ash layer in the plank roof.

The outbuilding on the sloping southern boundary of the property was altered and added to in 1880. It was painted red. The roof was boarded with a layer of tuff. The building had two dormers with attics, a carriage house, and a stable with parrets and a barn. The building had been treated as two separate buildings in the previous insurance. The plot was fenced, painted with mixed paint and the garden at the western end of the plot was surrounded by a fence painted with oil paint.

On October 12, 1884, a telegram was sent to the Fire Brigade Association from Rauma, reporting a fire that broke out at 5:30 in the morning, destroying a bakery building and the shed that was attached to it. The neighbouring property had suffered minor damage. The fire-fighting operation was said to have proceeded swiftly and the entire fire was extinguished by seven o’clock. Further information was promised by post.

The adjacent building damaged in the fire was an outbuilding on the property. In addition, the fence was damaged. An outbuilding on a neighbouring property was also damaged in the fire.

The fire was first discovered by the bakery workers, namely the stable boy, the farmhand and the apprentice, whose sleeping place was in a corner of the bakery separated from the hallway, which faced the bakery wall. They woke up to find they were being suffocated by the smoke coming in. The baker immediately went to wake up his neighbours, one of whom was a fire chief. At the same time, the fire alarm was sounded. The fire was already coming from two windows of the building and the bakery room was in flames. The fire chief reported that all citizens of the city, regardless of age and gender, participated in the extinguishing of the fire. As so often before in Rauma at all times, it was again up to the townspeople to bring water to the scene. This time the governor of the province, Count Creuz, happened to be there and saw the whole disaster. The bakery had been baking the night before, and work had stopped at eight o’clock in the evening. By nine o’clock, the workers were already asleep in their bunks. The probable cause of the fire was thought to have been a spark that had flown across the floor and had smouldered all night, only to ignite in the morning.

Modification drafts

There is a drawing of the façade of Knuutla Kuninkaankatu from 1865. The plan at that time was to open the entrance to the shop along the street. One of the windows was replaced by a window-width door and a staircase was built in front of the door, parallel to the street, with access from both directions. Before the alterations, the façade of the building had nine six-paned windows, with two-paned attic windows above them. Access to the property was via a gateway corridor through the building. The gateway had a drive-through door and a narrower access door next to it. There was a residential building on the plot along Kuninkaankatu, with a porch and kitchen attached to the courtyard side in sections on either side of the gate. On the sloping southern boundary of the plot were two outbuildings in line with a neighbouring outbuilding.

In 1909, Arvi Leikari drew an alteration plan, according to which the residential buildings were to be extended from the courtyard. The outbuilding was also made wider and had a wing on the western boundary of the plot. On the courtyard side there was an existing porch-like extension with a kitchen and pantry, and now kitchens, pantries and entrances were added. The bakery building to the east of the gate also added a new kitchen in addition to the bakery and pantry. The bakehouse and the dwelling house were no longer under the same roof, but as separate buildings. The gateway was between them. The façades of the buildings were shown in the drawing to have some Art Nouveau influence. At the western end of the residential building was the shop entrance with shop windows on either side.

Apparently, the changes were not implemented, as there is an alteration plan from 1913 by Arvi Leikari, which included an extension to the courtyard, but with a different room layout and a different roof solution than in the previous plan. The alteration was, as was customary, presented as a change from the previous drawing, not the actual situation. The cladding of the facades was now proposed in a more pronounced Art Nouveau style than in the previous one. The shop entrances were now both at the west end and in the centre of the building. In 1935, a drawing of the baker’s shop building proposed an Art Nouveau shop door and display windows. At the same time, the bakery’s oven was demolished and replaced by a conventional heating oven.

In 1953, a sauna was built in the outbuilding on the site of the former barn. In 1954, the windows in the second commercial building were made larger.

Current situation

West side street-side building
Short-cornered residential and commercial building, built in 1836, horizontal boarded, saddle roof, raised on the courtyard side, display windows. Exterior design from 1913 (Arvi Leikari).

East-facing street-side building
Long-cornered residential building, now a commercial building. The northern part was built in 1836, the southern part before that. Ribbed horizontal planking at the end, panelled brickwork on the courtyard façade, display windows and Art Nouveau window surround dating from 1935

Outdoor building
Short-cornered outbuilding, built in 1840, with horizontal timbering

Gate
A type common in the early 20th century.