The bakery is located at Gammelgården, one of the oldest buildings still standing in the fishing village with the year of construction in 1844. Gammelgården has been protected by the Directorate for Cultural Heritage since 1968. In a letter in the archive to the Ellingsen family, it is stated that the furnace in Gammelgården was completed in 1878.
The baking oven at Å is very special. Not only in terms of size, but also the architecture and heating system are unique. The oven is wood-fired with two symmetrically placed side chambers on both the right and left sides of the baking surface.
The bakery was in operation until 1962, and after a long period the oven was restored in 1985. It was now time to restore the stove again. Work began last year by replacing and fixing the fire bricks on the baking surface. Viggo Ballo, a bricklayer from Levanger, travelled to Å to fix the oven before the baking season. Ballo knows the oven, he has several times done maintenance on our baking oven.
After the baking season, our new craftsman, Gunnar Aasvold, who is a trained bricklayer, took over the work further and scraped around the entire kiln and made completely new plaster. He restored the side chambers and the chimney as well. Through the restoration work, Gunnar found firestones that are from Skromberga Stenkols- och Lerindustri AB in Ekeby, Sweden. Why is it interesting? Höganäs-Billesholms AB bought the factory in 1904. Höganäs became a world-renowned manufacturer of refractory bricks and glazed tiles. They produced the white-glazed granite tiles for the Sydney Opera House.
The oven will soon be finished, and we can’t wait to fire it up and bake again at the bakery. There are many factors to consider when using the oven: the temperature, the temperature difference, the first firing after a long time, sweeping, the amount we bake, and the load on the oven.
Our beloved stove is turning 147 years old, and we are very fond of it. If we take good care of the oven, we can use it for many more years and enjoy the delicious and historic bites from the old bakery at Å.
