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Founded: 18th centuryCategory: Palaces, manors and town halls in Estonia
Historical period: Part of the Russian Empire (Estonia)
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Võisiku estate (Woiseck) was first mentioned in 1558. The current building was constructed in the second half of the 18th century. A veranda was added at a later date. Timotheus Eberhard von Bock (1787-1836), about whom Jaan Kross has written one of his most well-known novels, The Czar's Madman, lived at Võisiku manor. Chess player and endgame composer Friedrich Amelung was born at Võisiku Manor in 1842. Today it is open advance bookings only.
References:Built around AD 90 to entertain the legionaries stationed at the fort of Caerleon (Isca), the impressive amphitheatre was the Roman equivalent of today’s multiplex cinema. Wooden benches provided seating for up to 6,000 spectators, who would gather to watch bloodthirsty displays featuring gladiatorial combat and exotic wild animals.
Long after the Romans left, the amphitheatre took on a new life in Arthurian legend. Geoffrey of Monmouth, the somewhat imaginative 12th-century scholar, wrote in his History of the Kings of Britain that Arthur was crowned in Caerleon and that the ruined amphitheatre was actually the remains of King Arthur’s Round Table.
Today it is the most complete Roman amphitheatre in Britain.