THE POPE ESTATE

The Pope Estate and its park (1840) are among the best-preserved estates in the area.  Since 1940, it has housed a school and other institutions.  Most of the trees in the park are common, but there are a few rare ones, including five Crimean oak trees.  The largest copper beech in Latvia is in the yard, as is a large bed of traditional phloxes that are red and white.  During the Soviet occupation, Pope was proud of a large apple and pear orchard which covered 3.6 ha of land and featured a large variety of fruit trees that were collected by a gardener called Grīnvalds.  Today the garden is privately owned and is not available to visitors.  The managers of the garden have established a stock company which harvests fruits to be delivered to schools in Latvia.  An unexpected find involved ten large sweet cherry trees near the next door Rojnieki homestead.  Four of the trees are very old and were large 70 years ago.  The trees are covered with moss, but still produce high-quality fruit