Kategori: Historical monument

Grini Museum

In Grini prison there were prisoners from all over the country, and almost all professions and classes of the population were represented. At first everyone was in the prison building, but it soon became overcrowded and a "barracks city" was built. Today the Grini Museum is located in one of these barracks.

On Thursdays, from 2:00 PM to 6:00 PM, you can experience Grini prison through VR. The VR experience lasts about 15 minutes and is included in the ticket price.

On Sundays, there is an introduction to the history of Grini prison at 12:00 PM and 2:00 PM. The lecture lasts about 20 minutes and is included in the ticket price.

We also offer private tours, lectures, performances and VR experiences for smaller and larger groups outside the museum's regular opening hours. This can be booked by sending us an email at grinimuseet@mia.no. Read more about our tours: https://mia.no/grinimuseet/gruppetilbud

The museum does not have a café, but sells coffee, tea, mineral water and muffins/lefser that can be enjoyed in the outdoor area.

In our small museum shop it is possible to buy books about Grini prison camp and World War II as well as postcards and some other products.

Throughout the year there are concerts, theatre performances, lectures and talks at the museum. Follow our website to see what's happening: https://mia.no/grinimuseet/kalender

Member of Visit Greater Oslo

Nøstvedt culture

Nøstvedt farm is located in Ås municipality. Within the property of this farm, on the homestead Sjøskogen, remains of Stone Age settlements around 4000 – 5000 years BCE have been found. The settlement of the fishermen and hunters who lived in the area have been named the Nøstvedt culture and the culture cover large parts of eastern, southern and central Norway.

 

Stone Age settlement at Nøstvet

The settlements are mainly beach-bound, which means that people have often lived right at the water's edge in selected areas. We therefore know that there is great potential for finding Stone Age settlements of Nøstvet character in areas where the height above sea level is where the sea level was in Nøstvet times, i.e. approx. 50 m above sea level.

Sjøskogen is located by Nøstvet in Ås, and is the settlement that has given its name to the period. Since 1880, various objects have been brought in from this settlement. In Ås, more than 150 localities have been registered with finds of Nøstvet character. In the Stone Age, these were fjord arms that were very favorable in relation to fishing and settlement.

There is a sign to the residence at the entrance to Vinterbrosentret.

The Nøstvet culture
The Nøstvet period coincides with the last part of the Old Stone Age – the period before farming begins here in Eastern Norway. Norway, The culture is characterized by distinctive stone axes, Nøstvetøkser.

The axes were probably attached to a wooden shaft, which was then, among other things, used to hollow out log boats.

The settlements are mainly beach-bound, which means that people have often lived right at the water's edge in selected areas.

Small groups lived together and subsisted on hunting, fishing and what they could gather. Hunting land mammals provided meat, but was not necessarily everyday food.

The illustration has been prepared by Akershus county council and the texts by Ås Historielag.

Bronze Age cairns

A dolmen is a Danish term for a megalith or large stone tomb from the Neolithic Age. A dolmen consists of a burial chamber, surrounded by a series of large curb stones as we see in the pictures. In Norway, megalithic tombs are very rare and they are a sign that this may be one of the first settlements in Norway. Here, two similar dolmens have been found quite close to each other that have been dated back to 3630-3350 BC. Amber beads have been found, which indicates that they either came from – or interacted with other societies on the continent. The dolmen is located close to the red barn, entrance by the sign.

Hear more about the findings and life in the Stone Age in the video.

The burial mounds. Up on the hill a little further towards Drammen there are several burial mounds from the Bronze Age. In the Early Bronze Age, the deceased was placed in the coffin fully dressed and with various objects. The men often brought bronze swords, axes, daggers, knives and jewelry pins. The women brought knives and daggers, as well as jewelry such as necklaces, bracelets and belt buckles. The location of the cairns may indicate that it was important for people in the Bronze Age both that the cairns could be seen from the sea and that the sea could be seen from the cairns.

All burial cairns are protected and it is not legal to remove or move stones from them.

Hvalstrand bad

Public swimming in the fjord was only for men. Swimsuits were unknown garments and men and women could not swim in the same place. The first public baths for women were built in the 1840s. At the end of the 19th century, it was discovered that light and sun had a positive effect and young women in particular began to sunbathe. It became more accepted to show off their bodies and from the 20th century, many baths were built around the Oslofjord.

During the interwar period, bathing life as we know it today gained momentum: – Sea bathing as "free bathing", i.e. where both sexes bathed together, gained momentum in the 1930s.

Hvalstrand bad was established on June 7, 1934 on a property separated from the Hval farm. The farm's owner, Wilhelm Roede, and shipowner Rudolf Olsen joined forces to establish a modern bathing facility with a diving tower, a slide, and an elegant restaurant.

Hvalstrand bad and Ingierstrand bad were the two most important, publicly accessible baths on either side of the Oslofjord from the interwar period and in the first decades of the postwar period. A steamboat was set up from the center of Oslo that ran shuttle services throughout the summer season.

Existing public baths were mostly used by wealthy people, who took a bath for the sake of cleanliness and health, while ordinary people bathed in the open air. This was a time when recreation and sports were seen as something that gave meaning to life, and Oslo's inhabitants wanted to get out of the city and into beautiful nature in search of "the good leisure life" as a result of most people starting to have more free time.

Eventually, the place became unprofitable, was bought by Asker Municipality and stood in disrepair until it was protected and restored in 1997. Now Hvalstrand Bad is operated as a restaurant during the summer months.

Løkenes Farm

The sailing ships came with ballast, often in the form of round flint tubers, and had to get rid of this before unloading. The seabed and the beach below Bryggebakken are covered with such ballast stone.

 

It was hard work where the workers cut blocks of ice with special saws. Each block weighed around 160 kilograms. The ice blocks then had to be lifted into a chute of wood, and were sent down to the harbour. In the early years, the ice was shipped out in the winter without intermediate storage, but the demand was greatest in the summer and the ice began to be stored in ice houses and later in large open ice bins/ice stacks. We can see the rest of the foundation of such an ice bin here. This was a large pile of almost 2000 m2 that could hold 14-17,000 tons of ice and the ice stack went all the way up to today's main road. It was a makeshift construction that would store the ice from winter to summer, and the walls could be 4-8 meters high and were held in place with external logs to prevent the ice from falling out.

 

A chute had been made and a pier had been made into the bay so that the ice could be loaded onto a waiting ship. Sawdust was often used between the blocks to ensure that they did not melt during the long transport.

 

Ice exports contributed to prosperity for the farmers who owned ponds and ponds and sailboat owners along the coast. It was associated with great risk. Several ships were wrecked on the voyage as the ice could melt along the way and the weight could shift to the side and overturn the ship.

Holmsbu town history

Today, Holmsbu is a beautiful white coastal gem around the harbour basin along the Drammensfjord. A favorite spot for visiting hotel guests and boaters with lively restaurants during the summer months.

It has not always been like this, but people have lived in the area for a very long time, from the time when the waterway was the main transport and most people were farmers and the animals grazed where the town is now located.  From the 1500s, the term "docking place" arose. It describes a place where officials were engaged in timber exports. From 1720, timber began to be shipped from Holmsbu. The farmers did not like this. They wanted to trade directly with foreign buyers, who came with their ships, especially those from Holland.

From around 1865, fishing became a primary industry in Holmsbu. The inhabitants numbered about 400 people divided into 89 families, almost half of whom were fishermen. Salmon and sea trout were fished, as well as small herring and sprats. In the 1930s, there were two canning factories in Holmsbu where they packed small herring, meat and fish in cans.

Holmsbu attracted many well-known painters thanks to the great light. They spent the summer in the village with their easels and paintbrushes. Among them, Henrik Sørensen is the most famous, and today there is an art museum in Støa with his legacy and he was the main man behind the renovation and decoration of Holmsbu Church. H.Sørensen is also the painter of the beautiful murals in Oslo City Hall.

The summer tourists from Oslo and Drammen eventually came to Holmsbu with the steamboat, also called the "dad boat" since mothers and children lived here all summer, while the dads came with the boat on weekends.

Many guests returned year after year, creating a close relationship with the place, which was characterized by stable ties between visitors and locals, consisting of fishermen and farmers. From 1911, Holmsbu was also home to an artists' colony, which linked the hotel to the country's most famous artists. In addition, the hotel served as a party venue for residents during major occasions.

Today, Holmsbu Badehotell has become a place for conferences and individual guests. The restaurant offers a beautiful view of the Drammensfjord and is open all summer. The decoration in the dining room originates from Erling Clausen, an artist from the colony. He had possibly paid for his stay with works of art, a common practice among artists. The decoration depicts Holmsbu from the 1930s, with famous people and scenes from daily life, including the colourful fisherman Julius Iversen and the actor Erling Drangsholt.

The motifs capture the essence of life in Holmsbu before World War II, such as fishing and seafaring. A mysterious detail is the image of the passenger ship "Stella Polaris", similar to today's luxury cruise ships. Although the ship never visited the Drammensfjord, Clausen raises the question of whether he dreamed of Holmsbu as a cruise destination.

Tourism is still important to Holmsbu, but increased visits from cruise ships could have been overwhelming for the small village. This emphasizes a desire on the part of the locals to keep some secrets about the place to themselves. Holmsbu therefore remains a combination of historical memories and modern hospitality. In the center of Holmsbu you will find several protected wooden houses, including "Schulerudgården" where Anne Cath, later Vestly, and her brother Mentz spent their childhood summers.
 

Huser Farm by the river Vorma

Here you can rent the entire farm for yourself and your guests, or simply book a night or two to experience the tranquility and beauty of this historical place with your partner.

The farm was church property until 1850. In the period 1760 to 1850, the farm was a priest's widow's seat. Husersund was the old crossing point over the Vorma until 1910 when the bridge in Svanfoss came in 1910.

 

Soon history

Dutch ships came to fetch Norwegian timber, but they also brought trade goods from many different countries to Norway. However, the origins of Son goes back even further. Inside the mouth of the river Såna, at the bottom of the Bay of Son, a trading place was established in the Middle Ages, and perhaps already in the Viking Age.

The Oslofjord was called Zoon Water, which testifies to the importance of the fjord to the Dutch. Several of the buildings in Son are from this heyday, such as the trading house Thornegården from 1641, the tobacco spinning mill Spinderigården from the 18th century and Huitfeltgården from the 19th century, where Chr. M. Falsen wrote the draft of Norway's constitution (according to Sigrid Undset and Nils Kjær).

WATCH THE VIDEO  about the history of Son city.

Son's growth stagnated after 1720 when Moss became a larger and more important trading place. At the beginning of the 20th century (1900-1910), Son was an artists' town like several of the towns along the coast.

Son also has a long tradition of boat building.

Skulerud

The narrow-gauge railway "Tertitten" came in 1898 to Skulerud, which was the terminus. Skulerud became an important hub between railways, canals and eventually buses.

The railway's traffic base was mainly forestry and agricultural products. Timber was driven to Skulerud and from there floated to Halden. Interconnection with DS Turisten also became a popular tourist attraction such as "The Great Round Trip".

The track was closed in 1960. Long before the railway came to Skulerud, the place was an important junction between road and waterway. Together with agriculture and forestry, Skulerud was an industrial site with rafting, a steam saw, a tannery and a lathe. Work is now underway to re-establish the railway environment at Skulerud. This has been made possible through the National Antiquities' conservation program for technical and industrial heritage. In 2016, part of the railway line at Skulerud was fully renovated. The forge looks the same on the outside as before, but the inside is furnished as a coastal cabin. On the site is the museum "Isbingen" with over 100 objects from the floating period. The timber crane has been restored. There is a service center on site.

On today's Skulerud you can start your journey through the Haldenkanalen. There is a launch ramp, guest jetty, service house, and you can even spend the night at the coastal hut, Smia. There are also plenty of parking spaces here. Here you also have the option to empty the boat's sanitary system. In the "Station area" is Skulerud Grendehus, which can be rented for small and large events.

Son Coastal Centre

Kystkultursenteret (the coastal culture centre) is beautifully located in the middle of Son. The centre consists of a museum dock with old boats, exhibitions, a museum shop, a goldsmith and more. Jostushuset tells the story of a fisherman’s home in Son.

The smithy has changing exhibitions about life in Son in the old days.