Looking down

Last summer, when I came here for three weeks, I visited a small town, north of Stockholm, called Tierp. It’s between Uppsala and Gävle and is a sleepy, quiet place with everything you’d need to live. I had been sent there to check it out. While I liked it very much, unfortunately, it was a bit too sleepy for us so, as a place to live, it has been crossed off the list.

I was reminded of my short time in Tierp the other day when I accidentally spotted a manhole cover. I should explain that I tend to spend a lot of time looking down in order to avoid trip hazards. It’s not like I’m obsessed with manhole covers. Though I did write about them when I discovered a Farnham ironmonger who made manhole covers. Again, it was because I was looking down, that time in Castle Street.

This time, I was looking down in Mellanvägen, on my way to the Coop when I spotted this:

It turns out that Tierp is famous for them. They boast that if you look down in most of the streets in Sweden, you’ll see the town name.

They are manufactured at Tierp Järnbruk (Tierp Ironworks), which started life as a repair shop for agricultural tools in 1894. A chap called August Stenborg started it.

Stenborg successfully applied for a patent for a feather harrow in 1896. This won him a silver medal at the Stockholm Exhibition of 1897. He went from strength to strength and, eventually, the foundry (built by 1907) started manufacturing manhole covers in the 1920’s. Very soon, they represented around 65% of its output.

The original foundry burned down in 1948 and was rebuilt at Parkgatan, Tierp. On one of my walks, I went quite close to it and had no idea.

The business has been taken over and merged with various companies over the years. Then, in 1970, it was taken over by Atlas Copco. It still manufactures agricultural equipment. And, I assume, manhole covers.