Uskela
Uskela [ ˈuskɛlɑ ] is a former municipality in the Varsinais-Suomi region in southwest Finland and is now part of the city of Salo .
The parish of Uskela was probably founded in the course of the Christianization of Finland in the first half of the 13th century and was first mentioned in 1329. The parish initially covered a fairly wide area. In the 15th century Salo and Pertteli became Uskela chapel parishes. The former also belonged to the later Muurla , to the latter Kuusjoki , Kiikala and part of Somero. In 1429 nine villages from the northern part of the chapel community Pertteli were added to the parish Somero. Kiikala split off from Uskela as an independent parish in 1639. What was unusual for medieval Finland was that the parish church of Uskela was built of wood, while the chapel parishes of Salo and Pertteli received representative stone churches in the 16th century .
Uskela Church has been on the banks of the Uskelanjoki River since the parish was founded. The last of several successive wooden churches built on the same site was a cruciform church from 1672. On Christmas Eve 1825 the church was badly damaged by a landslide on the Uskelanjoki embankment and had to be demolished. Only the bells and the church cemetery have survived to this day. The church was not rebuilt, instead a new parish church was built in 1831–32 based on plans by Carl Ludwig Engel on the site of the old Salo chapel and Uskela was united with the Salo chapel community. Salo was now the center of the parish of Uskela. In 1860 Muurla became a chapel parish of Uskela.
In the course of the separation of the administration of the rural communities from the church administration, the chapels of Uskela in 1867 and 1868 all became independent political communities. Salo, meanwhile grown into a populous place, was detached from Uskela as a market town ( kauppala ) in 1887 . The settlement of Salo soon grew beyond the administrative boundaries of the market town, so that in 1932 parts of Uskela Salo were struck. The municipality of Uskela last had (1963) an area of 124.3 km and almost 3,000 inhabitants. In 1967 it was incorporated into Salo, which had meanwhile received city rights.
The former site of the Church of Uskela
The Uskelanjoki River in the former municipality of Uskela
Today's church in Uskela
