Ekenäs

Ekenäs, or Tammisaari, occupies a peninsula on the southern coast of Finland. Its harbour served a small fishing settlement before King Gustav Vasa granted it town rights in 1546. The crown hoped to establish a regional centre and a competitor to Reval across the Gulf of Finland, but the new town remained modest: twenty-five years later it had only fourteen registered taxpayers in the town.

Houses and narrow streets grew around the market and church on the peninsula. Unlike many Finnish towns, Ekenäs retained its irregular street pattern when grid plans became fashionable in the seventeenth century. Its church was plundered during the Great Northern War in 1720. A town fire in 1821 destroyed the interior and bell tower, leaving the church's stone walls standing.