Speaking of revisits – this iron works – Österbybruk Iron Works – in Northern Uppland is one of the places I’ve frequented regularly the last year. Just walking around there gives a strong sense of seeing history come live. Above is a part of the building that housed the old Walloon smithy and forgery. The smithy has – just like Österbybruk – older origins, but was rebuilt 1794 – as stated above. It is still complete and is now a museum. “O O” was the sign that was stamped on the bar iron that was forged here and most of this high quality iron was shipped to Sheffield in England to be refined into tools and machines by the emerging, more advanced, British industry.

The buildings that housed the saddle and leather manufacturing. In red and yellow (basically iron manufacturing by products) as most of the stone buildings at Österbybruk.

The rather “new” building from 1860 is called the “steam hammer” and housed the modern smithy and forgery when the iron industry went through the big modernisation during the 19th century here.

One of the many shutters in the depot building.  The shutter is painted with iron oxide red. The stone house (and the other stone houses here as well) is  painted with yellow iron vitriol (iron sulphate) based paint. Traces of iron everywhere. You can find more information on the history of the Swedish iron and iron works here and here.