• Nynorsk
  • English

Universitetet i bergen logoUniversity of Bergen

Search form

The mill in Kvernapollen

The mill in Kvernapollen (Reconstruction by Marvin Halleraker 1992)

When the workers came to Kollsnes to start on the work with the landing for the gas terminal from the Troll field in the North Sea, they found the ruins of an old farm mill at Kvernapollen.

The Troll project took the initiative to rebuild the mill, and thus secured a cultural monument that illustrates the contrast between large-scale energy production in our time and the fine-tuned use of resources in the old farming household.

The mill in Kvernapollen belongs to Oni and was jointly owned by the users of the farm. We cannot date the mill-house accurately, but there is reason to believe that the mill was erected in the last half of the 1800s. Written sources tell us that there was a mill at Oni in 1723. There has probably been a mill on the farm even further back in time. In addition to milling their own grain, mainly oats, the farm also rented out the mill to the farms to the north in Øygarden.

From written sources we know that the water mill was used in Norway from around 1200, but this mill type is likely to have come into use already during Viking times. The watermill was a great technological step forward, and is the first evidence of the use of mechanical power on a large scale. This mill was very extensively used in Norway. When the corn support was introduced in 1926, the farmers at Oni gradually stopped using their own mill. Instead they went to the mill at Litlebergen in Meland and had their corn exchanged for flour. In the 1950s the mill was pulled down, leaving only the walls. The mill and the water trench were reconstructed in 1992.