City Walk in Eksjö
Welcome to a tour of Eksjö town. While strolling through the town, think of all the old town centres that have been demolished or modernized; you’ll realise that Eksjö is a spectacular exception to the rule. A total of 65% of the buildings in the town centre were constructed before the 20th century. The corresponding figure for the rest of Sweden is only 6%! This is one of the reasons as to why the Old Town of Eksjö was awarded a Europa Nostra Diploma in 1997: “For the remarkable renovation of this important ensemble of traditional wooden buildings which has given new life to the old town centre.”
Properties and squares The old streets, lanes and homesteads of Eksjö present a thriving exquisite historical environment. Eksjö’s medieval origins and unusually well-preserved buildings from the 17th century and onwards give credence to the epithet “the unique wooden town”. The centre of Eksjö comprises around 60 listed buildings, most of them located in the Old Town. The medieval town plan has been more or less maintained in an irregular small-scale and intimate grid. The concentration of wooden buildings is considered one of Sweden’s most well-preserved and treasured national cultural heritages.
In Arendt’s footsteps “Ekesiö” was situated about 500 metres southwest of the present church in the beginning of the 15th century. The original town was burned to the ground in 1568 during the Nordic seven-year war. When the king decided to rebuild the town, the Flemish master-builder Arendt de Roy was given the assignment. His work was done by the end of the 16th century.The street called Arendt Byggmästares gata allows a peek into the past 400 years of the town’s history. The names of streets and squares remind us of a number of old crafts, some we recognise, others no longer practiced: tanners, dyers, rope-makers, waxers, coppersmiths, barber-surgeons, blacksmiths, cordwainers…
For centuries the town’s coppersmiths were housed here. In the 17th century it was known as Nils Bijtare’s homestead; by the 1910s as Coppersmith Yard. Around ten years later, the property was taken over by Eksjö’s museum and folklore society and has b
Aschanska is of the town’s oldest estates. It consists of two lots; the south lot, Pukegården, is known from tax rolls from 1550. The Aschan family took over the present property in the 1830s and three generations lived here until 1984. They were part
If things had been different Krusagården could have been demolished and turned into a department store! There were plans for this after World War II. This was an important trading place in the 1770s thanks to its location by the town’s northern customs
