Arnatveit

On the farm of Arnatveit, high up on the slope above the highway, an old smokehouse remains standing in the courtyard of the main farm property, in the place of the old common courtyard. Today this farm lies at the outskirts of a large housing estate. Most of the farmland of the other farm properties has been sold to benefit the city’s need of sites for the new community of Arna.

Bryggen

In the 1300s Bergen was a trading centre of European dimension. The town is thought to have had around 7000 inhabitants and was the largest and most important in the country. In a European context it was an average size town. At this time the most tightly built town area was still mostly east of Vågen from Holmen in the north to Vågsbotn in the south. Already in medieval times, latest in the 1340s, this area was called Bryggen.

Salhus

Salhus has been a connecting point for sea travellers far back in time. The name probably derives from the Old Norse word sáluhús, “house for travellers”. The name may indicate that this was a place for an inn even in the Middle Ages. The place is eminently situated in the route to and from Bergen. For travellers coming by boat from Sogn and Nordhordland, Salhus is the last stop before Bergen. Travellers from the communities in Voss also came this way earlier when they were going to Bergen

Vågsbunnen

Vågsbotn was the name of the innermost part of the eastern part of town from Auta-almenning (today’s Vetrlidsalmenning), skirting the bottom of Vågen to Allehelgenskirken (All Saints’ Church) (at the present Allehelgensgate). In early medieval times Vågen reached almost all the way to Olavskirken (the Cathedral). It was a relatively wide bay inside the premonitory where Korskirken was built. The area was therefore much shorter than what is known as Vågsbunnen today.

Nottveit

In one of the frame-built haysheds at Nottveit, at holding No. 3, we discover that several of the staves have a medieval look, with large dimensions and carefully rounded edges. According to tradition, it was the farms Nottveit and Mostraumen that supplied the timber for the stave church at Mo, and it is not unlikely that these farms received the old timber in return when the new church was erected there in 1593.

Otterstad

Tthe Otterstad farms lie in the innermost part of Mofjorden, on the northwest side of the river. The row of stave-built boatsheds that belong to the farm were probably constructed a little after the middle of the 1800s. Both here and on the Mo side, the boatsheds were important storage places at the seashore; wood and other farm products intended for the town; corn and merchandise in return.

Kyrping

The trading post down by the fjord at Kyrping does not belong to the oldest group of trading posts from the 1600s and 1700s. It was only after the liberalisation of the trading legislation that trade was established here.

Skånevik- the trading post

There are only two buildings left of the old trading and guesthouse settlement in Skånevik. They are in the centre, close to the main road passing through the settlement. The other buildings that belonged to the place, the lodging house (“Holteriet”), the bakery, the courthouse, the boathouse and the sea house with the store, were pulled down in the last century.

Sæbøtunet

When you come into the well-tended farm steading at Sæbø just above Etne centre, you get the impression of a Sunnhordland farm from well before the time of the tractor; from the time of the horse and the scythe. The hamlet at Sæbø, one of the farms neighbouring to Gjerde, was taken over by Sunnhordland Folk Museum in 1938.

Bergenhus