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Verla Groundwood and Board Mill

Verla Groundwood and Board Mill
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The Verla Groundwood and Board Mill is a well preserved 19th century mill village. It consists of a number of buildings, including the mill, board-drying plant, storehouses and the owner's residence.

The first groundwood mill at Verla was founded in 1872 by Hugo Nauman but was destroyed by fire in 1876. A larger groundwood and board mill, founded in 1882 by Gottlieb Kreidl and Louis Haenel, continued to operate until 1964.



Year Decision Comments
1996 Inscribed Reasons for inscription
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Reviews

John Booth (New Zealand):
Reaching Verla requires careful planning as there is a bus service from Kouvola twice on Tuesdays only. So I went on the morning bus, spent the day visiting the site which covers a large area on the bank of the Kymi River. A delicious buffet lunch is served in the refectory. And there are walks into the village and the surrounding birch forest.
The river at one time formed the boundary between Sweden and Russia, and the remains of the old customs house can be seen. There are also some ancient rock engravings to be seen on a cliff overlooking the river. I returned to Kouvola on the afternoon bus.
Date posted: May 2010
Ingemar Eriksson (Sweden):
Verla is a rather small place in the forest. Itīs about 150 km to go from Finnish capital Helsingfors.
Verla is a very well restored mill. It is small scale and easy to understand. The surroundings are nice. If you are intersted in industry heritage, this is good. Minor problems are that there is no connection with the social situation for the workers like some houses where people lived, some church and other social arrangements. The exhibitions in other languages than finnish is poor but nice books can be bought. One thing that may seem peculiar today is that the works seems to have been runned the last 10 years 1955-64 without profit just to make a socially acceptable exit so that workers could retire. That is only 50 years ago but would be impossible in todays fast and unresponisble economy.
 


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