Living cultural heritage – encounter history in the countryside

• During the Stone Age the landscape was similar to the outer archipelago and was seasonally inhabited for hunting and fishing.
• During the Bronze Age the country rose up from the water and the settlement spread. People continued to hunt and fish and began farming and raising livestock. At Angarnssjöängen you can see traces of settlements and a rock carving with two horses and a cart and two ships (no. 29*).
• The countryside has many fascinating sites dating back to the Iron Age when the land slowly rose to its current level and villages emerged in locations where they can still be found today. Take a drive around the Vallentunasjön lake and see the rune stones at Vallentuna church (no.5*), Arkils tingstad (no. 23*), and Gullbron (no. 30*). Uppland’s largest rock face with runic inscriptions is at Granby (no. 25*), and there are many interesting sites along the Långhundraleden (no. 3*) waterway, including Vada  sjökullar (no. 31*) with its burial mounds.
• There isone stone church from the Middle Ages in each parish and a church ruin in Össeby (no.31*).
• Sweden’s oldest manuscript, Liber ecclesiae Vallentunensis, comes from Vallentuna church with the Vallentuna calendar from 1198. Also from the Middle Ages is the ruin at Vasakullen (no. 24*), which could be the site where Gustav Vasa, Sweden’s first king, was born.
• The old seventeenth century postal road between Stockholm and Turku passes through Vallentuna; you can still follow its path today (no. 33*).
• The Roslagsbanan railway came to the district in 1885, marking the beginning of Vallentuna’s modern history. Firewood, bricks and agricultural products were loaded along the route to the fast growing urban centre of Stockholm. Coal, coke, machinery and malt beverages were shipped in the opposite direction. The railway still injects life and vitality into Vallentuna.

* Link to map. 

For more information:  Visit the central library (Biblioteket) Monday – Saturday.