Tyresö Palace

About

Tyresö Palace (Swedish: Tyresö slott) is a 17th-century palace in Tyresö, Stockholm County, Sweden, about 25 km south-east of central Stockholm. The construction of the palace began in the 1620s and completed in 1636 by the Lord High Steward (Swedish: riksdrots) Gabriel Oxenstierna. He also constructed the nearby Tyresö Church (Swedish: Tyresö kyrka), which was inaugurated with his own burial in 1641.

The palace was inherited in 1648 by Maria Sofia De la Gardie, who had married Gustaf Gabrielsson Oxenstierna, nephew of Swedish Regent and Lord High Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna. Both she and her husband's family were extremely wealthy. Maria Sofia resided in Tyresö Palace, from where she managed her estates around the Baltic Sea, until 1694.

Between 1699 and 1737, the writer Maria Gustava Gyllenstierna lived at the palace. During the 1770s the palace was modernized and the first English garden in Sweden was created. Planned by the garden architect Fredrik Magnus Piper, it is a mixture of an English park, a Swedish floral meadow and images from a fairy tale - with the ancient forest as its ultimate source of inspiration.

The extensive, apparently natural landscape gardens still exist...