Fiholm is a castle-like manor house and former manor as well as fideicommission next to Sörfjärden by Mälaren in Jäder parish, Eskilstuna municipality, approximately 13.5 kilometers northeast of Eskilstuna. Of the castle complex planned by Axel Oxenstierna, only two wing buildings were completed, these were built in the 1640s according to drawings by the architect Simon de la Vallée.
Fiholm was already built on in the Middle Ages and remains of the oldest manor can be found in the form of a cellar under the current gardener's residence. However, there has never been any significant building.[6]
When Axel Oxenstierna inherited Fiholm in 1617, he planned to have a worthy manor house built for himself and his heirs. He hired the prominent French-Swedish architect Simon de la Vallée to design a large castle complex, while the then 25-year-old Nicodemus Tessin the elder led the construction. The planned castle complex was placed near Sörfjärgen, however, without direct sea contact. From the south, west and east, three avenues extend up to the main building. Stately avenues were a way for the high nobility to underline their social status.
The drawings probably existed in the 1630s and the construction work itself was carried out in the early 1640s under the direction of the German mason Herman Floren. Some changes took place in 1642, mainly in the south wing, which was later used as a stable. When the builder Oxenstierna visited the work site in the summer of 1641, the northern wing was walled up while the foundation for the southern wing had been built. He found the houses far too narrow and decided to make the southern wing two cubits (equivalent to 118.76 cm) wider, the northern one had to remain.[7]
The castle's two wing buildings were designed in the Franco-Dutch Renaissance style and were completed in 1642. They are two single-storey pink-plastered brick sections under hipped gable roofs, with a section of twenty window shafts. Despite their height, de la Vallée managed to give them harmonious proportions. The sandstone portals were decorated with family coats of arms for Oxenstierna and Bååt, these as well as the sandstone ornaments around the front fireplace and skylights were made by the Stockholm master Heinrich Blume.[8]
The main building itself, the high castle, was designed in 1642 by Simon de la Vallée, but it was never built, despite the fact that a lot of building material was laid out, material that was instead used in the remodeling and extension of Jäder's church.[9] Only one shaft still gossips about the construction started. The high castle was to be placed on a slightly elevated courtyard adjacent to the east of the wings. On a depiction in Sueciaverket from the end of the 1690s, the intended main building is seen from the east, in a somewhat idealized form. The four independent wings on the lake side seem to be products of imagination, as does the lake yard. More realistically and without a main building, Fiholm is shown on Gripenhielm's Mälar map from 1688/1689.
The entire castle complex would have become a model example of how de la Vallée imagined a man's seat should look and at the same time become a breakthrough in Swedish architecture.[10] From de la Vallée's surviving drawings for the high castle, a two-storey building with two fixed wings facing the courtyard appears. In a degree project in the subject of information design from 2018 at Mälardalen University, an attempt was made to reconstruct the never-built main building.[11]
Tradition tells of the background to the interruption of construction as follows. Axel Oxenstierna had decided on Fiholm for his son Johan. When he returned from the Westphalian peace congress, the proud father would show how far the pretentious construction had progressed. But the son was not impressed and thought that the completed wings most resembled stable buildings that he had seen in Germany. "If this is a stable, you can build the farmhouse yourself," replied Axel Oxenstierna in annoyance, and the main building was never built.[7]
In his will, Axel Oxenstierna wrote about Fiholm, that this was his "most important seat farm". He also believed that "such large houses bring little benefit to a householder but great expense" (so impractical and expensive).[12] Today, the south wing is inhabited by the owner, while the north wing is empty. The northern one was sometimes used as housing for the farm's workers. The facades are in poor condition pending renovation. (Wikipedia)