Jädersbruk, Hammarsmedsgården

You are now standing at Hammarsmedsgården, the home of the mill's hammermasters and their families. The property was built around 1870 and the building material is an unusual standing brick called half-stone brick with air channels between the bricks and cinder block in some parts.

The house is beautifully rendered in a white color that contrasts with the red tiled roof. The row of large windows gives the building a well-balanced and slightly majestic impression. Originally, there were five small apartments on the ground floor and four servants' quarters in the attic.

There was water from a well in the courtyard and there were outhouses in a row in an outbuilding that unfortunately burned down in the 1980s. We can only imagine the stench, the lice and the crowding that must have been here when the house was full of people. Children, adults and animals in a blissful mix. Close your eyes and listen, you can almost hear the sounds of children playing, wives barking and maybe some singing blacksmith who looked too deeply into the pilsner bottle on Friday.

Winters were harsh, wood had to be carried in to the stoves, central heating had not been invented and each room had its own heat source. Water was carried in buckets and it was not uncommon for the water to freeze during the cold hours of the night. The first person up in the morning would light the stove so that others could get warm and have a hearty breakfast before resuming the hard work at the mill. The summers were the opposite of winter, warm and pleasant with swimming in the Arboga River and dancing on the dance floor in the middle of the beautiful park on Jädersholme.

This somewhat less glamorous part of the forging business was also an important part of Jädersbruk's heyday....