Decaying Farm Buildings

Always a bit sad to see abandoned farms where the buildings are slowly decaying. This is a former dairy farm and laundry business in Handen. Known as Mellanberg. A few hundred years ago there was only a small cottage here where different handymen lived over the years. Later the land was owned by the large estate Söderby. A farmer then bought Mellanberg in the 1920s. He built a farm house,a big barn and a number of other buildings. Up until the 1940s you could buy fresh milk directly from the farmer. Not sure when the dairy farm closed, but the laundry was closed in 1976. The municipality wants to save Mellanberg as it shows a lot about local history. The photographer in the photo is my buddy Jim.

Soon to be just a memory

Three photos from Djurgårdsgrind in Tungelsta. The land here was bought by the Johansson family a century ago. They were land-workers employed at a big estate near Ösmo in Nynäshamn. Somehow they managed to borrow enough money to buy Djurgårdsgrind. The first thing they did was to build a home, seen in the first photo. They stayed here for a number of years and also built a second home, that is the larger building on the second photo. They had a young son when they moved in here, he became a good friend to my grandfather. The young boy grew up to become a famous author. Ivar Lo-Johansson. As soon as he could, he left Tungelsta and moved to Stockholm. I have read a couple of his auto biographies where he speaks of his life here. Sadly the property will soon be gone. The elderly owners that have used Djurgårdsgrind as a summer house for the last decades never cared about any of the buildings here, as you can tell by the state of one of the barns. I heard from a friend recently that the couple had passed away and that the property was up for sale, so on a sunny day last week I took the bike over for a photo shoot. I'm guessing that any new owner will know nothing about the history here and that all the buildings will be gone in a near future. I have a few more photos it a flickr set.

Decaying Barn

This is an old decaying barn at Djurgårdsgrind. The home of famous writer Ivar-LO Johansson, who moved here with his parent when he was ten years old. He was a friend of my grandfather and wrote a few good novels. Sadly the elderly owners of Djurgårdsgrind havent been able to look after the buildings for many years. When they do visit, they stay in the house that Ivar-Lo's parents built after arriving to Tungelsta back in 1910. Hopefully the municipality will one day buy the property and restore it to it's former glory, as it is a piece of local history.