house of the pulley-block maker ~ blockmakarens hus (i)

..:: södermalm, stockholm ::..

"Blockmakarens hus", the house of the pulley-block maker is named after the profession of Gustaf Andersson who once lived in its upper apartment at Stigbergsgatan 21.

It is build on a mountain called Stigberg. During the fifteen and sixteen hundreds this mountain was known as Galgberget, the mountain of gallows. From far away -even from the ships that entered Stockholm during the medieval times- one could see the convicts hanging at these gallows on top of this mountain in order to send out a warning signal that one shouldn't commit any crimes in Stockholm... Or else...
The housing area's former name Justitia still reminds of the existence of the gallows in older times...

Though the house is build during the seventeen hundreds, I would like to start its history in 1875 when a man called Gustaf Andersson moved into this house. He was a man of crafts and made pulley-blocks. Do not forget to set your mind back a few centuries, to a time in which there was a great need for pulley systems used on for instance ships to mount the sails...

...Thus rented Gustaf this room and shared the kitchen with the owner of the house. Later he got married with the owner's daughter Anna Catarina and lived with their two sons in the upper apartment of the house. To understand how small their housing facilities actually were, one really has to visit "House of the Pulley-blocks Maker".

There you will find this room at the upper level with its window adjacent to the street level. This picture represents a corner of Gustaf's workshop and is in fact also the room in which he slept.