History Archives

Anno Kongsvinger museum

Our vision is "Knowledge of the past – involvement in the present". At Kongsvinger museum, we preserve knowledge of past practices through our collections. The collections are a starting point for understanding more of the past. Through history we also gain new insights and perspectives on our own time.

The museum has extended opening hours in the summer season and accepts groups on request all year round. School classes have free entry both within and outside normal opening hours.

Gyldenborg – Exhibitions, conference and administration
Gyldenborg is Kongsvinger Museum's headquarters with exhibitions, lecture hall, meeting room, museum shop and a small library with local history literature.

Kongsvinger Museum's exhibitions can be seen on the ground floor. In 2014 the exhibition "1814 – another story" opened and in 2021 it was replaced by the exhibition "HJEMLAND, Erik Werenskiold and Kongsvinger 1855-1905".

The department is the administrative center for the four museums in the Anno Kongsvinger region and the building also houses magazines, warehouses and workshops for the Anno Kongsvinger region. The Kulturkollektivet, Kongsvinger amateur theater and several other actors also have their offices on the top floor at Gyldenborg.

Gyldenborg was built by Forsvarsbygg in 2001, and the Anno museum moved into the building in 2013.

Aamodtgården – Get an insight into life as a civil servant
Aamodtgården at the foot of Kongsvinger fortress is one of the city's oldest signal buildings. Here you can get a tour of Nina and Harald Aamodt's apartment on the second floor. The apartment is a unique example of a civil servant's apartment furnished in the 1920s.

The garden is a paneled timber building in Empire style built in 1801. Originally it was known as Rynninggården, after Ole Roald Rynning who was the builder and first owner. The property got its current name after the Aamodt family who bought it in 1901. The property consists of the main building on two floors, a side building for servants, a farm building and the tent house from 1729, which originally belonged to Kongsvinger fortress. Kongsvinger museum opened here in 1985.

Aamodtgården is today home to Hos Marie, a pleasant cafe that offers delicious cakes and lunch dishes, and perhaps the city's best coffee. You will also find the Kongsvinger art association here, as well as that the Kongsvinger – Vinger history team has an office in the building.

Skinnarbøl school museum – See everyday school life 150 years ago
Skinnarbøl school is located just off the main road from Kongsvinger to Austmarka, along the roads towards Finnskogen and Sweden. The history teams in Kongsvinger are hosts at the museum during the summer, and they serve strong coffee and delicious waffles!

The old school at Skinnarbøl was built as one of the first permanent schools in Vinger municipality in 1862. When the entire Skinnarbøl school district was closed down and the children moved to Kongsvinger Sentralskole in 1964, no one had a use for the old school building anymore, and it was left to expire. The school had two classrooms, one for the high school and one for the junior school, and an apartment for the teacher with two rooms and a kitchen, all on the first floor. The loft is unfurnished. Almost no structural changes have been made since the house was built.

After a combined effort from history enthusiasts and Kongsvinger museum, the school museum was opened.

Please note that this product has yet to be professionally translated. Until then a machine translation has been provided.

Nes Church ruins

The first stone church in Nes was built on the headland between the Glomma and Vorma rivers in the twelfth century.

The ruins of the old Nes church can be visited any time anf guided tours for groups by prior arrangement April- October.

In pre-Christian times, there was a sacrificial site here. The church was built as a long church in Romanesque style in the 12th century. It was set on fire by the Swedes during the Seven Years' War in 1566, but was rebuilt and expanded into a cruciform church in 1697. In 1854, the church burned down again, but due to the danger of landslides, it was not rebuilt.

Some of the inventory from the old church was saved and is now located in the new Nes church from 1860. Magnificent views of the confluence of the rivers and the Nesbygda area.

Today the ruins host concerts and weddings at this magnificent location.

Nes, or Store Nes as it was called in ancient times, got its name from the promontory formed by the meeting of the Vorma and Glomma rivers. Nestangen is worth a visit in itself. Here you will find varied vegetation, beautiful cultural landscape, reminders of major landslides, and, not least, the church ruins, which the national antiquarian called the most beautiful ruin in Norway.

Around the church, there is a park where benches and tables have been set up for a pleasant rest. The old church cabin standing here was moved here from Fenstad north in the village and was the place where Norway's first coin engraver came from.

From E16, it is well marked with signs. Outside the winter season, you can drive all the way down to the ruins during the daytime, where a parking lot has also been constructed. On the way down, you pass Ullershov farm with proud traditions spanning many hundreds of years.

Important information for visitors to Nes church ruins
It is not allowed to drive by car or other vehicle down to Nes chruch ruins at night time!
Road barrier has been set up at the farm Ullershov, with information about opening hours. The barrier goes down at 11pm and does not open until 7am.
During the winter months, the road will be inaccessible to vehicles, due to ice or snow. All traffic will then be at your own risk.

Information from Visit Greater Oslo

Filtvet Fyr

The first lantern at the lighthouse station was lit in 1840. It was placed in the wall of a private house. Gradually, ship traffic increased sharply, and in 1877 the new lighthouse was completed. The lighthouse was placed in a bay window on the second floor, above the lighthouse keeper's residence. When the lighthouse became electric in 1919, the lantern was moved up to a new lantern house, and since then, Filtvet lighthouse has looked like it does today. For more than a hundred years, lighthouse keepers lived here who made sure that the light never went out.

One of the more famous lighthouse keepers was Thomas Neumann. He came here in 1895, after a long career as skipper of several sailing ships. At that time, he was already 68 years old, and this was to be his retirement job. He moved into the lighthouse keeper's house with his wife Caroline. He was so happy that he protested when the lighthouse service wanted to replace him at the age of 82. He argued that it would be difficult to get a new job, as old as he had become. The case was solved by him receiving a small pension from the state, which was quite unusual at the time.

The automation of Norwegian lighthouses started in the 1980s, and since 1985 no people have lived in Filtvet lighthouse. But there is still a functioning lighthouse here, now in the form of a concrete column at the sea's edge.

Fetsund Lenser

Fetsund Lenser – a national heritage monument, timberfloating museum and nature centre. A unique blend of cultural and natural adventures, set in beautiful scenery on the Glomma, at the gateway to Nordre Øyeren nature reserve, northern Europe's largest inland delta. Norway's only preserved timber-sorting facility, now a national heritage monument.

Museum
Timber-sorting facility on the water, 20 listed buildings, boats, workshops, exhibitions.

Visitor Centre Wetland, Northern Øyeren.A 300 m2 children-friendly centre with lot of interactivity, prize-winning architecture and exhibitions with focus on regional nature and wetlands. Nature trail, beautiful surroundings and a walk path following the river through the museum area Cafe and shops.

Member of Visit Greater Oslo

Roald Amundsen´s home Uranienborg

For 20 years, Roald Amundsen lived in his house Uranienborg at Svartskog. When he disappeared in 1928, Uranienborg was left full of stories from the life he had lived and the people around him, including the secrets he had tried to keep to himself.

Roald Amundsen bought the house in 1908, and lived here until he stepped outside for the last time on June 16, 1928. He disappeared a few days later while trying to search for a missing Italian airship expedition.

Amundsen’s polar expeditions were costly and he eventually ran into money problems. In 1924, he went bankrupt, but two of his financial supporters, Herman Gade and Don Pedro Christophersen, bought Uranienborg and let Amundsen stay. After Amundsen’s death, they gave the property to the Norwegian state in 1933, and since 1934 Uranienborg has been a museum.

His home has been kept just as it was when he left for his final expedition. In 1911 Amundsen and his men skied to the South Pole as the first to reach the pole point.

More information you will find here

Member of Visit Greater Oslo

MiA – Akershus County Museum

Experience the past, present and future in Akershus

MiA – Museene i Akershus – consists of 18 museums totalling 34 unique visitor locations across the whole region.

Our museums convey the rich history and culture of Akershus, ranging from Viking and coastal culture in Follo and Asker, agriculture in Romerike, log driving in the wetlands Nordre Øyeren, to historical buildings and railways.

MiA aims to show the past, but also strives to be a part of the future through contemporary exhibitions, ecological farming, biology and much more.

Learn about culture in Akershus through:

Family friendly activities

Local food

Guided tours

Open-air museums

Historical railway tours

Exhibitions, concerts and theatre

Opening hours: Our museums have different opening hours. Visit mia.no for further information.

Welcome!

Member of Visit Greater Oslo

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

Member of Visit Greater Oslo

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.