Jæren

Jæren's coastal farms stood among fields, natural meadows, heath and bogs. At Grødaland, buildings from the early eighteenth to the early nineteenth century preserve a record of this rural landscape. Oats were an important crop; potatoes joined them from the end of the eighteenth century, and farms also kept cattle and sheep. Grødaland's low houses were arranged to resist northwesterly gales. Stone, turf and cladding protected their wooden walls from damp, while roofs were covered with turf or imported Dutch tiles.