Isdal

The farm Isdal is mentioned in written sources already early in the 1500s, but the partitioning of the farm into smaller units and with several users in the settlement, only took place several hundred years later. The farm probably belonged under the royal farm at Seim in the Middle Ages. The Seim farms had their boathouses in Isdalstø right up to our times, and the transport station was in Isdalstø.

The hamlet at Isdal gives an impression, as does the Havrå hamlet at Osterøy, of the large communal farm cluster that were a significant feature in West Norway up to the end of the 1800s. The revised act on reapportionment of arable land came in 1857, and it entailed that most hamlets were broken up and the houses moved to new sites. This did not happen at Isdal even though the reapportionment of farmlands was carried out to make larger units.

The loft houses at Isdal have been carefully maintained by the owners, and many of the historic qualities of the settlement taken care of. In 1980 an architectural competition on building traditions in West Norway was held. Isdal was one of the model areas, and following this competition a new house was built in the hamlet; a long, low house that fits in nicely amongst the older loft houses. The hamlet is not under protection, but it has a high status as a cultural monument worthy of protection.