Historical monument Archives

The historic Eidsvoll – The Gold Mines

Gullverket – the country's most famous gold mine.

If you drive the county road from the center of Eidsvoll to Nord-Odal, you pass an area called Gullverket. The place has a prehistory that deals with exactly what the place name implies: Norway's most famous gold mine was located here.

Mining for gold continued far into the forest from 1758 to 1907, with long interruptions in between. The Danish-Norwegian state, Bernt Anker and two English companies were among the owners of the gold works. Norwegian and Danish government officials, professors and writers visited the work in the pioneering period and wrote about their impressions and great hopes.

The Gold Mine became famous, but the truth was that neither company made any money. When the operation was at its most intense at the beginning of the 20th century, approximately 200 men worked in the gold operation at the Gold mine The mining community was international and modern with English directors and skilled workers, Swedish and Norwegian miners. The area had electricity and a telephone. The children of the miners had their own school, and the place had a shop and cultural offerings.

In 1907 it came to an abrupt end. The English company itself filed for bankruptcy, workers had to move away, buildings and machinery were sold at auction. Today, only the piles of rock, the mine shafts and the foundations of the settlement remain, apart from one house – the old laboratory. For well over 100 years, it has stood as it was left when operations ceased – with the chemical jars on shelves along the walls and the crucibles ready to be put into the melting furnaces.

The Norwegian Mining Museum at Kongsberg has described the laboratory as unique in a national context. The association of friends of the gold mines, Guldværket Cirkumferens, takes care of all the gold memorabilia and runs information on mining history. Information boards have been set up in several places, and the old laboratory has been restored and furnished as a museum where the association has collected all objects and photos from the mining era. Tours are now offered both in the museum and at the largest mining area, Brøstad mine.

Where the large gold washery stood while the English operated the works, the Friends' Association has built a cabin/hut with photos, maps and information about the operations and the ruins. Just book a tour.

On special days, the museum is opened for visitors without registration, with a subsequent offer of a guided tour of the mining area.

A book has also been written about the exclusive mining operations in the constitutional village; "The dream of gold". It is sold by the association of friends. Further information can be found online: http://www.gullverketmuseum.no/.

Dynamite history of Sætre

The factory was situated to Sætre as Håøya served as a natural shield that would help reduce the spread of an explosion and cause major damage. Embankments were also built around the factory to protect Sætre. In addition, Sætre had several other advantages such as access to hydropower, access to the sea to ship out dynamite and its remoteness from the largest towns.

The factory was a cornerstone company in Sætre; Around two-thirds of the population had their income from it. Workers' housing, a village hall and a school were built, and the local community grew. The life of the workers at the Engene dynamite factory was tough and risky, with the risk of explosions and accidents, of which there were several over the years. Dynamite production required accuracy and precision. The workers were also at risk of poisoning, health problems due to long working hours and poorly ventilated working conditions that caused chronic suffering.

How dynamite is made:

The main ingredient in dynamite was nitroglycerin, an extremely explosive liquid. Nitroglycerin was made by mixing glycerin with a strong acid mixture, usually nitric acid and sulfuric acid. Liquid is very unstable and can easily detonate on impact, heat or friction, so workers had to be careful. Then, the nitroglycerin had to be stabilized before it could be used to make dynamite. This was done by mixing with a porous absorbent material, usually diatomaceous earth (a naturally occurring silicate mineral). The dynamite was then sent to the "bakery" and mixed with other substances into a thicker mass that could be shaped into rods or other desired shapes. The dynamite was usually wrapped in cardboard or metal cover to protect it during storage and transportation.

After the dynamite was produced, it was carefully checked to test its explosiveness and stability, as well as to ensure that each production batch was uniform.

Due to the dangerous working conditions, technological developments and changes in the market, dynamite production ended in 1973 and the production of nitroglyceration in 1976. Nitrocellulose was produced until 1991, while production of dynamite continued at the plant at Gullhaug in Lier. Dynamite production at Engene was an important contribution to Norway's industrial development, but also a symbol of the risky working conditions that characterized the industry of the time.

Carsten Ankers summerhouse

Eidsvoll museum

Visit Eidsvoll Municipal museum, Eidsvoll Occupation museum, Feiring ironworks, St. Paul's iron mine and Carsten Anker's house

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Ljan Mansion Hvervenbukta

The area was developed as a business park after Kolbotn was connected to the new E18 between Oslo and Vinterbro, which was completed in 1970, but it was not until the mid-1980s that major players such as IBM Norway, Orkla Foods, Robert Bosch, Volvo Norway, Kodak Norway and Norgesbuss established themselves here.
This, together with the construction of hotels, made Mastemyr a hub for international business in Oppegård and nearby areas.
The development also gave a boost to housing construction: nearby areas such as Mellomåsen, Trollåsen and Ingieråsen were developed within a few years. Today, Mastemyr is an extension of Kolbotn with Quality Hotell Entry as a gathering point and residential areas close to beautiful recreational areas such as Ingierstrand, Hvervenbukta and walks in the fields by Gjersjøen.

Nes Collections

Stein School is a unique and colourful school adorned by well-known Norwegian artists such as Reidar Aulie, Dagfinn Werenskiold, Henrik Sørensen and many more. In the 1930s, they transformed the school’s interior into an imaginative and colourful frame for teaching.

Headmaster Erling Elverhøy and Ingeborg Refling Hagen were the driving forces behind the works of art, words and poems decorating walls, doors, staircases and other surfaces. The school was in regular use from 1912 to 1972, and goes by the name "The Fairytale School".

Next to Stein School is the "old school" from 1852, which was in use until 1912.

The schooll is onlyt open during the summertime.

Welcome to the café at Stein School

In our lovely and rustic café, which used to be and old barn, we serve homemade cakes and scones, freshly made waffles and brewed coffee, ice cream and other treats.

We also exhibit art in our café building, as well as the opportunity to buy unique pieces of jewellery and quotes from Stein School.

Want to know more? https://mia.no/nes

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Sherpa stairs at Nebba

The Sherpa stairs at Nebba are a great example of trail building in Norway. The construction of the staircase involved Sherpas laying a total of 278 steps by hand, using only simple tools such as pickaxes, skewers, sledgehammers, hammers and chisels. The work was carried out over the course of 18 working days and great emphasis was placed on preserving the vegetation around the trail. The stairs have become a popular attraction and a great hiking destination along this coastal path by the Bunnefjord.

Oksenøya bruk

Krongods is an estate owned by the royal power which brought rental income to the crown before it came into private hands from 1838. The Solbakken farmstead was sold out in 1867 and was later the summer residence of the painter Hans Gude.

Here was formerly Oksenøya farm, Scandinavia's largest horticulture plant built by A. F. Klaveness. The estate was designed by Magnus Poulsson, who also designed Oslo City Hall together with Arnsteing Arneberg, and consisted of 10 greenhouses with, among other things, 70,000 chrysanthemums. The gardening business ceased in 1998.

During World War II in late 1941, the Germans set up a secret camp on the site for Russian prisoners of war. In May 1944, the camp was placed under the Grini prison camp, under the Luftwaffe. From then on, Norwegian and German prisoners were also placed in the camp, which consisted of twenty 12-sided tents, built up of plywood sheets of around 5 m² with an oven in the middle of the room and three small windows. Here 15 men lived in each, in two bunk beds that took up about half of the floor space, with eight places in the lower one and seven in the upper one. Over the spring, the camp was expanded to 33 tents, with a total of 400 prisoners from Grini. The prisoners worked on the airport, in the winter, among other things, treading the runway after snowfall.

After the war, the farm was bought by the State in connection with the creation of the Fornebu civil airport. In 1997, the foundation stone for Norske Skog's main building was laid where the camp was located, a building which two years later received Bærum municipality's aesthetic award.The office premises were placed so that the new and older buildings together form a yard. There is also a relationship between the new and old buildings in dimensioning, especially in height, and choice of materials. For example, Poulsson's spruce barn panel, which has been treated with iron vitrol and carbon black, has been repeated.

Norske Skog was founded in 1962 and was one of the world's largest producers of newsprint and magazine paper. The group had at most 13 factories in 10 countries worldwide, but went bankrupt in 2017 and was acquired by an investment company.

Today, a bird reserve has been established in Storøykilen between Oksenøya and Storøya, where 257 bird species have been recorded, as well as around 700 plants.

Elle tower and DS Donau

Today, as before, the waterway was the most important route for getting goods into Oslo and out onto the continent. In winter, the fjord ice was used to haul goods into Christiania. In summer, the ships sailed fully loaded to the continent. In the areas of Son and Drøbak, a lot of timber was shipped out, which was, among other things, used in the large damming work to make the dykes in Holland. 200 kilo blocks of ice were shipped out to fish and food retailers in England, Germany and France. The sailing ships brought grain, peas, groats, cheese, butter, genever, fabrics, potter's wares, roof tiles and bricks to Norway.

A fog bell was a bell that was rung when there was poor visibility in the ship's lane to guide ships sailing in narrow waters when there was fog. Like here at Elle, the clocks were placed in a tower, and often in places where there were also lighthouses. The ringing occurred when a drive mechanism was activated.

Elle fog clock is made of wood and built in Swiss style. The fog clocks were established at the very end of the 19th century. The last fog watch on the coast was closed in the 1980s. Today, none of them are in use, as modern technology ensures safe traffic in the ship route into Oslo.

DS DONAU

A little further south outside Skiphelle is also the cargo from the DS "Donau", the cargo ship that resistance fighters Max Manus and Roy Nilsen sank in January 1945. While the ship was docked in Oslo, they fixed 10 mines attached with magnets below the waterline. The plan was for the ship to be blown up on the open sea, but delays meant that the bombs went off while they were still in the Oslofjord, where it ran aground. There were 1,500 German sundays and 450 horses on board. The ship was used to deport Norwegian Jews to Auschwitz during the war.

An important reason for the sinking was that during this period the ship was used to transport German forces from Norway to the continent. These forces were to be deployed as reinforcements on the western front, so the resistance movement in Norway would ensure that none of these reinforcements arrived.

Video of the history of DS Donau at YouTube

Rakni`s mound

This monumental barrow is located close to center of Jesshein and Gardermoen airport, only 6 kilometers from highway E6. The mound is larger than any other burial mound in northern Europe and its construction is alo exceptional; between soil and sand, 75000 logs are piled in three pyramid shaped layers.

The original height was more than 18 meters and the diameter about 77 meters. The burial mound was built during one winter and summerr, sometime between 533-551 AD.

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Høvik Glassworks. Veritas

In 1871, glass production started up again with lamp glasses for paraffin lamps, a lamp workshop and glassware such as drinking glasses, carafes, jugs and "pocket larks" were made with pressed glass technology that made prices affordable. The production of electric lamps increased and Norgesglasset with screw caps was introduced after an idea from the American glass industry. This revolutionized the canning and storage of food by housewives.

Glass production was transferred to Hadeland Glassverk and pewter objects were made at the works.

The workers at Verket had relatively good working conditions and no one was poor. Until 1917, the workers were given free housing and fuel, a good standard of housing according to the standards of the time with one or two rooms and a kitchen. They also had their own school, their own gymnastics room, library and reading room.

In 1910, the works got yet another new glass hut. This year, Høvik Glassverk was Bærum's second largest company with between 200 and 300 employees. The employees and their families, about 800 people, mostly lived inside the factory area. Skilled workers came from Sweden, Germany and Austria, or from the works at Hadeland and Biri.

Høvik verk was a fairly closed community until development in the Høvik area began in full in the 1950s and 1960s. It was a self-sufficient community with a camaraderie and unity that was very special. Within the plant, there was a big difference between workers, officials and management. This was reflected on the beach, where the working-class and white-collar children had to stick to their respective parts. At Svartodden, the white-collar children were alone with their beach and their bathhouse.

The immigrants who came to the Høvik area were sceptical about the working environment. The workers drank a lot of beer, often in the middle of the morning, and the boys at the works sailed on ice floes in the spring and bathed naked in the sea. Children from Øvre Høvik and other neighborhoods were not allowed to cycle down to the "ramp at Høvik Verk". Gradually, however, both children and adults experienced that there was a peaceful and good environment at Verket, with little fighting and quarrelling, as there was more of in other industrial communities in Bærum.

During World War II (1940–1945), the entire factory area was seized by the Germans, and all lamp production stopped. The Germans used the factory premises for their central workshop for car engines. Since then, filing cabinets, primuses and cooking appliances were produced. In 1972, the factory and the surrounding area were sold to Det Norske Veritas (DNV), lamp production was moved to Halden and called Høvik Lys, while steel production was transferred to Hensmoen near Hønefoss.

Kilde: https://barumhistorie.no / Knut Erik Skarning