The Vicarage on Veøya

If you stand in front of the vicarage, you are standing on old ground. According to written sources, there has been a residential dwelling for priests on Veøya since 1664. It is likely that there were Priests here before that, but there no verified sources to confirm that. It was the Priest Henrik Holck who built a two-storey house, servants’ quarters and a storehouse. The next residential dwelling was built by the then Priest Jørgen Meyer, who just before 1700 built the ‘’Nystuen’ a two-story house. Priest Erik Røring built the present vicarage. He served in Veøya for 48 years, from the middle of the 18th century. The operation was efficient, and the farm well run. Many new buildings were built, in 1752 the northern part, which was the Priest’s residence was built and the year after the ‘Allmuens herrestue’. It was built as two separate timber structures close together. You can see the difference in the height of the rooves and the cladding. The gap between the buildings was made in Priest Arnet’s time in the 1850s, when he used half for private purposes. The ‘Allmuens herrestue’ was the Parish’s official seat, Bishops and other prominent church personnel would stay here and meetings were also held here. From 1840 Parish board meetings were held here. In the 1890s there were in total 24 buildings which belonged to the vicarage. In 1896 Rosenlund was the last Priest on Veøya and the church itself was closed as a parish church in 1901. Today, in addition to the old main house there are servants’ quarters to the north which are used by the museum and a barn that has been partially rebuilt for the purpose of housing visitors to the island, for dining and shelter against the weather, in addition to housing necessary tools for maintenance and toilets. The pictures show some of the fixtures in the Vicarage and how it would have looked in the 1950s.