Croft and cottage

The crofter farms a small patch of land belonging to a larger farm. The rent is paid in days of labour. The system is old – crofts in this sense exist as early as the Middle Ages.

In the 16th century the Crown encourages new crofts on common land. In the 17th century another kind grows up on the nobility's manors: tax-free crofts, where the crofter works for the estate. In the 18th and 19th centuries they become the most common kind.

Then it explodes. The population grows, and free land runs out. The number of crofters rises fast in the early 19th century and peaks around 1860. New crofts are cleared ever deeper into the forest.

Below the crofter there are others. The cottager – backstugusittare – has no land at all and lives in a small cottage. The statare are paid in food and fuel – "stat" – on the great estates. Cottages multiply from the mid-18th century.

The house itself is small. Usually a single log cottage with a porch, kitchen and chamber, a byre and perhaps a root cellar.

Then the crofts begin to empty. The enclosure reform of 1827 breaks up the villages, and many crofters lose their living. Industry and emigration beckon. From the 1870s the crofters grow fewer. The croft system is finally abolished in 1943 – the statare system two years later.

The crofts are abandoned. The fields are planted with spruce. The houses are torn down, moved – or become summer cottages.

The red cottage with white corners has become a national symbol. But really it tells of the poorest in the countryside.

Swedish vernacular. The croft is part of vernacular culture – but it is the home of the landless, not of the farm.