The open-air museum

The open-air museum in Prestfoss is the oldest part of Sigdal Museum's facilities, and tells the story of industry and building customs in Sigdal and Eggedal through 300 years. The facility contains 13 antiquarian buildings and is laid out as a pre-industrial farmyard with a farmhouse, a summer mountain pasture and operational buildings.

The oldest building is the large barn from northern Støvern (a farm in Sigdal). The timber here was felled right at the end of the 16th century! This makes the barn one of Norway's oldest buildings of its kind. Large, airy utility buildings like this say something about when society rose again, after the decline that followed the Black Death in the 14th century.

The center of the facility is the stately farmhouse from Eikje. The building was erected in the latter half of the 18th century, as a residence for Lennsmann (sheriff) Knut Larsen Eikje, and given as a gift to the museum in 1936.