Summer Evening by the Lake

Within ‘bicycle distance’ from the village where I grew up (see my previous two posts) there is a little lake.

Well, at least back in my mid/late teens and in nice summer weather and before I got my driver’s license it was (had to be) bicycle distance - even to the farthest corner of the lake. Up and down a few hills (and kilometres) on the narrow curvy tarmac road towards Town; then turn right into an even narrower dirt road with further ups and downs and curves…

… and this is where you eventually end up: A small summer camp/café/hostel kind of place, owned by one of the ‘free’ churches in town. I was curious to see if it still looked the same (after 40 years). And except for a few minor changes and modernisations (like a larger deck along the front, and WCs in the old outhouse), it pretty much did. Including a group of teens still playing beach volleyball on the lawn.

Good Fences
Friday My Town 

Old Cotton Mill

The cotton mill at Sjuntorp near Trollhättan was the second mechanical cotton spinning mill to be built in Sweden, back in 1831. Accoding to a Swedish Wiki article about it, the factory had its heyday in the 1940’s, when it employed about 1200 people. I’m not sure how many workers there were in my childhood back in the 1960’s; but I do know they were still employing new people then, as several of my classmates had parents working there, and some of them came moving here from other countries in Europe (mostly Finland).

I think it was in the 1970’s that the situation for the textile industriy deteriorated, and many textile mills all over the country had to close down (with production being moved abroad, where labour was/is cheaper).

Nowadays the factory premises here seem to be shared by a variety of businesses – and only one of them a small textile company.

In my childhood, across the road from the factory there was a grocery shop and a post office; and I think also a kiosk in the square in front of the factory entrance. Now there’s a pizza house and that seems to be It. (The car parked in front looks like it might have been cruising around the village ever since the Kiosk times, though.)

No pizza places back in the 1960’s – but at the end of the village where we lived back then, there were two more grocery shops (one co-op and one private), plus a butcher’s, a bakery, a watchmaker’s shop, a newspaper kiosk, a community centre with a cinema (Sunday matinés), and even a police station. (Nowadays there’s one grocery shop.)

Neat big old wooden house close to the factory.

Peaceful view looking the other way along the river.

Old fire-station (1930).

This quirky house half way up the hill was built around 1900 as Memorial to a deceased factory director (whose widow donated the money); and to serve as community centre for the factory workers back then, with dining hall, reading rooms etc. Nowadays it’s a B&B (but we did not stay there).

Back in my childhood, to me the factory was just a factory was just a factory (repetition intended!)… I never gave it much thought. Nowadays though, when I look at old industrial buildings like this from a century or more ago, I’m struck by how much pride and optimism is shown in the details of the architecture; with lots of purely decorative details in the brickwork, frames of door and windows, chimneys and towers etc. (Compare for example that flat pizza house building…)

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Outdoor Wednesday

A Church for Shadow Shot Sunday

This is the church in the village where I grew up (Sjuntorp near Trollhättan). It’s a rather scattered kind of village, lacking a proper centre – even more so these days than back in the 1960’s, when the cotton mill (founded in 1831) was still flourishing. (I’ll get back to the mill in a later post.)

The church has been standing on its hill overlooking the little river and valley and surrounding rural landscape since long before the industrial revolution, though – 800 years or so. The earliest documents mentioning it are from 1338, but the church itself probably originates from around 1200. It has of course been reconstructed and refurbished several times through the centuries. The tower for example was added as late as 1952. (As that was before I was born, to me the church looks just like it ‘always’ did, though!)

It was on a Monday that we happened to be passing, and the church was not open (nor did I expect it to be).

My family weren’t active church-goers; but until the year 2000 the Church of Sweden was a state church, and back in the 1960’s, it was still customary for most children to get confirmed in the church at age 14. So that year at least I did visit the inside of this church on a number of occasions; and I remember spending quite a lot of time staring up in the painted ceiling.

I also had a school teacher back in my teens who loved to tell the story of how the restoration of this church in the early 50’s caused headlines in the local newspaper. The question was: “Will the church be allowed to move Hell?” – and the answer, when the authorities had made their decision: “Church permitted to move Hell!” “Hell” in this case was a certain part of the old painted ceiling. Because they were extending the whole longhouse of the church, they wanted to move the devil and his whatnots a bit - as it did not seem proper to have them hovering in the middle of the church.

For some reason, in the past, scenes from hell (or doom paintings) were not uncommon at the far back of the church though, near the entrance/exit. (Perhaps to remind people as they went back out into the world, “to be careful out there”?)

Below is a photo of mine from the old church in the museum park here in Borås. If memory serves me right, I think the paintings in my childhood village church were rather similar:

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Linking to Shadow Shot Sunday 2

Castle Ruins – Gräfsnäs (3)

Gräfsnäs Castle (or Castle Ruin) today consists of an only partially restored ruin surrounded by a dry moat. Once upon a time though, this was a palatial fortress in Swedish-French Renaissance style, oringinally built in the mid 1550s.

The castle was burnt to the ground three times: 1634, 1734 and 1834; and after the last fire it was never fully restored again.

One old tale says that the fires were predicted already in the 1500s by a woman with reason to hate the family who owned the estate back then. She cast a curse on the place and said that it would burn three times, and after that remain derelict – which all came true…

Image of the castle drawn by Erik Dalbergh in the late 1600s.
(from Wikimedia)

The castle before the last fire in 1834.

The castle ruins are beautifully situated on a hill overlooking the lake Anten.

(I did not walk down/up these stairs…)

Finishing off our visit with tea/coffee at the modern café, also overlooking the lake.

Homestead Museum – Gräfsnäs (2)

In almost every town or village in Sweden there is a local history society (hembygdsförening). These also usually also maintain one or more old cultural heritage buildings as hembygdsmuseum ~ homestead museum.

If in Sweden you see a road sign pointing to a Hembygdsmuseum, be prepared that this can denote just about anything from a tiny dilapitated cottage open to the public only on rare occasions; to a whole park full of carefully restored old buildings with exhibitions, guided tours, café and souvenir shop etc.

These are some buildings we found in the homestead park at Gräfsnäs – on our way to their main attraction, a castle ruin (which deserves a separate post).

An old barn…

… with some kind of threshing contraption  at the back

Old-fashioned haystack

Cottage with picturesque window

Old watermill

‘Narnia’ lamp post
(the Wardrobe we found a couple of days later)

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Linking to:
FMTSO – Vacation