Görväln House, Järfälla, Sweden

Görväln House is documented from the 1460s when it was owned by the Archdiocese of Uppsala. After the Protestant Reformation in 1520, Görväln became a kronohemman, owned by King Johan III until 1571, when Johan III gave it away to the nobleman Antonius de Palma and his family. Between 1605–1661 Görväln was owned by the Swedish noble family Bjelke. During the Bjelke era the main building was lower on the connector than today. During Adolph John I's years as owner, a new main building was built.

Today Görväln House is used as a hotel and restaurant.

References:

Wikipedia

User Reviews

Morgan Fallbrink (4 years ago)
Beautiful surroundings and friendly and helpful staff. Anazing food!

Ingemar Walldén (4 years ago)
Amazing place and of corse so good food.

Björn Andersson (4 years ago)
Romantic small castle close to Stockholm. Perfect for a weekend getaway. Nice surroundings as well

Robert Hedman (4 years ago)
Room Good, view excellent! Sadly they tried to make us pay twice for the stay and make us pay for someone else's dinner. Was expecting a place of this quality to keep a closer eye on money and accounting.

Klavs Eglitis (4 years ago)
Location and facilities are just amazing! Really loved the place and would highly recommend to visit. But there is a reason why I am not giving 5 starts. We had dinner at the restaurant but needed to wait for our starter to arrive around 50 min, which brought the really good mood we had down. Next day during the breakfast it was little bit the same. While food is served from 08:30 till 11:30. Large parts of food was missing my 9:30 when we came for breakfast (bread, muesli, coffee, fruits). I think this due to that they didnt have enough staff to work there at that moment. But over all we really enjoyed the stay.

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The Broch of Gurness is an Iron Age broch village. Settlement here began sometime between 500 and 200 BC. At the centre of the settlement is a stone tower or broch, which once probably reached a height of around 10 metres. Its interior is divided into sections by upright slabs. The tower features two skins of drystone walls, with stone-floored galleries in between. These are accessed by steps. Stone ledges suggest that there was once an upper storey with a timber floor. The roof would have been thatched, surrounded by a wall walk linked by stairs to the ground floor. The broch features two hearths and a subterranean stone cistern with steps leading down into it. It is thought to have some religious significance, relating to an Iron Age cult of the underground.

The remains of the central tower are up to 3.6 metres high, and the stone walls are up to 4.1 metres thick. The tower was likely inhabited by the principal family or clan of the area but also served as a last resort for the village in case of an attack.

The broch continued to be inhabited while it began to collapse and the original structures were altered. The cistern was filled in and the interior was repartitioned. The ruin visible today reflects this secondary phase of the broch's use.

The site is surrounded by three ditches cut out of the rock with stone ramparts, encircling an area of around 45 metres diameter. The remains of numerous small stone dwellings with small yards and sheds can be found between the inner ditch and the tower. These were built after the tower, but were a part of the settlement's initial conception. A 'main street' connects the outer entrance to the broch. The settlement is the best-preserved of all broch villages.

Pieces of a Roman amphora dating to before 60 AD were found here, lending weight to the record that a 'King of Orkney' submitted to Emperor Claudius at Colchester in 43 AD.

At some point after 100 AD the broch was abandoned and the ditches filled in. It is thought that settlement at the broch continued into the 5th century AD, the period known as Pictish times. By that time the broch was not used anymore and some of its stones were reused to build smaller dwellings on top of the earlier buildings. Until about the 8th century, the site was just a single farmstead.

In the 9th century, a Norse woman was buried at the site in a stone-lined grave with two bronze brooches and a sickle and knife made from iron. Other finds suggest that Norse men were buried here too.

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