On the edge of Cēsis stands Kalna Manor — a historic property with many names and an even more colourful past. Also known as Bergenhof, Kallenhof, Kalnenhof, or Kalnamoise, this place holds secrets stretching back to the time of the Livs. 1688. On a map drawn in 1688 by land surveyor Johann Heinrich Kelch, the manor grounds are marked as “Kalnamoise”, pointing to a possible Liv presence in the area.
The manor’s official history begins in 1561, when the last Master of the Livonian Order, Gotthard Kettler, granted it as a fief to Reinhold II Fittinghof. Just three years later, however, the manor passed into the ownership of Bartholomew Patkul, along with 17 farmsteads that had previously belonged to theĀraiši or Vībēni parish. Interestingly, there is also another account of the manor’s origins — in that same year of 1561, on Martinmas, Sigismund Seklerns received four villages in theĀraiši district from that same Master Kettler. It is possible that we see here how the fates of two manors — Kalna and Zeklers — became intertwined from the very beginning. In the mid-17th century the manor was acquired by Cēsis citizen Wilhelm Schleyer, whose family ran it for nearly a century. 1782. In 1782, Kalna Manor, together with Zeklers Manor, passed into the ownership of Sigismund Adam von Wolf for the impressive sum of 20,000 Albert thalers. In the years that followed, the manor changed hands several times, until it was purchased in 1902 by the South Vidzeme Agricultural and Cooperative Society. In the early 18th century, Kalna Manor became a genuine centre of agricultural science, with test fields for fertiliser trials and breeding of pedigree cattle, horses, and poultry. The manor complex reflects the building traditions of 20th century manor estates — a two-storey stone mansion with 14 rooms and a romantic park that echoes the spirit of a bygone era.
After the founding of independent Latvia, the manor survived the land reform period and was not divided up.
During the Soviet years, Kalna Manor housed the dormitories of Cēsis 1st Secondary School, and later various institutions, including “Agroprojekts”, “TERMOPLAST”, and the Vidzeme Regional Branch of the Latvian Road Transport Association.
This description was put together using materials from:
Ilma Zālīte, Mg. hist., and the Cēsis Rotary Club project “A Walk Around the Manors of Cēsis”;
the collections of Cēsis Castle Museum and Cēsis Central Library.
