Škilinpamūšis Manor

This manor is located in Pasvalys district, the eldership of Saločiai in the village Škilinpamūšis. The mansion, with a park named after the manor, is close to the road Pasvalys–Riga, by the Latvian border, on the right bank of the River Mūša. Škilinpamūšis is an old manor that belonged to Barons of German origin Bistramai. In 1839, the landlord Bistramas built a central mansion and outbuildings. The last owner was Mr. Robert Bistramas. 284 hectares of estate were divided in individual parcels in 1930. The owner had the right to keep the centre with 30 ha of land. The 50-year-old linden alley leads you to the mansion, which is bricked and well preserved. The manor house is a single-storey building (40 m by 14 m), the height of the bricked and plastered walls is 3.25 m, and there is a stone foundation. In the center of the building there is an open porch with a gable roof supported by the pillars. The building is surrounded by a moulded wooden cornice. Inside you can admire wooden ornate staircase to the attic. Beneath the house there is a cellar with an arched ceiling. You can find the manor’s farm buildings: three barns, a silo, a stable, a cattle-shed and an icehouse. The most impressive are three barns, built at the end of the XIX century. One barn is made of red-plastered brick, it has a classical portico with four columns in front and a silo besides. Another barn is an example of a frame construction (fach¬werk¬haus). Timber frame gaps are filled with red bricks. The third red-bricked barn is decorated with plaster of different textures. There is also a large bricked cattle-shed and a stable, they are bleached by plaster. The recessed plane surfaces under windows and the semicircular niches on the facade are the most interesting details of décor. In the pediment there are rectangular shaped holes formed with bricks. All buildings have gable slate-covered roofs and they are well preserved, but the people who live here do not care about the buildings and the environment. There are some buildings that are not from the period of the manor, you can see a shed, two cattle-sheds and two living houses. The mansion merges with the park on the southern-side. This park covers 5 hectares. An unnamed stream runs through the park and flows into the River Mūša. A 300 meters long small-leaved linden row grows by the mansion, next to it there is a 400 meters small-leaved linden alley. Botanists have counted 15 indigenous species of trees: there are pines, fir-trees and many leaf-bearing trees. The largest and the highest of them are the elm (diameter – 90 cm, height – 20 m) and the ashes (1.1 m and 30 m). Of the 13 introduced species and forms, we should mention gorgeous Chinese and Gray Poplars, beautiful Silver double-stemmed Willow, bluish Douglas Fir and European or Siberian Larches. The rarest trees are two Aromatic Birches with the trunks of 50 cm in diameter. One oak (diameter – 1.5 m and height – 23 m) is disappearing, its branches are withered. In the manor’s cemetery there are four monuments, on one of them we can read "Parcival Babon Bistram 1919–1939". Local people remember that two-master’s sons were buried in the cemetery. Mr. Bistram himself was buried in Riga. The family of Bistramai owned the manor until 1940. Mrs. Bistram and her children fled to Germany during the war.