Havrå
Encyclopedia
Osterøy
Osterøy is an island municipality in the county of Hordaland, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Nordhordland. The administrative centre is located in Lonevåg in the central part of the island, while the settlement with the largest population is Valestrandfossen with 1,012...
municipality
Municipalities of Norway
Norway is divided into 19 administrative regions, called counties , and 430 municipalities...
in Hordaland
Hordaland
is a county in Norway, bordering Sogn og Fjordane, Buskerud, Telemark and Rogaland. Hordaland is the third largest county after Akershus and Oslo by population. The county administration is located in Bergen...
, Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
. Havrå is one of the very last and best preserved of the common farm clusters on the Western coast of Norway. Havrå was the first cultural environment to be protected under section 20 of the Norwegian Cultural Heritage Act. It was not connected to road until late in the 1960s.
Havrå is situated in a very steep terrain on the south side of Osterøy
Osterøy
Osterøy is an island municipality in the county of Hordaland, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Nordhordland. The administrative centre is located in Lonevåg in the central part of the island, while the settlement with the largest population is Valestrandfossen with 1,012...
and is shaped in line typical for steep terrain in the Norwegian fjord
Fjord
Geologically, a fjord is a long, narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created in a valley carved by glacial activity.-Formation:A fjord is formed when a glacier cuts a U-shaped valley by abrasion of the surrounding bedrock. Glacial melting is accompanied by rebound of Earth's crust as the ice...
s. It can be clearly seen from both the railway (Bergensbanen
Bergensbanen
The Bergen Line , also called the Bergen Railway, is a standard gauge railway line between Bergen and Hønefoss, Norway. The name is often applied for the entire route from Bergen via Drammen to Oslo, where the passenger trains go, a distance of...
) and the highway between Bergen and Oslo
Oslo
Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...
.
Many of the buildings at Havrå are characteristic to the inner coastal district between Bergen and Sognefjorden; the combination of dry masonry and juniper
Juniper
Junipers are coniferous plants in the genus Juniperus of the cypress family Cupressaceae. Depending on taxonomic viewpoint, there are between 50-67 species of juniper, widely distributed throughout the northern hemisphere, from the Arctic, south to tropical Africa in the Old World, and to the...
cladding on barn facades exposed to rain and wind.
History of names
The name, with various spellings, dates back as far as 1303. In the oldest sources the name is written Havra (possibly representing Havrá). From the 16th century the name was often spelled (with many variations) Havre.In 1949-1950 a film about life at Havrå was made: Havretunet. It was released in 1952. Some of the people taking part in the takes of the film worked to change the name from Havre to Havrå. This changing of name was accepted by the National Map Service, but the name change remains controversial among the local population.