5. Tapulinranta (“Belfry bank”)
The Ikola parsonage is located across the Pajakkajoki River at Tapulinranta (“Belfry bank”). The Ikola estate was established as the parsonage (rectory) in the 1750s. The Kuhmoniemi parish functioned as a chapel parish of Sotkamo from 1753 and became an independent parish in 1856.
There have been several buildings that have served as parsonage on the Ikola Estate. In 1852, a new main building was built on the current site of the parsonage, but in 1899 it was dismantled and reassembled with extensions. The rectors used Ikola as their residence until 2015. The parish office also operated in the parsonage until 1966 when the new Parish Hall was completed. In the early 2020s, the Kuhmo parish refurbished the Ikola parsonage into a venue that offers premises for events, meetings, and office work.
In 1860, a wooden bridge was built across the river from the parsonage to the church side of the river. Earlier, there had been only a light pedestrian bridge. The wooden bridge was demolished in 1934 when a new bridge, built downstream, at head of the rapids, was completed. The stony bridge piers of the old bridge remain.
Church of Kuhmo, designed by Jacob Rijf, was completed in 1816. It was rendered unusable in air strikes during the Winter War but was repaired in the early 1950s. The church has 1,500 seats. The bell tower was built in 1862 based on drawings by Carl Ludvig Engel (1831). The belfry is almost 30 meters high and has three bells.
To the left of the road leading from the Parsonage Bridge towards the northern wing of the church were two grain warehouses that stood between the Kuhmo-Sotkamo Road. The warehouses were destroyed in air bombings during the Winter War in 1940.
M. The Ikola Parsonage (1852/1899)
N. The Kuhmo Church (Jacob Rijf 1816)
O. The Belfry of the Kuhmo Church (Carl Ludvig Engel 1862)
P. Monument for the War of Independence Heroes’ (1925)
On the Tapulinranta bank, by the Pajakkasuvanto backwater’s edge, there is also a carpet-washing site, which is open in the summer and maintained by the Town of Kuhmo.