History

During the last ice age the land was pushed below sea level but soon afterwards it began to rise. The upland areas were formed in the early stone age (approx. 3000–1500 BC), from which time the first indications of human life in the area can be traced. It is unlikely that any real settlements were established before the end of the iron age (500 BC–100 AD). The numerous channels and fjords in the area meant that fishing and seal hunting were probably important sources of sustenance. Sickla, Järla, Drevinge, Älta, Erstavik and the former sites of Söderby and Överby in the parish of Nacka, together with Boo, Lännersta and Rensättra in the parish of Boo, are farm estates which probably date back to the Viking age (800–1100 AD). Since farm estates of this kind usually consisted of some 10 or so people, it can be assumed that the Nacka area had some 100 inhabitants around this time.

Skurusundet and stäket

As far back as the 13th century there was a navigation channel to Stockholm through Baggensstäket, through the sound Skurusundet and past the islet Sveriges holme). Up until the end of the 17th century, this channel was one of the most important sea approaches to the capital.

In 1719 the Russians crossed the Baltic on the orders of Peter the Great. Their mission was to burn and destroy, in revenge for the fact that Sweden was unwilling to sign a peace treaty after the Swedish King Karl XII’s war in Russia. Having burnt down major areas of the Stockholm archipelago, the Russians attempted to pass through Stäket and into the capital itself. They were stopped from doing so by Colonel Baltzar van Dahlheim and his troops at the so called battle of Stäket. A monument bearing the inscription ”With God to victory” was erected to commemorate the event in 1905 at Skogsö.

In winter there was a thoroughfare from the archipelago and Värmdö across the ice in Lännerstasundet to the bay Duvnäsviken, then across the lakes Järlasjön and Sicklasjön to the winter customs post at Södermalm in Stockholm.

During the Great Power period of the 17th century there was a serious attempt to organise the road systems with the erection of milestones to indicate distances. The road from Stockholm to Värmdö passed via Danvikstull and across the island Sicklaön up to Skurusundet, where there was a ferry connection up until 1832 when it was replaced by a pontoon bridge. The road continued over the Björknäs estate, past the Mensättra and Ramsmora estates, after which it turned down towards Kil and then south east towards Gustavsberg. Some parts of this earliest road remain. In the Birka area it is known as Gamla Värmdövägen, in Ektorp as Gamla landsvägen and in Skuru as Solsundavägen. In the Erstavik area there are still major stretches of the 18th century road intact.

Farms and estates

The present day municipality of Nacka was somewhat sparsely populated, dominated by a few farms and estates. The majority of the inhabitants supported themselves by agriculture, with fishing as a secondary occupation. At the beginning of the 17th century the community consisted mainly of isolated tenant farms and cottages belonging to one or other of the major landowners: Danviken’s Hospital, Erstavik Manor or the Velamsund, Kummelnäs or Boo estates. There were very few owner-farmers.

In the 17th century the military was reorganised and the estates were formed into administrative groups with each group responsible for supporting and equipping a soldier or sailor who was to be provided with a cottage. 

Forges and mills

In the 1550s, King Gustav Vasa established a hammer forge next to the river Nacka Ström, which runs via three waterfalls between Dammtorpsjön and Järlasjön. Hydro-power gave rise to a number of factories and mills for a wide variety products including brass, paper, felt, gunpowder and flour.

There were many mills in the Nacka area: at The coat of arms of the municipality of Nacka: a mill wheel symbolising Nacka’s traditional mills. Danviken, right next to the present-day canal Danvikskanalen, a flour mill was founded in 1543 which remained in use until 1900, and salt mills at Vikdalen and Duvnäs. One of the archipelago’s largest flour mills was at Erstavik, used by many of the local farmers. It was closed down in the 1870s. The Fösa mill on the Velamsund estate closed at the start of the 19th century, but was replaced by the ”English” mill near Rörsundsviken.

Towards the end of the 19th century the water mills succumbed to competition from the larger steam-powered industrial mills.

When the municipality of Nacka was formed, the coat of arms of the old town of Nacka was adopted by the municipality. It features a mill wheel in blue and silver, symbolising the early industrial use of hydropower and Nacka’s traditional mills.

Churches and parishes

At the beginning of the 16th century the inhabitants of Sicklaön belonged to the parish of Brännkyrka and had a long journey in order to attend a church service. But by the middle of the century Danvikens’ hospital and chapel were completed, providing a place of worship closer to hand.

In 1642 the inhabitants in the vicinity of Nacka mill, next to Nacka Ström, formed their own parish and built Nacka chapel. One hundred years later the chapel was replaced by a new building which still remains. In Erstavik a chapel parish was also founded in the 1640s, using one of the wings of the mill building as its church. In 1723 this was replaced by the chapel which we see today. In 1867 the parishes of Danviken / Sicklaön, Erstavik and Nacka were merged to form the parish of Nacka. Five years later, the brick church of Nacka was built in the historical-romantic style. The parish of Boo, which had formerly belonged to Värmdö, made use of a chapel in the Calico print from Stora Sickla, 19th century. Boo manor house. However, in 1923 they formed their own parish and built a new church in Sågtorp.

Minor industries

In the first half of the 17th century, the first of several minor industries came to the Danvik area. In 1647 the Dutchman Johan van Swindern was granted permission to establish a pitch factory on the northern shore of Sicklaön next to the present-day Svindersvik.

He gave his name to the spot and to the small bay, formerly known as Finnsviken. It is uncertain as to whether he actually did set up a pitch factory there, but we do know that he established one in the vicinity of present-day Finnboda shipyard. In the 1720s the so-called ”new pitch mill” was founded on the northern shore of Svindersviken.

In 1727 a calico printing works was set up at the Stora Sickla estate. One of its founders was Jonas Alströmer. The factory comprised a dye works, printing shop and stores together with housing for the workers. The calico printing works closed shortly after 1841, and unfortunately nothing remains of its buildings. Only fragments remain of the early industries which prospered in Nacka in the middle of the 18th century. At the Duvnäs estate there was a locksmiths’ forge and nail factory. In 1736 a glassworks which produced bottles, glass and mirror glass was founded at Björknäs, next the present-day Lilla Björknäsvägen. When the glassworks closed 5 down, the ydro-power equipment was used to run a fabric and felt mill. Later on there was also a paper mill and chamois leather factory. Between 1827 and 1851 there was a vinegar factory at the Kummelnäs estate, the buildings of which can still be seen.

Summer residences

Since the 17th century the wealthy citizens and noble families of Stockholm had maintained summer residences outside the city centre. Svindersvik was built in the 1740s for Claes Grill, director of the East India Company. The building was designed by the architect Carl Hårleman in the contemporary French style. Today the building is owned by the Nordic Museum and is open to the public during the
summer months. In the middle of the 18th century the main building of Stora Nyckelviken was opened for another director of the East India Company, Herman Petersen. Stora and Lilla Nyckelviken were used as summer residences up until the 1930s. The famous singer Jenny Lind spent two summers there during the 1860s. Today, the Nacka arts and crafts museum can be found in one of the wings, probably the oldest part of the building.

In the middle of the 19th century, land ownership in Nacka was changed in that the major estates which formerly belonged to Danviken’s hospital, Erstavik, Boo and Velmsund were divided up into the tenant estates of Stora Sickla, Järla, Duvnäs, Skuru, Stora and Lilla Nyckelviken, Stora and Lilla Björknäs, Eknäs, Tollare, Lännersta, Bäckeböl and Kil. At the Boo manor drawn by its owner Nicodemus Tessin the younger, 1720s. end of the 19th century these were divided in turn into land for summer houses and all-year round and industrial buildings. In time it become more common for people from the lower classes to have summer houses, and many cottages and cabins were built in parts of Lännersta, Boo, Lilla Björknäs, Eriksvik and Insjön.

Transport and communications

Steam boat traffic played an important part in Nacka’s development. It meant that the city dwellers could travel quickly and easily to their
summer houses in the archipelago. There were no fewer than a hundred mooring places for steam boats along the shoreline at Skurusundet and Ormingelandet.

One of the first such voyages through Skurusundet was made by the Interior at Saltsjöqvarn, 1890s. large mill wheel in the foreground paddle steamer ”Drottningholm” on 26 May 1839. The boat went to Gustavsberg, landing at the Skuru jetty and Duvnäs holme. Two years later, regular boat traffic with the paddle steamer ”Gustafsberg” was established.

Saltsjöbanan

In 1891 the Stockholm-Saltsjön railway company was founded. Two years later the Saltsjöbanan was opened, shortening travelling times and turning Saltsjöbaden into a popular day-trip and bathing resort. A number of residential areas grew up along the railway line -
Storängen in 1904 and Saltsjö-Duvnäs in 1907, and a number of industries were established in the area.

Industrial expansion

Industrial expansion was underway by the 1880s. Many industries moved out from Stockholm to cheaper and more spacious plots outside the city boundaries. Starting in 1874, a mixed group of factories and workers’ quarters grew up at Finnboda and Henriksborg, the first industrial areas outside the city toll-gates. In 1890 the steam driven industrial mill AB Saltsjöqvarn was commissioned, with its excellent position for transport at the entrance to Stockholm. For the same reasons the Tre Kronor milling company decided to place its mill at Hästholmen (the present-day Kvarnholmen). None of these mills still operate today.

Around the turn of the century, two industrial areas grew up on the Stora Sickla and Järla estates. In 1898 AB Diesel Motorer started its factory in Sickla, merging together with Nya Atlas ten years later. In 1956 the company changed its name to Atlas Copco, its factory remaining in the area until 1990, when the company moved everything except its head office. Today, the former factory area is the home to the Sickla Stormarknad shopping centre.

Other industries in the Sickla area were AB Kåbergs wallpaper factory, Bageriidkarna’s Jäst (yeast) AB, and J V Svensson’s engine factory, founded on the northern shore of Sicklaön at Augustendal, the present-day Nacka Strand. On the land of the Järla estate, AB de Laval opened its steam turbine factory in 1896. It was expanded a number of times before the Employees at AB Diesel Motorer, later Atlas Copco, circa 1900.

Finntorp’s square looking east, 1958. The library now occupies the site of the older houses. Stockholm–Skuru bus crossing the bridge Skurubron in the 1920s. company moved to Finspång in 1964. Several of the older buildings still remain.

Residental areas

In 1890 the Nacka area was home to some 2,000 people, 200 horses and almost 1,000 cattle. Around 400 people were employed in its factories, the majority of whom lived in Stockholm. In 1905 a state home ownership fund was founded, giving workers and office staff the opportunity to acquire their own homes outside the city.

The following residential areas were established in Nacka: Skuru (1900), Älta (1905), Björknäs, Kummelnäs and Lännersta (1920), Nysätra (1923), Hästhagen (1925) and Lillängen (1937). A high bridge, completed in 1915, was built over Skurusundet, supplemented by a further road in 1957.
But as early as the 1920s people Workshop at Atlas Copco, 1966. living in the area were able to enjoy improved transport through the start-up of bus traffic on Sicklaön, and Ormingelandet, and from Älta to Enskede.
Towards the end of the 1940’s, building in Nacka was still dominated by single family houses. Blocks of flats were only built in Ektorp and on Kvarnholmen.

By the end of the 1920s the new functionalist notions of house building had arrived in Sweden, achieving a breakthrough following the Stockholm Exhibition of 1930. In Nacka, both single family houses and blocks of flats were built in the functional style. The cooperative movement built houses in the new style on Kvarnholmen: they were light, airy, easy to maintain and equipped to a high modern standard.

In the 1950s the number of areas with blocks of flats in Nacka increased: Talliden, west Finntorp, Tallbacken and Saltängsområdet. The population of Nacka, Boo and Saltsjöbaden had grown to around 23,000, with the number of horses falling to 11 and cattle to 150. Some 5,000 people worked in Nacka’s factories, of whom

half lived in Stockholm. Several major residential areas grew up in the 1960s and 70s: Alphyddan, Ekudden, east Finntorp, west Ektorp, Stensö and west Orminge from the 1960s, and Henriksdal, Fisksätra and east Orminge from the 1970s. In the 1980s new blocks of flats were built in Björknäs. In 1990 the Jarlaberg residential and industrial area was opened, and a number of companies have established themselves on the old industrial sites of Nacka Strand. Currently, in the 1990s, some 72,000 people live in Nacka, with only a very small number of horses and cattle remaining. Instead of factories, Nacka has office blocks and business centres. There are around 22,000 jobs in the area, of which one tenth are in manufacturing industry. Agriculture, forestry and fishing, formerly so important in the area, currently employ a mere 60 people.

Further reading:

Hammarlund-Larsson, Cecilia.
Kulturhistoriska miljöer, Nacka kommun, 1987.
Sillén, Gunnar
Vad vi ville med livet, Nacka kommun, 1997.
Photography:
Informationsgruppen, Nacka kommun.
Local history archives, Nacka kommun.
Stockholm City Museum.