History of Kupittaanpuisto Park

From Bishop Henry to tournaments

According to tradition, Bishop Henry baptised the first pagan Finns into Christianity at the Kupittaa spring during the First Swedish Crusade in 1155.

In the 16th century, Kupittaa was a public marketplace where markets were held and horses were sold and grazed. Some small patches of land had been cleared for cultivation, and until the 19th century, Turku burghers had garden plots in the area between Itäharju and Kupittaa.

When Duke John held his Renaissance court at Turku Castle in the 1550s and 1560s, tournaments and midsummer celebrations, among other events, were held in Kupittaa. In the 17th century, students of the Royal Academy of Turku used to gather in Kupittaa on Flora Day to celebrate the traditional spring festival.

Health and executions

In the early 1680s, the Kupittaa spring started to be used as a health spring. At first, people with leprosy were treated in the area, and later cholera patients. Kupittaa also has a darker history: from 1760 onwards, the area around Uudenmaantulli began to be used as an execution site, as capital punishments were still fairly common in the 18th century. In addition to murder and manslaughter, theft could also lead to beheading.

Bathhouse activities, which had begun already in the 18th century, attracted many people to Kupittaa. Kupittaa was the water source for the entire Turku area, providing most of the drinking water for Turku residents. Two streams flowed from the marshy lands of Kupittaa towards the city: Krooppi, which ran along Kerttulinmäki and past the Old Great Square into the River Aura, and Sikaoja, which led to the river along the edge of Sotalaistenmäki. The first bathhouse buildings were built in Kupittaa already in the 18th century. The early bathhouse's heyday began in the 18th century when the bathhouse activities started. Its popularity grew as the operations expanded into a bathhouse park from the 1840s to the 1870s.

The park is established for bathhouse visitors

The actual park area of Kupittaa was established in connection with the bathhouse in 1820 as a walking park for bathhouse visitors. The central theme of the park was a promenade leading to Kupittaa Field, where a birch alley still stands today. The bathhouse company built a large pump room building in 1824, from which a canopy supported by pairs of Doric columns led to an octagonal spring pavilion designed by Charles Bassi.

In the 1840s, Kupittaa became a popular place for entertainment, with dances held daily and regular circus and animal fight performances. The bathhouse activities in Kupittaa ended in 1885, when the oldest bathhouse building burned down and the other was auctioned off and later demolished. The bathhouse's banquet hall remained unused until the Winter War, when it burned down. What remained was the octagonal spring pavilion, which today stands beside the field next to Kupittaa Outdoor Swimming Arena.

The history of the gardening school can still be seen

In the first half of the 19th century, the park consisted of the north-eastern part of the present park, the bathhouse area and the small park surrounding it, as well as the gardening school area and the so-called Kupittaa Market Square. The Kupittaa gardening school began operating in 1841, and the students were responsible for maintaining the surrounding park. The school was located in the area of the current Adventure Park, and some of the old gardening school buildings are still used by the Adventure Park.

Kupittaa Market Square was located at the corner of Uudenmaankatu and Itäinen Pitkäkatu, with a route leading through it to the actual park. The square was renewed in the 1880s, when, among other things, the poplars still growing there today were planted.

Expansion work brought sports fields

In the 1890s, expansion work began in the park. As part of this work, a sports field and a playground for small children were built, and trees and shrubs were planted. When the gardening school temporarily ceased operations in 1898, the area was transferred entirely to the City’s care. At that time, the gardening school’s nursery, the area between it and Uudenmaantie, and a rented field known as Ryssänpelto were incorporated into the park.

City Gardener Hammarberg prepared a plan for this expansion area in 1898, in which he specified that only the best domestic seedlings should be used. He separately justified the use of conifers by noting that the park should also be beautiful in winter. In connection with the expansion work east of the park’s birch alley, a playing field, bird ponds and an outdoor swimming arena, among other things, were built in Kupittaa Park. The swimming arena was completed in 1910 to continue the old bathhouse tradition.