University of Bergen
The Rekve mill is one of the last water-powered rural mills that has been in operation in West Norway up to our days. But today the constant rumble from the millstones is a rare sound. Right until the beginning of the 1980s Knut Hernes was still in full swing with grinding of grain for the Voss farmers. Inside the mill on the first floor you could meet the old miller himself, whitened by flour, between sacks of grain and flour. A hundred tons per year was what he managed to grind at its most. There is still contact with “Statens kornforretning” (the State grain depot) on leased milling, but now younger forces will have to take over if milling at Rekve is to be continued.
Rekve came under protection in 1978; one of the more interesting cultural monuments of this type in existence: a mill on the first level, a workshop on the next and a small dwelling space in the loft. Knut Hernes also restored the old wool crusher (for making vadmel ), which was driven by a separate waterwheel. The crusher was previously placed further up in the river, where there also was a sash saw. After a big flood in 1906 the crusher was moved down to the mill in the waterfall. As early as in the 1700s the reformist officials in “Det Nyttige Selskab” (the useful society) gave an award to an owner occupier farmer from Voss, Lars Giljarhus, for an installation with a combination sawmill, grain mill and wool crusher operated by one waterfall, a prime example of good use of resources.
