Norrkoping: Arbetets museum and weirs
July 17th, 2011
Author’s note: I wrote this article and included the photographs to go with the post above entitled Sheffield: The Furnace Trail. In the summer of 1989 I was working on a general cargo ship called the Hudsongracht which made several port calls in Sweden of which one was Norrkoping. On a walk around town I came across this weir which took my breath away in both its size and force. I later visited the museum detailed below.
It has a parallel industrial history to the Northern towns of England and waterworks to match. I can still remember standing stunned in amazement at the force and grandeur of the water flowing over the weir at Norrkoping and have included a photograph of it below from Google Earth.
This fuzzy overhead photograph does not convey the overpowering sense of awe you experience standing on the bridge just to the North of it. It was mesmerising. At the time I did not have a camera with me and we sailed before I could return but it remains a powerful memory and the Kelham weir although less forceful is of a similar size.
From memory the building in the picture above to the left of the weir is the industrial museum and looks out on both sides over the weirs. Well worth a visit if you happen to be in Sweden.
https://www.arbetetsmuseum.se/index.php
