Futgarden and archaelogical excavations

If you head Northeast from the Vicarage, you will find the remains of an old farm from the Middle Ages. It is called ‘Futgarden’. Standing in this area, you can see clear signs of a building in the field. The discoveries were made by the architect Brit Solli and were found on the edge of the black earth area. She also found fragments of stoneware or ‘Siegburg stoneware’ as it is called which dates from the 15th century. She also found a penny with a lily shaped cross. The coin was minted during the reign of Håkon the 5th at the end of the 13th century. The discoveries tell us that the house that stood here in the Middle Ages disappeared during the 14th and 15th centuries. But, the dating of burnt bark and pine timber suggest that there could already have been a building on the site as early as the 11th or 12th century. There are clear traces of two buildings on the site. If the first house was already built as early as the 11th century this means that the trading centre quickly grew and was at its peak in the early Middle Ages. The pictures show the area and a drawing of the farm. The yellow rings on the pictures with school pupils show where the corner stones of the house were located, they are each standing on their own cornerstone.