Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2013, Page 21

BUILDING AND KEEPING HOUSE IN 19TH-CENTURY ICELAND.
DOMESTIC IMPROVEMENTS AT HORNBREKKA, SKAGAFJÖRÐUR
During the approximately 60 years of
occupation represented in the excavated
deposits from phases 2 and 3 there was
one major structural change event when
the cattle byre was changed into a storage
room, the corridor between the two rooms
was blocked, and the walls and the stove
in the kitchen were shored up with an
extra course of stones. The laying of turf
and possible scattering of ash on the
floors, and the possible lighting of a small
fire in the drain in the cattle byre, are
indicators of more day to day upkeep of
the buildings. The excavation at
Hombrekka, similarly to the inspection
records, portrays a building in need of
frequent upkeep and repair. The
‘sistering’ of walls by building a new
course of stones up against an older
wall-face appears to have been common
practice, noted both in the kitchen and in
the cattle byre. This would have helped
secure slumping or cracking walls and in
the case of the wall in the cattle byre,
appears to have served to significantly
decrease the size of the byre by adding
approximately 1 m of wall material to the
existing wall.
From the inspection records it is clear
that the room that was rebuilt most often
was the baðstofa. This is unsurprising as it
would have been the room where most
household members spent the majority of
their time indoors and may therefore have
taken priority with regards to
refurbishments and upkeep (see Table 2).
Hólmfríður Sölvadóttir, who lived at
Hombrekka from the age of three until she
was sixteen (1920-1934), remembered the
building of a new baðstofa in 1927 well
and recalled the new room as being very
neat, warm and comfortable. It had a
cooker in it and that is where most of the
family’s meals were cooked. In the room
there was a small table and two chairs, a
book cabinet and two beds, one for
Hólmfríður and her mother and the other
for her step-father and her brother. In 1929
Hólmfríður’s parents adopted a little girl
who took her place in her mother’s bed.
Hólmfríður received a new bed, which
was placed in the baðstofa, and blanket
from her aunt and recalls fondly the
excitement she felt at receiving it
(Hólmfríður Sölvadóttir pers. comm.j.The
parlour at the front of the house was
seldom used, according to Hólmfríður.
Although it had some fumiture in it, a
table and a bureau, it was mostly used as a
storage room. Even though it was
intended for entertaining guests, most
people were brought into the warmth of
the baðstofa. Hólmfríður also
remembered the house as having a very
dark, long corridor with a small entrance
room, a kitchen with a basalt stone stove,
a pantry and a cattle byre that housed their
two cows5. The kitchen with the basalt
stone stove was not used for every day
cooking during the time Hólmfríður‘s
family lived at Hombrekka. Her mother
baked bread there and used it for cooking
especially odorous dishes such as
lumpfish, and it was also the place where
all the peat for lighting both the cooker
and the stove was kept.
The inspections only discuss the
structural elements of the building. No
furniture is listed or any decorative
features or portable material culture like
that recounted in Hólmfríður’s account.
The excavated negative features in the
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