Finland · Ruin
Oulu Castle
Oulun linna
Oulu Castle was a late 16th / early 17th-century island fortification on Linnansaari in the Oulu River delta. Rebuilt by royal order in 1605 with reinforced earthworks and timber structures, it was heavily damaged in the early 18th century and its powder magazine exploded in 1793; today only ruins survive.
First raised
1590
Its prime
1610
Today
Ruin
As it stood in 1610
What Oulu Castle looked like in its prime.
On a small island in the Oulu River delta the castle presented as broad, turf-covered earthen ramparts ringed by low fieldstone retaining walls and cobbled approaches. Timber buildings and palisades rose above the ramparts, with a substantial stone powder cellar set into the base of the earthwork. Roofs of the wooden structures were steep and shingled; the overall silhouette was low and rounded rather than dominated by tall stone towers, surrounded closely by river channels and town.
Its story
The story of Oulu Castle.
An Earlier Castle in the Delta, 1375-1377
A castle stood in the delta of the Oulu River long before the Swedish crown fortified the island, and the accounts of it do not agree. The Russian Sofia First Chronicle records that in 1377 men from Novgorod tried to take a newly built castle in the delta and failed; another account has the Novgorodians building the castle in 1375 and the Swedes capturing it from them two years later. Whether it stood on the site of the later castle at all is unsettled: Professor Kyösti Julku argued that this medieval castle stood not on Linnansaari but at Kastelli.
A Base for the Karelian Campaigns, 1590
The castle finished in 1590 on the delta island now called Linnansaari was a fortification of timber and earth ramparts rather than stone. It was raised as a base for the campaigns the Swedes mounted into White Karelia during the Long Wrath, in the reign of King John III.
Charles IX Orders a New Rampart, 1605
The ruins on Linnansaari belong to a third castle. In a decree issued on 8 April 1605 King Charles IX first set out instructions for building Kajaani Castle, and then ordered Oulu Castle rebuilt: the old wooden structures were to be pulled down and a rampart with fire shelters raised around the island.
Russian Fire and the Lightning Strike, 1715-1793
On 29 March 1715, during the Great Northern War, Russian forces burned the castle's wooden fortifications as the Swedish troops withdrew from Oulu. The castle was severely damaged.
Its final destruction came at 10.45 p.m. on 31 July 1793, when lightning set a magazine alight and the powder cellar exploded, wrecking almost the whole building. The writer Sara Wacklin, who described the night in Sata muistelmaa Pohjanmaalta, wrote that great lumps of stone fell through roofs and drove several ells into the ground, that every window broke, that the church doors flew open and the chandeliers came down, and that the bells in the belfry tolled horribly with no human hand on them.
Powder Cellar, Observatory and Café, 1828-1962
In 1828 the Oulu merchants' society established a powder cellar in the surviving portion of the ruin. On top of it, in 1875, the Oulu School of Sea Captains built an observatory for teaching astronomy, designed by the architect Volmar Westling.
The tower has served as a summer café since 1912, and the cellar holds a small exhibition on the castle's history. The castle grounds were protected as an ancient monument in 1962.
Step inside
6 places to explore in 1610.
The record describes 6 distinct spots at Oulu Castle, including 2 interiors: powder magazine, interior cellar, inner courtyard among timber buildings. Create your own photoreal reconstruction and explore every one, more scenes means more rooms, more angles, and more of the place to stand in.
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