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The farmyard at Staup. Image from around 1990

The farmyard at Staup. Image from around 1990 (photo: Egil Korsnes, eigar: Voss Folkemuseum).

THE BLACKSMITHS AT STAUP

The farm STAUP lies on a shelf in the terrain above Løno. From the highway E16 it is possible to glimpse the houses through the trees. The farm is without a road, and the old farmyard and the cultural landscape is very well preserved. In the 1980s grants were given to carry out maintenance work with the intention of protecting the houses in the farmyard.


The art of smithy work was highly regarded in Voss in older times. At Staup lived many persons who had shown remarkable skills as smiths. Per Larsson, b.1760, was a master at making locks and fittings for chests. The Voss chests were often unpainted, the forged fittings were therefore important decorative features on the chests. Anders Eiriksson (1822-1891) forged a lot of locks for inserting into the door blade, but also other door locks and chest locks. His brother, ARNFINN EIRIKSSON (1824-1897) was also an exceptionally skilled locksmith. He made the smithy work so accurate that there was little work left in filing the lock parts. From a man from Gudbrandsdal, called “Maskin-Hans” the two brothers learned to make wood-carving machines operated by waterwheels, and they later made several of them in the local community. At Blikberget, the neighbouring farm to Staup, lived Odd Knutsson (1835-1907); another well-known locksmith.

  • A lump of slag from iron melting.

Iron extraction in the voss communities

  • Lock made of iron

Smidd dørlås

Lock made of iron (Egil Korsnes, owner: Voss Folk Museum).