The Manor House

Pupils in front of the very first children’s home, now known as the Manor House.
Photo: Maria Lundback, Bohuslan Museum

This was the site of the main building of the old Baggetofta country estate.
Such estates belonged to the burghers of a town and were used for farming and as summer residences.
The merchant and shipowner Anders Knape Hanson and his wife Catharina Hegardt bought the estate in 1766. They built the present building in 1770. With its steep hipped roof, typical of the period, it resembles a small manor house.

There are reddish-brown doors in the centre of both long sides of the house, although the western one is a false door. Above them are black commemorative plaques with gilded lettering.

The inscription on the western side reads:

On the northern side of the house is a plaque bearing words written by Anders Knape himself:

The Manor House became a school after the couple donated their assets in their 1772 will to a children’s home with a boarding school. Its purpose was to educate poor, academically gifted boys born in Bohuslan. Discipline at the children’s home was strict and the studies demanding, making leisure time especially important. It was filled with lively games, swimming, excursions and the occasional prank.
A new school building was constructed in 1854, after which the Manor House became a service building containing a kitchen, dining room and living quarters.
Anders Knape was the first director of the children’s home. Today, the board of the Gustafsberg Foundation manages the area’s cultural heritage and awards scholarships.

Read more about the pupils:

Conditions for the children at the school were relatively good. Their days were long, as was common in schools at the time. The boys received an education as well as a roof over their heads and food on the table.
One former pupil recalled: “As an eight-year-old boy, I was admitted to the school in the autumn after my father had died during the summer and our family had undergone great upheaval.”
In his criteria, the founder Anders Knape stated that the home should help boys with a strong aptitude for study who came from poor families in Bohuslan, whose fathers might be craftsmen, merchants or similar.

The children’s home was founded for boys and no girls were admitted. Girls could, however, apply for a grant to help cover education or family living expenses.

Besides being admitted to the children’s home, boys could receive support while boarding with families, which had been Anders Knape’s original idea. He distinguished between academically gifted boys and those who were not. Although he sympathised with children who had less aptitude for study, the main support was directed towards those who demonstrated ability. Boys admitted to the school could remain until the age of sixteen, while those boarding with families received support only until they turned twelve. Boys had to be at least six years old when admitted to the children’s home.

The children’s home demanded strict discipline, hard study and strenuous work from its pupils, so leisure time was especially important. It was filled with lively games, swimming, excursions and the occasional prank. Former pupils recalled traditions of building different kinds of huts in the hills and caves, where they played at “Indian wars”, soldiers and battles with boys attending school in Uddevalla. There was also a milder form of initiation in which older pupils made younger boys polish their shoes, or prove their courage by visiting a place in the grounds alone in the middle of the night and bringing back evidence that they had been there.