FISKARS 1649 – 360 years of Finnish industrial history

Fiskars 1649
Fiskars 1649
The ironworks and its surroundings
The present configuration of the Fiskars
ironworks has been moulded over four
centuries. None of the 17th century houses
or factories remain, but a few structural components
can be found in the foundations of some buildings.
The present roadways, however, took shape in the
17th and early 18th century.
The ironworks was built on the Fiskars River,
which flows through a valley that extends from
Lake Degersjö to Pohja Bay. The upper rapids are
near the lake, and there are a millrace and more
rapids one kilometre downstream. Ever since the
17th century, mills specializing in refining iron
and copper have been built on these two rapids.
Roughly midway between the two rapids, a smaller
tributary, the Rissla, flows into the Fiskars River.
It was on this tributary that the brickworks and
threshing house were situated. The terrain in the
fertile and luxuriant Fiskars River valley and the
distance between the rapids affected the layout of
the buildings, and the early ‘town plan’ was not very
carefully organized.
A copy of Qvist’s map from 1764, kept in the National Archives. The map bears the inscription: Faithfully copied according
to the original in the Fiskars archives by Fiskars in 1882–83, Lindsay von Julin. The blast furnace in Qvist’s map
was once located on the site of a former cutlery mill, a red brick building.
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