The BLAST FURNACE, its OWNERS and the "IRON-GANG"

In the iron-rich mountains many places have names ending on "hyttan" - a free form for "mas-ugn" = "blast furnace".

In everyday life few people think about the background of the name. It is easy to be negligent in such matters. There are actually people who do not know what "hytta" means, and why not - it is a long time since the furnaces disappeared and no remains are visible - unless you know what to look for.

Mullhyttan as a name did not appear until the late 1700 - according to the church records. Living close to the blast furnace was to live on Sörhult ground - or in some cases near Mullhyttan, meaning close to the furnace surroundings, originally part of the Sörhult farm.

The Mullhyttan furnace in western Nerike was one of several hundred furnaces participating in the Swedish iron production. The times were turbulent and war efforts demanded iron for weapons etc. The first furnace started in 1646, more than 350 years ago. Twelve local farmers had got a royal charter from queen Kristina to build a blast furnace close to a waterfall in a stream called Mull-ån - hence the name Mullhyttan. Each part owner in the furnace was called "bergsman" - a title to be proud of. The furnace was of a type that contained a central stone pipe, heat insulated by sand, held in place by four outer walls of heavy timber. The furnace had to be repaired and rebuilt now and then. The furnace was in use until 1870 and was pulled down 1885.

An interesting fact is that the Mullhyttan Hyttelag (Company) still exists! It is unique - only two such companies exist in Sweden today - the other one is Löa Hyttelag which has a lot of buildings left, including the blast furnace.

In Mullhyttan just a few stones in the furnace foundation are visible. Thanks to preserved records of meetings, book-keeping and work journals since the 1850-ies, we in the "Iron-gang" have been able to do some research and reconstruct the area in form of a model. It shows the whole place as it was around 1850. The "Iron-gang" consists of a group of idealists in the MBF association. We started the research in the summer 1995 and had regular meetings for a couple of years in the local carpentry company where the model was put together. It is 2 x 2.4 meters and is built in 1:100 scale.

As a starting point we used official documents from a meeting in 1814 (minutes and map) which in detail described how the ground should be disposed later on. The reason for this was that the authorities had decided on a fusion with Gammelhyttans Hyttelag. The area had to be extended and disposed to inhabit about 90 part owners, a 50 percent increase! Despite eager search we have been unable to find true pictures of the ground with all buildings. By studying pictures from other places we allowed ourselves to put up similar types of coalhouses in our model.

A showroom for the model is now placed close to where the blast furnace stood. Thereby the model also is near the rest of MBF’s attractions: Museum, Water mill, Bakery and Sawmill. We therefore hope that the interest for the model will increase even more and that we will get more visitors in the future.

Parallel to the research for the model itself, genealogy and regional history research about local residents have been done. All who might be interested in the above are welcome to contact Åke Widén.