Beautiful old costal town, walking tour of Västervik in Sweden.
Welcome! Today we're in the town Västervik, located on the east coast of Sweden. We start outside "Sankta Gertruds kyrka" (Saint Gertrud's church), which started construction in 1433, the same year the town was founded. When Västervik was founded they were given 4 years without taxes, this was at least in part to help fund the construction of the church. The church was finished in 1450 and was used for almost 500 years until 1905, when the new church, Sankt Petri, was inaugurated. The church was then converted to a grain storage for a while, until 1933, when it was re-inaugurated as a church.
What we have here is "Aspagården", built in the 1700s, in the same style as how things looked before the fire of 1677 when the town almost completely burned down. By the way, I think the sign here is rather interesting, comparing the amount of Swedish text to the English. I admit I am often tempted to do the same thing.
When researching the places I visit, any information I find is usually in Swedish and sometimes it is a bit of a struggle to translate it. At those times, it's really tempting to just ignore any information that I find difficult to translate. But back to Aspagården, while it was originally used as a residence it now houses workshops for arts and crafts. And here we see the church from another angle, it's a bit of a miracle that the church still stands here now.
I mentioned a fire in 1677 but that was only one of many fires that has ravaged Västervik since it was founded. Somehow the church managed to survive those fires, though it was damaged in 1612 when the Danish burned down the town. But it seems that while the ceiling was damaged in that fire and needed repairs the church still remained in a usable state. In 1805 a bishop from Linköping visited the church and it seems he did not like it. He demanded that maintenance of the church was stopped and the funds should be saved for a new church instead.
A new church was eventually built and, as mentioned, inaugurated in 1905, but they still kept maintaining this church. Which is why we can still see it here today. I have to admit that stopping at Västervik was a bit of a last minute decision Because of that I did not have as much time to plan the walk as I usually do when picking my route. I more or less just looked up the location of the churches and the main square and then randomly picked a route passing them. I thought I was just lucky with my route, passing so many old buildings. But it seems there's a lot of streets with old buildings in the central Västervik, far more than the once I've walked today.
Here we have some extra old buildings, they're called "Loftbodarna" (the loft barns) and were built in the late 1700s. They were used as warehouses, storing, among other things, salt. The water we can see from here is called "Gamlebyviken" (old village bay), but it used to be called "Västerviken" (the western bay). I haven't found any information about if the town got it's name from the previous name of the bay or vice versa.
But if you remember that I mentioned that Västervik was founded in 1433, that was actually only in this specific location. There had previously existed another Västervik, located further in the bay, which was first mentioned in writing in 1275. Västervik was moved here in 1433 at the same time as it was awarded town privileges by the king Eric of Pomerania. It's worth mentioning that Eric of Pomerania wasn't just King of Sweden, he was also King of Norway and King of Denmark. He was ruling the so called "Kalmarunionen" (the Kalmar union), uniting the three countries.
When Västervik moved here, the old town was, for a while, called "Gamla Västervik" (old Västervik). Eventually it was renamed "Gamleby" (old village) matching the current name of the bay, "Gamlebyviken" (old village bay). The Kalmar Union wasn't a very stable union and a few years before it's end, in 1517, the Danish attacked Västervik.
The town, as well as the Stegeholm castle that had protected the entrance to the bay since 1360, were almost completely destroyed. After that, people moved back to "Gamleby" and Västervik was abandoned for 30 years. The Stegeholm castle was rebuilt in 1521, but it wasn't until 1547 that King Gustav Vasa ordered the city of Västervik to be rebuilt. It was supposed to be rebuilt closer to the Baltic sea and become fortified.
But those orders were ignored, the city was rebuilt around the saint Gertrud church and no fortifications were built. In 1548, Gustav Vasa also requested that a royal dockyard was built in Västervik. Documentation from 1565 indicates that around 104 of the roughly 400 people living in Västervik worked at the dockyard. So at that time, a large part of the Västervik population depended on the dockyard for work. In 1612, the Danish once again attacks the town, taking control of Stegeholm castle and burning the town.
After the Danish army leaves, the locals destroy the Stegeholm castle, fearing that the Danish will use it if they return. So the town and castle once again had to be rebuilt, only to face more fires, in 1665 the town was partially destroyed after an accident when brewing ale. But let us take a quick break from the history of Västervik, we have now arrived at "rådhustorget" (the town hall square). And this building, with the year 1793 written at the top, is the old town hall. As you might have guessed that means the construction of the town hall started in 1793 and it finished in 1795. It was designed by the architects Ture Wennberg and Carl Fredrik Adelcrantz.
These days you can find the Västervik tourist information in the building. Now, getting back to the history of Västervik, as mentioned, it had been badly damaged by a fire in 1665. And only a few years later, in 1677, the Danish army once again returned.
This time, it is said that they only left three buildings standing, the church being one of them. A new reconstruction was started and by 1682 the new town was considered as finished. This time the town was built with a new, more modern, city plan made by the engineer Anders Bergh. No fortifications was made to the city at this time either. The Stegeholm castle that had once again been destroyed was this time left to decay. I did not really focus on it, but the small structure on our left it called "Hantverkets ära" (Glory of the craft).
And the information I found on it online is a bit odd, supposedly it was made by unnamed craftsmen in 1926. But there's also an image of a plaque on it, saying "Hantverkets Ära, 1936". It is also stated that it was made during a crafts fair and that different work related fairs were held 1936-1946. So I suspect that the information that it was made in 1926 was probably a mistake, my guess is that they actually ment 1936. By the way, I think it's rather interesting that a town on the east coast is called "Västervik" (western bay) I haven't found any information on the origin of the name, but I guess it somehow relates to the previous name of the bay, "Västerviken" (the western bay).
I guess even if that bay is on the east coast, it still is considered to be more west than other bays around here? This building is the Västervik parish hall, sadly I haven't been able to find much history on the building. But at least it's a pretty nice looking building. And now we're at "Sankt Petri kyrkan" (the Saint Petri church). As mentioned earlier it was built to replace the previous, "Sankta Gertrud" church, and it was inaugurated in 1905.
The architect was Adolf Emil Melander and there had long been a struggle over the location for this church. At first they wanted to tear down the old church and build the new one on the same location. When that was denied they instead wanted to tear down "Båtsmanstugorna" (the boatswain cottages) and build it there. The boatswain cottages are another set of historical building we will get to later, luckily they were also saved. Eventually they settled on this location for the new church. By the way, the large building that we've seen a bit of and that is currently behind us, is the Västervik Hospital.
This building is the former "Navigationsskola" (navigation school). I think it was built 1901-1903 and that the architect was Carl Kempendahl. But to be honest, I'm not sure how reliable any of the sources I found for that information was. Some sources claim that the school shut down in 1912, others in the 1950s.
Though I've also seen mentioned that it later became a girls school, so maybe that was what it was from 1912-1950? If you look at the railroad tracks next to us you might notice that there's an extra rail in the tracks. At the raidroad crossing ahead of us you can see a regular, two-rail track heading left, and a three-rail track heading right. This is because there's a historical narrow-gauge railroad joining up with the regular railroad just outside Västervik. It's the longest narrow-gauge railroad in the nordic region, with a total length of 71km (44 miles).
It runs between Västervik and Hultsfred and it was opened in 1879, the track width is 891mm (as opposed to the regular 1435mm). The old narrow-gauge railroad joins with the newer, wider railroad at a place called Jenny. and the last 4 km (2.5 miles) from Jenny to Västervik is the 3 rail tracks we've seen here. The track is still operated and they have a collection of old trains and railcars that they run on the tracks in the summer. Reading the history of the tracks, it does seem like they had a lot of trouble maintaining them. At a time, it seems the tracks was even paved over for a new highway and they could only operate parts of the route.
But eventually the railroad became declared a historical monument. So now the entire route is once again restored and operational. By the way, earlier in the video I mentioned that this was a last minute stop and I did not have much time to plan this walk? I had mentioned that I "more or less" just looked up the churches and the square, but there was actually 3 more locations I had planned to visit. One was the narrow-guage railroad that we've just seen, another is an old bath house we will reach later.
And the final one are these buildings here, I've already mentioned them earlier as well. It's the "båtsmansstugorna" (boatswain cottages) that they wanted to demolish to make room for the new church. In the 18th century, Västervik was required to have a certain amount of boatswains. And in the 1740s, these houses was built as homes for those boatswains. It seems you can now rent a room here if you want to spend the night in these historical buildings This sign talks about the history of taverns in Sweden.
If you've seen my other videos, you might remember me talking about how most trade was heavily regulated back in the days. Trade had to happen in the cities, and, you had to have a certain rank, you had to be a so called "borgare". But operating a tavern did not fall under those requirements, you just needed a simpler permit.
The permit was granted after evaluating the situation, or the needs, of the person seeking the permit. In most of the cases, the people requesting and getting the permits were women, often widows. But now, let us switch to a completely different topic.
One of the most famous people to have a connection is probably Björn Ulvaeus, one of the members of ABBA. He wasn't born in Västervik, he was born in Gothenburg in 1945, but he moved here in 1951. It was in Västervik he grew up and it was also here that he and his friends founded the band Hootenanny Singers that he was a part of before forming ABBA. Hootenanny Singers started in 1961 as West Bay Singers In 1963 they won a talent show on the Swedish radio and they became incredibly popular in the 1960s. They had a contract with Polar, the same record label that ABBA worked with.
But for now, after almost 20 minutes, I actually think I've run out of things to talk about. At least for the next 2 minutes or so, I'll be back shortly after we reach the water that we can see in the distance. Now that we've arrived here, there are two squares in this area, first is "Fiskaretorget" (the fisherman square). And a bit further ahead, is "grönsakstorget" (the vegetable square). We never step onto "grönsakstorget", it's right ahead of us when we turn around. The sign here talks briefly about the history of Västervik.
It mentions how "Fiskarehamnen" (the fisherman harbor) has been a marketplace since the town was founded. But I don't know if the fisherman and vegetable squares has been around ever since then or if they were added later. The sign also talked about old, smaller, boats used in the archipelago, called "ökor".
These "ökor" were crucial for both fishing and just moving around in the archipelago. and the building techniques involved in constructing these so called "ökor" is now protected by UNESCO. Currently we're walking along something called "Visvägen" (the song road), featuring several Swedish celebrities. Both Björn Ulvaeus and Hootenanny Singers are represented here but I missed them. I just spotted a few fames names on the ground and decided to film them without really knowing what it was at the time. Had I known about it ahead of time, I could've at least filmed the Hootenanny Singers sign that I walked very close to.
Visvägen starts at the fisherman square and continues along the water out past the Stegeholm castle ruin. We won't see the much of the Stegeholm castle ruin today, I had planned a separate video for those ruins. But after finishing this walk and then making my way over to the ruins, I found it completely full of kids running around. It seems like a kindergarten or something similar had a field trip to the ruins at just the wrong time.
So I'll save the ruins for some other time, if I ever pass Västervik again on a future road trip. The building on our left is "Västervik Warmbadhus" (Västervik warm bathhouse), built in 1910 and designed by the architect Fredrik Anderberg. It had been shut down for many years before it reopened again in 2021. Behind the reopening is none other than Björn Ulvaeus and his daughter Anna Ulvaeus. In the distance we can see the Stegeholm castle ruin, unfortunately that is as close as we will get today.
And now we've reached the end of this tour of Västervik, I hope you've enjoyed it! Thank you for watching!
2024-07-22 03:41
