Bench of the week (17)

This week's bench can be be viewed in various contexts - a mixture of public and personal aspects. As you can see it is marked ULEFOS. This means that it comes from Ulefos Jernværk (iron works). This was founded in 1657 and is one of the oldest industrial works still operating in Europe. They are perhaps most famous for there ovens, but as you can see they also make benches.

However, this is a fairly common park bench in Norway, and I have probably shown one of these before. What is special with this one is the place I found it: In a small churchyard.

This is Askvik kapell (Askvik "chapel"), a small chapel with its own cemetery. The cemetery is from 1896, but a chapel was initially built in 1918 and consecrated in 1926. A new church with a new cemetery was built elsewhere in the '90s. The old chapel was allowed to deteriorate by the authorities, but a local committee raised the funding for the necessary repairs in time for the 80 years jubilee in August 2006.

And the personal aspect? Many members of my family lies buried here.


My own interest in benches stems from the site published by PERBS and Kerri and the site published by Malyss. Also, others have shown an interest in the subject, so I have started to take photos of benches when I "stumble" across one. I have not made this into a meme, but if anyone else would like to join me in publishing benches on Fridays, they are of course welcome to do so. Give me a hint and I'll come visiting - summer permitting :-)