BORGTÅRNET

You are now standing outside our very own local landmark - Borgtårnet or the Borg tower. Here we have apartments on the ground and first floor, can you guess what we called them? Sigurd and Alvsol of course! The tower is built of wood and brick, and actually contains some brick from the medieval castle Tunsberghus, located on slottsfjellet in Tønsberg, which was Norway’s biggest and most powerful castle in the Middle Ages, and was largely built of brick. Brick was a status symbol in the Middle Ages. Under the reign of Magnus Lagabøtes (1263-1280) a large brick kiln was built at Tallak in Tønsberg, and bricks were produced there right up until the beginning of the 16th century. If you take a walk on slottsfjellet to Tallak you can see the place where the brick kiln was located, and even a few bricks that were made in the high Middle Ages. The brick kiln at Tallak is thought to have been the second biggest in Norway. The use of bricks in the Middle Ages was a visible status symbol, showing that one had power and money. Magnus Lagabøte built amongst other things a brick castle on Slottfjellet in Tønsberg, the so called ‘brick castle’ was the fortresses’ main tower. The castle was used both as a defence and residential tower. If you look at our Borgtårnet, maybe you can see which bricks have come from the castle at Tønsberg? The answer is that the layer with the slightly larger bricks, those which are accentuated, are from the Middle Ages.