The agriculture landscape of Sävsjö Säteri

Sävsjö is a landscape with high culture and biological values. The open meadows and fields, and impressive stone walls is part of agriculture landscape that has been cultivated since the 1400’s. But there have been settlements since the Neolithic. A permanent settlement has lived in the area for around 2000 years. The remains from the ancient times is traces from narrows fields, a grave field with over 40 graves, and foundations from four houses.

Colonel Håkan Nilsson Skytte bought a so called frälsegård in Sävsjö in the 1600’s. A frälsegård is a farm that a noble person owned, and it wasn’t taxable. Håkan Nilsson Skytte continued to buy the farms in the village and created Sävsjö Säteri (manor). In that way he changed the way the fields where farmed and the agriculture became more efficient. Nilsson Skytte chose to make all the fields to meadows and increased the number of livestock. One distinctive trace from this time is the stone walls that goes from the barn parallel with the meadows and creates a so called fägata (path where the animals walked from the barn to the pasture).