Pilguse Manor

Pilguse, German Hoheneichen, began in 1558 when the bishop of Ösel-Wiek granted land to Heinrich von Bellingshausen, and his family held it for two centuries; the Estonian name is a twisted form of theirs. The Antarctic explorer Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen came from here, though it is not certain whether he was born at Pilguse or at neighbouring Lahetaguse. In 1908 the Russian Peasants' Land Bank bought the estate, and from 1909 the manor house held the Saaremaa knighthood's psychiatric hospital, which worked here until the end of 1994. Its old cattle yard is now a guest house.