Just 5 minutes from Strømmen shopping mall in the middle of Strømmen you will find this hidden gem. It’s an old restored mill by the small river Sagelva. It feels like you are miles away from the city.
“Sagelva” can be translated to “Sawmill River”, indicating its historical association with sawmills and industrial activities. The river has played a role in supporting various industries over the years. Today, Sagelva and its surroundings are often valued for their natural and recreational aspects, and efforts has been made to preserve and enhance the environmental quality of the area.
There is a lot of industrial history along the Sagelva River in Strømmen. For several hundred years, there were mills, sawmills, and mills here. The Sagelvas Venner association has preserved much of this cultural heritage and developed the beautiful Sagstien along the river. At one of the falls, we find Mølleparken, where we have, among other things, Strømmenkverna, which was rebuilt in 2014.
The Losby watercourse had a record number of sawmills in our area. The sawmills were particularly concentrated in the lower part of the watercourse, which naturally became known as Sagelva through Strømmen to Nitelva.
The activities at Sagelva had an extent that can be difficult to fully understand today. The entire valley through today’s Sagdalen and Strømmen was densely packed with sawmills, timber yards, finished planks, and horse stables.
All the original sawmills have been lost, so Strømmensaga is a living museum that testifies to the industrial historical significance of Sagelva.
In Mølleparken, Sagelvas Venner has erected an up-and-down saw from the 1700s model and a village mill for grinding grain. Both the saw and the mill are powered solely by river water. Members of Sagelvas Venner work on a voluntary basis, operating the saw and mill, and are excellent communicators of local history.
In Mølleparken, both children and adults can see and learn how a timber log becomes paneling and how grain becomes flour.