Lojsta Hall (SE)
The Lojsta area on Gotland is famous for its lakes. The Lojsta Slott Manor is taken care of by the Lojsta Slotts Hembygdsförening, founded 1921. They keep the area around Lojsta Slott open and available for outdoor activities.
Since 1921 Midsummer is celebrated in traditional ways. There are regular activities to preserve old crafts, like coalmining, building boats and old ways of constructing and maintaining houses. Many school classes start or end their semesters on Lojsta Slott with a outdoor camp.
Lojsta Hall is the oldest reconstructed Iron Age type house in Sweden, an important historical landmark on Gotland. It was built after the excavations in 1929 on the original site, near one of the Manor’s lakes. It dates to about 400 AD and is a typical longhouse with both people and their livestock living under one roof. It was probably inhabited for about 300 years before it got abandoned like many other Iron Age sites at the same time. In those days, it was easy to travel from Lojsta to the Baltic Sea and trade goods. The roof is thatched with Great Fen-Sedge (Cladium mariscus), a plant which is common to the local moors.