Gästgivarehagen

Open-air museum in Vimmerby with some fifteen houses from the 18th and 19th centuries, including a toll house, a pottery and a fire brigade museum.

Opening hours unknownFree admission

Directions

About the museum

Gästgivarehagen lies on the southern outskirts of Vimmerby, on the old pasture land that the town's coaching inn once used. The history of the open-air museum began in 1927, when Östra Tullstugan (the eastern toll house) in the town centre was taken down and rebuilt as the area's first museum building. Afterwards more old houses were moved here from the surroundings of Vimmerby.

The result is a park-like open-air museum with some fifteen buildings from the 18th and 19th centuries, divided into a small-town section around a paved square and a section with rural buildings. In Östra Tullstugan there are various exhibitions, including a collection of old apothecary bottles, a tailor's workshop, and older office machines, telephones and cameras. The site also has a small horizontal water mill, a large water-powered planing mill, a storehouse, an old pottery, the main building of a former glassworks and a small fire brigade museum. Together the houses hold more than 4,000 objects, and admission is free.

Next to the museum lie two large Viking Age burial grounds with about 300 graves from the 10th and 11th centuries, one of the largest in Kalmar County. About half of the graves were excavated at the turn of the previous century, and the finds are now shown at Stadsmuseet Näktergalen (Näktergalen City Museum).

Highlights

Östra Tullstugan with a tailor's workshop and apothecary bottles
Horizontal water mill and water-powered planing mill
Old pottery and glassworks building
Small fire brigade museum
Viking Age burial ground with about 300 graves next to the museum

Permanent exhibition

Östra Tullstugan och småstadsdelen – In the toll house and the nearby houses there are apothecary bottles, a tailor's workshop, and older office machines, telephones and cameras.

Founded: 1927