Sto­ne-wor­king can be tra­ced back to the 11th cen­tu­ry on Kin­ne­kul­le. The regi­on attrac­ted skil­led crafts­men from an ear­ly date.

Evi­dence of this can be seen in the many sand­sto­ne chur­ches dating from the 12th and 13th cen­tu­ri­es. Sto­ne-wor­king remai­ned a craft skill until the mid-19th cen­tu­ry, when mecha­ni­sa­tion began taking over. Råbäcks Meka­nis­ka Sten­hug­ge­ri was a sto­ne-wor­king busi­ness foun­ded by Carl Klingspor in 1888. Its main pro­ducts were buil­ding mate­ri­als cut from red and grey limestone.

The­se inclu­ded stair­ways, flo­o­ring, win­dow­sills, fri­e­zes and por­tals, as well as tomb­sto­nes, feed troug­hs, gar­den sto­ne and much more. Around the turn of the cen­tu­ry 45–50 peop­le worked here, half of them in the quar­ry, and it is qui­te easy to ima­gi­ne the pla­ce bust­ling with life and acti­vi­ty. As recent­ly as the mid-1960s around 10 sto­ne­ma­sons were still employed in the workshops.

Demand then fell off and the busi­ness clo­sed down in 1970. Thir­teen years later, in 1983, the sto­neworks beca­me an indust­ri­al heri­tage muse­um and the old works­hops with their ori­gi­nal machi­ne­ry were given lis­ted buil­ding sta­tus in 1983. Alto­get­her the sto­neworks has a very com­pre­hen­si­ve range of machinery.

Hit­ta Hit