SETTLEMENT AS EARLY AS THE 300s
A burial site dating back to the Iron Age, likely from the 300s, has been discovered near Knuutila. The bronze buckle and weapons found in one grave suggest that a prominent individual lived here. The maintenance of the nearby Linnavuori hillfort, which is estimated to date from 400–800 AD, also indicates permanent settlement.
Fertile lands and fish-rich waters enabled economic development, and by the 1400s, the most powerful manor in Pirkkala region was located here.
OWNERSHIP FROM KINGS TO PEASANTS
In the 1400s, the manor was called Niemenpää. A considerable amount of documentary evidence has survived regarding Pentti Lydekenpoika Djäkn (died around 1460), who lived here. He was the district judge of Upper Satakunta, the bailiff of Häme Castle, and a member of the Swedish king’s council.
The estate and the village became known as Penttilä after him. Documents reveal that in 1555, Penttilä became the property of King Gustav Vasa, who gave it to his son Juhana. Duke Juhana later gifted it to his mistress, Karin Hansdotter. Karin’s daughter Anna Boije and her descendants owned Penttilä until 1685, when the Boije estate was returned to the crown and designated as a horse farm and official residence for Colonel von Litwenen’s regiment and Captain Enskiöld’s company.
In the early 1700s, Penttilä village had four estates: Haukka, Ippilä, Marttila, and Knuutila. These farms were cultivated by tenant farmers and frequently changed ownership.
By the mid-1800s, Kaarle Efraim Aataminpoika (1809–1899), the master of Ippilä, had acquired all the estates except for half of Haukka. He adopted the surname Knuutila, and under his son Frans (1851–1932), Knuutila was transformed into a large model farm that attracted attention for its progressive practices.
By the turn of the 20th century, Knuutila was the largest farm in Pirkkala, covering 642 hectares, with about 130 hectares of arable land. Twelve tenant farmers and eight crofters lived on its land. The farm was divided up when the tenant farmers gained independence in the 1920s, and when settlers were relocated in the 1940s. In 1944, 216 hectares of Knuutila were purchased for the Linnavuori factory.
In 1964, the heirs of Frans Oskar Arvid Knuutila sold the estate to the municipality of Nokia. The sale included about 200 hectares of land and the following buildings: the main house, workers’ quarters, residential and storage buildings, a cowshed, a milk room and sauna, a stable with a cart room and feed storage, three equipment sheds, a grain storehouse, a drying barn, a feed barn and threshing shed, two hay barns, and a forge. Although many buildings have been demolished, even today, one can imagine how life was during the estate's peak around a hundred years ago.
