Pirgu is a village in

Rapla Parish Rapla Parish ( et, Rapla vald) is an Estonian municipality located in Rapla County. It has a population of 13,193 (as of 1 January 2019) and an area of 859 km2. Settlements ;Town: Rapla ;Small boroughs: Alu - Hagudi - Kaiu - Kuusiku ;Vill ...

Rapla County Rapla County ( et, Rapla maakond or ''Raplamaa'') is one of the fifteen counties of Estonia. It is situated in the western part of the country and borders Järva County to the east, Pärnu County to the south, Lääne County to the west, and Har ...

in northwestern

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

. Between 1991–2017 (until the administrative reform of Estonian municipalities) the village was located in

Juuru Parish Juuru Parish ( et, Juuru vald) is a former Estonian municipality located in Rapla County. It had a population of 1,627 (as of 31 March 2006) and an area of 152.4 km². In 2017, Juuru Parish was merged into Rapla Parish. Settlements Juuru P ...

Pirgu manor

Pirgu (german: Pirk) estate was formed in 1662, when the lands were separated from

Angerja Angerja is a village in Kohila Parish, Rapla County in northwestern Estonia. It has a population of 65 (as of 1 October 2008) and an area of 12.59 km2. A tower house was erected around 1400 as seat of a vassal of the Teutonic Knights ...

castle estate. Subsequently, it has belonged to various

Baltic German Baltic Germans (german: Deutsch-Balten or , later ) were ethnic German inhabitants of the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, in what today are Estonia and Latvia. Since their coerced resettlement in 1939, Baltic Germans have markedly declined ...

families. The last local aristocratic landowner was forced to leave the estate following the sweeping confiscations of land enacted during the Estonian

land reform Land reform is a form of agrarian reform involving the changing of laws, regulations, or customs regarding land ownership. Land reform may consist of a government-initiated or government-backed property redistribution, generally of agricultural ...

of 1919. Following this, the manor house fell into disrepair and by the 1980s was reduced to ruins. At the initiative of six local farms, restoration works were undertaken in 1987, and the manor house restored to its earlier appearance (which it originally received sometime after 1819). It is a

classicist Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

building, with a four-columned Ionic portico dominating the front façade.

References

Villages in Rapla County Kreis Harrien {{Rapla-geo-stub