The Crofter’s Cottage from Rolland

As the population of Osterøy grew throughout the 19th century, crofts (small tenant holdings) were established on many farms. These holdings were usually located outside the cultivated fields, in the common outlying land, and their establishment required the agreement of the land owners. Records show that there were nearly 140 crofts on Osterøy during the 1860s and 1870s. Toward the turn of the century, the number of crofters declined, and by 1900 only 60 crofters with land remained.

On a national level, the number of crofters is believed to have peaked in 1855. At that time, there were approximately 116,000 crofters, compared to around 113,000 landowning farmers. Historians often refer to the crofting system, even though it was not a formal social institution. On the contrary, crofters formed a highly diverse group. Broadly speaking, they can be divided into crofters with land, crofters without land, and day labourers. Unlike landowning farmers, crofters did not have any political rights in 1814. This meant that more than half of Norway’s male population did not have the right to vote. Universal male suffrage was not introduced until 1898.

Kyrkjetræet was a croft belonging to the Rolland farm. A registered contract from 1836 provides some insight into the rights and obligations associated with the holding. Naturally, the contract does not tell the whole story about the relationship between the farmer and the crofter. Much may have been regulated through verbal agreements.

The contract states, among other things, that the crofter Knud Olsen Blomdahl:

“shall have grazing rights for 20 animals which he can support on the holding, as well as the right to take the necessary firewood from two woodland plots located by Mæradiget and Lokveliene. The buildings standing on the holding belong to him. He shall render annually two days of haymaking labour during the hay harvest, but no monetary payment.”

Excerpt from Knud Olsen Blomdahl’s crofter contract, 1836

Knud Olsen Blomdahl married Marta Andersdotter in 1834. They had seven children: Olav (1835), Anders (1838), Anna (1841), Barbro (1843), Mons (1847), Marta (1852), and Brita (1854).

In 1865 the records show that the family owned one cow, six sheep, and one pig. The yield from a croft was often insufficient to provide all the food, clothing, and other necessities required by a household. Crofter families therefore had to supplement their income through paid work. Specialising in crafts was a common solution. In 1865, Knud Olsen worked as a stonemason. That same year, his daughter Barbro was employed as a cotton weaver at Arna Fabrikker.

The annual rent paid to the farmer, whether in labour or money, was often small, but the lease fee itself was high. When a farmer granted a man a croft, he would usually part with only a small piece of uncultivated land. Nevertheless, he demanded a lease payment of 70–80 speciedaler. This was despite the fact that a crofter family would rarely be able to produce more than three or four barrels of grain and keep a cow and two or three sheep.

At Kyrkjetræet, the 1865 sowing consisted of half a barrel of oats and one barrel of potatoes. Assuming a return of fivefold for oats and fourfold for potatoes, this would produce a harvest of two and a half barrels of oats (1 barrel = 139 litres) and four barrels of potatoes (approximately 400 kg). The average annual consumption per person was around two barrels of grain and two and a half barrels of potatoes.

The crofter’s cottage at Kyrkjetræet was built using log construction (laft), a building technique based on horizontally laid timber logs. The logs were alternately placed with their butt and top ends facing opposite directions. This became the dominant building method in Norway throughout the Middle Ages and remained so until the late 19th century.

The cottage probably stood above a cowshed. The foundation indicates a larger building than the surviving cottage alone, suggesting that a barn may have been attached, or perhaps that a cowshed occupied half of the foundation. One end of the building most likely contained an open hearth.

We do not know exactly when the cottage at Kyrkjetræet was built. It was common practice to dismantle log buildings and reassemble them elsewhere. The date 1710 is carved into one of the logs, which may indicate that the timber originally belonged to an earlier storehouse or dwelling on the Rolland farm.

What we do know is that the building was later moved to Mæle, where it was used as a henhouse and outdoor toilet. When it was scheduled for demolition in 1990, Osterøy Museum expressed interest in preserving it and relocated it to Gjerstad. The condition of the timber was so poor that it could not be reassembled in its original form. It was therefore decided to build a replica. Parts of the reconstruction process were carried out as training courses, contributing to Osterøy Museum’s work in preserving and teaching traditional crafts.

The original cottage was reassembled inside the museum’s exhibition hall in 2014. It formed part of an exhibition about crofters, while also allowing researchers and craftspeople to study the construction, materials, and tool marks. These studies provided the basis for selecting techniques and materials for the reconstruction.

The aim was to create a faithful copy of the crofter’s cottage, which also determined the dimensions of the replacement materials. For educational and interpretive purposes, every stage of the work was carried out using hand tools and methods believed to have been employed in the original construction process. This meant that all logs first had to be rough-hewn and squared by hand before work on the corner joints could begin.

As of 2020, the new crofter’s cottage had been erected on a dry-stone foundation and had received both a roof and exterior cladding.