Say Bohuslän and you mean a lot of things. Most people probably associate Bohuslän with the sea, rocks and mountains, and the small coastal villages with their quaysides and jetties. But consider the idea that all this was the basis for – or result of – large-scale industry.
This picture – used for the jigsaw puzzle but seen in other contexts too – is an imaginative illustration of a cultural landscape shaped by the granite industry and the social changes resulting from this industry. Bohuslän was never the same after the sound of the stonemasons’ hammers had died away. This industrial era, lasting approximately a hundred years, has made a significant impact on the landscape leaving a multitude of remains, stories, pictures and memories still echoing over the rocks.
The texts in the booklet are linked to the motifs in this picture of the Granite Coast. Here, you can find accounts about, for example, the workers movement and the start of the democratization of Sweden, the women who knitted to earn her salary or the stonemason at his trimming barrel. Other stories are about cargo boats shipping stone and supplies, monumental quarries and scrap stones left behind in small quarries among the rocks, as well as dancing people and the artistic work still going on in quarries along the Granite Coast.
We would like to thank all the people and associations who have contributed to our version of the culture history of granite!
Bohuslän February 2026
Karin Askberger och Lisa Börjesson Liljas
The beginning of small-scale quarrying along the Bohuslän coast
The granite industry started around the middle of the nineteenth century when it was found that the Bohuslän granite was a suitable building material for infrastructural projects and development in Sweden.
Small-scale quarries were the earliest form of organised industrial quarrying, where the final product was cut and trimmed at the same place as the stone was quarried. This work required skilled craftmanship but few resources: stonemasons, tools and good quality rock. A great amount of knowledge was involved in ‘reading’ the rock – understanding how to control the splitting of rock – and of knowing the quality of the rock. It is said that an experienced stonemason could determine whether the rock was good enough by listening to the resonance of metal struck against the rock. A voice from former days explains: ‘When you start, you want a slab lying so as to be free on two sides. Then you can begin wedging.’
The rock was split by striking a row of wedges along the line where you wanted it to break. The slab of stone was then knocked out of the rock or blasted with gun powder. ‘You had to split it with the splitting hammer, and break it up to get a good blank, then onto the trimming barrel for dressing it’. The blank was dressed using hammer and chisel to make the finished product, usually paving stones – setts.
The work method was considered to be freer than other industry work. ‘You blasted the stone to work with yourself and managed as best you could’, as one voice from earlier days stated. The stonemason was paid for each produced and approved sett stone. This meant that the working hours and work tempo could be suited according to the strength of the worker – if you wanted a reasonable salary, you usually had to do an unreasonable amount of work.
What was the granite used for?
Stone for town infrastructure was the most common type of products during the early days of the stone epoch; besides small and large paving stones, kerbstones were produced as well, to keep paved surfaces in place. Whichever town you visit, you will probably walk on paving laid in a variety of patterns. Even main roads were paved with stones. Just to the south of Ljungskile in southern Bohuslän, a section of the old main road, Rikstvåan, has been listed as protected national heritage. There, you can relive the feeling of a car ride on a paved road.
The Bohuslän granite originated from substance deep down in the bedrock that was subject to powerful collisions. It was kneaded by fire and ice before it finally became rock. The Bohuslän belt of granite runs from Gullmarsfjorden and the town Lysekil in the south to Idefjorden along the border to Norway in the north.
An intricate system of cracks was created in the interior of this rock, making the Bohuslän granite easy to split into blanks with right angles.
The variegated colouring of the granite, ranging from grey to red, made it attractive. This can be seen in the old Svinesund bridge over Idefjorden in the top left-hand side of the picture. The bridge was built as part of a relief-work scheme for unemployed workers, and so the stone was ordered from many different quarries, which can be seen in the colour nuances of the stone. The bridge is built of stone from several places in northern Bohuslän.
The Bohuslän granite is moreover suitable for artisan stone masonry: gravestones, statues and architectural details. In the bottom left-hand corner of the picture, you can see a few of the 700 balustrade posts that were produced for the roof of the Swedish parliament. These can still be seen almost every day on the television news programmes.
Women and children – workers in the stone industry communities
Women’s work commonly reached beyond the confines of home and housework, but wasseldom seen as qualified work. However, their work was demanding and crucial for society. With a husband out working for a salary, the wife had to transform that salary into food and warmth for the family. Furthermore, when needed, she had to find ways to supplement the income. Often, women had an income from offering board and lodging for stonemasons who did not have a home and wife of their own nearby. The women in the picture can be seen knitting for the project “Bohus Knitting”, which provided extra income. Bohus knitting was started in 1930 with the aim to create job opportunities for the women in the stone quarrying districts of Bohuslän. Many women gave birth every other year. The children became part of the work force at an early age: working in the quarries, gathering firewood, looking after small children, cooking and handicraft. Bohuslän had no forests and firewood was expensive. Peat and heather were gathered to heat cottages and baking-ovens. A voice from earlier days remembers: ‘the winter was long with a lot of baking going on, large families with many mouths to feed, so the women certainly had to work to make ends meet’.
Thriftiness when it came to keeping clothes in order was valuable. The work of sewing circles that were started was important indeed in these rural areas, and in the days when state welfare systems were not yet common. Warm clothes were knitted for those who could neither afford them nor knit themselves; or for stonemasons with hands that were frozen stiff. ‘It was a constant job for women to knit, sew and line gloves. Probably, thousands and thousands of pairs were made by stonemasons’ wives for their husbands and sons’.
Proceeds from knitting could also be used for anything that might be useful in society. Sewing circles were initiated in many villages; one was “Ljus” (Light) in Ulebergshamn, specifically started to ‘sew for street lighting’. In the picture, this is represented by lined gloves and the only streetlamp left in Ulebergshamn from those days.
Infrastructure of the granite industry
The stone industry was dependent on good quality rock, but also the means of transporting the final products. At the turn of the century 1900, the west coast of Sweden was in part roadless land – not counting sea transport.
To get to their workplaces, the stonemasons often had to walk over rough terrain, or on paths and roads. Manpower for wheelbarrows, along with horses and carts, were used when transporting stone within the quarries and to the port. Sometimes roads, and networks of roads, were made of scrap stone; grooves were cut into smooth rocks to help the horses keep their footing. In larger quarries, slabs of stone were split off from the rock, lifted with cranes and transported along railways or overhead conveyor systems.
Wharfs were constructed close to the quarries for shipping stone. Lahälla – lasthällen, Swedish for ‘rock for loading’ – is a name indicating suitability for loading large ships. When the railway line, Bohusbanan, running through the inner parts of Bohuslän, was opened in 1903, granite quarries were soon started even in the inland of Bohuslän. Between the stations, smaller loading platforms were constructed near rocks that were possible to quarry. Such a loading platform, with a siding for stone wagons, was built just north of Hällevadsholm where the railway runs through the mountain Klevberget. The stone was brought to the railway by horses and carts from the neighbouring farms. In several of the coastal villages in Bohuslän, main roads were not constructed until the 1930s. Some of these roads were constructed as relief work for unemployed stone workers; several of the roads were paved with granite paving stones. When the inland and the coast were connected, stone from the inland quarries could be transported by lorry to the railway or to the ports.
Democracy takes root – women speaking in public
‘Please keep calm, gentlemen’, Kata Dalström cried when she stepped onto the platform to speak. She was a well-known social democrat agitator who travelled around the stone industry districts and campaigned for class struggle and universal suffrage – for both women and men. In the picture, she is seen at a lectern. For a woman to speak in public was unthinkable before democracy had taken root in Sweden.
Speaking in public was the domain of the men, but Kata Dalström triumphed at the rostrums of the country. On 29 th May 1914, it was Krokstrand’s turn; men and women bought tickets to listen. Probably, Charlotta, Ottilia, Beda, Elida, Maria, Serafia, Margit, Olivia and Maja-Stina were there; all the women who were pioneer voters later, in 1921, when universal suffrage came into effect in Sweden. In earlier days, voting was unequal. Rich people could have up to 40 votes while poor people who could not afford to pay tax, did not have the right to vote. N S Beer, the magnate of the stone industry in Krokstrand, had 40 times more influence in society than stonemason Alfred Karlsson, who had one vote. The majority of stonemasons in Krokstrand could not vote at all. They had bought food for the money they should have saved for the tax collector.
In many places, the stonemasons built their own “Folkets hus”, a collectively owned house where the stoneworkers would be able, without disturbance, to express their opinions about social injustices. Otherwise, if anybody criticised the system openly, they might be taken to prison. The yellow People’s House in Krokstrand is Bohuslän’s oldest still standing “Folkets hus”. It was built in 1902; the speaker’s lectern is still in use.
Large-scale industrial quarries
Increased demand for granite products meant a greater number of companies starting up. Larger orders that were more specialised, required a more efficient granite industry. More stone had to be quarried from the same site.
Large-scale quarries were the answer to this. At large industrial quarries, slabs of rock were cut out of the mountain and then transported to specific workshops for trimming the stones. Usually, these workshops were located closer to the storage places and harbours. Skilled craftmanship was still needed for the actual masonry work, advancements that were made, mainly affected the quarrying methods. One stonemason described the restructuring of the work in the following way. ‘The companies started up large-scale quarries because of all the scrap stone in the mountains. There they could bring out large raw slabs of rock and make better use of the stone.’ The development of the industry generated new types of tools, methods and professions, such as pneumatic air, conveyor systems and crane operators. A further industrial development for standardising, and making production more efficient, was factories with machines for splitting sett stones. The large-scale industrialisation often provided better work conditions, but the work was still dangerous and physically strenuous. A stonemason in Ramsvik, Lyse, remembers that he appreciated the change from piecework at a small quarry to working at the large-scale quarry with a ten-hour workday, two hour-long breaks for food and a monthly salary paid out in advance. What was most prominent in the transition to large-scale industrial quarrying was the transformation of the landscape. Monumental quarries expanded and workers’ houses were constructed nearby, a greater number of cottages were built by the workers themselves, and stonemasons’ villages were established.
The growth of the labour movement – democracy and self-determination
It is understandable that the women’s voices for political involvement were heard in Krokstrand. In retrospect, it can be seen that the early industry and its workers were pioneers when it came to democratisation and organising themselves.
In the 1880s the first steps towards organising trade unions were taken by stonemasons in Bohuslän. In 1896, Skandinaviska Stenhuggarförbundet (the Scandinavian Stonemason’s Association) was founded in Denmark, ‘(…) to build an association with the purpose of enhancing the economic and moral standard of workers in society, and to initiate a health insurance fund.’ Soon after that, the Swedish trade union was founded and members joined; several subdivisions were started in the industrial stone districts of Bohuslän.
The trade union was administered nationally and connected to the national Social Democrat trade union LO. Many of the stone labourers had ideas that were more radical and a desire for a local organisation.
After a general strike in the first years of the century when the stone labourers felt that the national organisation had not listened to them, the first syndicalist trade union, SAC, was formed in 1910, based in the stone-industrial villages of Bohuslän. One stonemason remembers when the stonemason’s association in Ejde, Hamburgsund, left the trade union and started Ejde local confederation. They continued with the same minute book and the same flag – all the members were the same, just in a different organisation. There were several strikes during the industrial era. Carvings on a rock in the centre of the village Sannäs depict the struggle for higher payment for paving stones. The Vinbräcka conflict was a sympathy strike; this was one of the incidents when military forces used live ammunition against civilians. The transport workers’ trade union was on strike and the stonemasons gathered on the wharf where cargo ships were moored. Both the gunboat Skäggald that was in service at Vinbräcka and the carving in Sannäs can be seen in the picture of the jigsaw puzzle. Both these conflicts illustrate the solidaric spirit of the industrial society. This was also the spirit in which the development of social welfare came about.
Mobility – cultural exchange and communication of knowledge
In the middle of the picture, you can see a smiling man lifting a Portuguese bell hammer. This is Rollo. His story illustrates the cultural mobility that has shaped the stone industry communities in Bohuslän. Stonemasons and blacksmiths were mobile people and an influence on customs in the places they came to. People from all over the country worked alongside locals from Bohuslän in the quarries. Even locally, people moved between quarries. There would be space enough for their few belongings on a simple horse-drawn cart. The songs they brought along with them portray the eternal longing for something different, something better. As the song goes, ‘I was born in Småland you know, and my father was named Sven’. It continues with him working in Spain, India, China and California, and it ends, ‘but now I’m back here in Krokstrand again’. The skills of experienced stonemasons were sought after, and exchange of knowledge occurred when people met. As for example the immigration of Portuguese stonemasons. There was an increased demand for stone during the extensive development of society and construction work that was carried out in the 1960s. However, at that time there was a lack of skilled stonemasons. The company AK Fernström went to Portugal and recruited proficient stonemasons for the company’s quarries in Bohuslän. First the men came – and increased productivity in the workshops of the stonemasons. Then their wives and children came. New spicy aromas wafted over the stone industry districts. The shops stocked up with sardines and olive oil, and the Portuguese children filled the schools that might otherwise have been shut down.
The local Bohuslän stonemasons laughed at the Portuguese bell hammer. ‘We thought they came to fight’. In the end, however, the ‘Portuguese’ was found to be better than the ordinary mallet. ‘You always hit the mark with it.’
A melting pot – popular movements in the stone industrial society
The increase in population with people moving in became a melting pot of old and new ideas, with different views on how the approaching societal changes should be carried out. The harsh landscape where the granite industry was established has not always had the capacity to feed its people. Living conditions in Bohuslän commonly involved hard work and poverty. A recollection from the past was when the kitchen water bucket froze to ice. ‘It was much the same for our neighbours. It made it easier to put up with when it was the same for everyone’.
Political thoughts were mixed with religious ideologies. Different sides might disagree, but conflict was not necessarily the governing force in society. In Spjövik, the temperance movement and the trade union held meetings in the same building – which was furthermore built by the company. As stated in this quotation: ‘We had an improvement of everything in mind, of thought, of action and of the whole human character. …In general, the socialist idea possessed a moral power that was hard to resist for those who were drinkers and delinquents.’ Before the granite industry, Bohuslän had seine crews (vadlag) – work parties for fishing – and communal harvesting in the farmwork. In the stone industry communities, poverty and a solidaric spirit enabled shared remedies for problems, and joint work. Moreover, communal workplaces for everyday chores were arranged. People’s Houses were founded in many of the villages – combining usefulness with pleasure. Courses were held for people to broaden their knowledge and perspectives. Libraries were opened. Cooperative grocery stores were started, and social associations and sewing circles were initiated.
The legacy of this society is probably more united than conflictual, with a common dream of the strife for an improved future – for all.
Cultural echoes following the historical stone era
You might be wondering about the multicoloured rocks at the top right-hand corner of the jigsaw puzzle. At the end of the 1970s, the stone epoch was over and the quarries were abandoned. Over the course of time, the echoing stone walls were filled with new magic, like here at the Sodom quarry in Lahälla. Culture replaced gunpowder. Music and theatre scenes were created at Stallebrottet on Bohus Malmön, and Scen på Bônn in Hamburgsund, with the worked stone surfaces as a backdrop. The ports were also attractive, like in Hunnebostrand where a stone sculpture park was established by the sea. If you ever visit Bottna, you can see the artists working in stone in the old buildings of the stone industry.
Further to the north, in Krokstrand, the stone industry epoch has been recollected through tango. The old village of the stonemasons has become renowned for its tango festivals. Large tents are put up on the wharfs and tango is danced in the quarries. Tango dancers travelled from Buenos Aires to dance on the Krokstrand granite; the fact is that the streets in their home cities are paved with granite from Bohuslän. The background to this is that ships, like MS Kronprinsessan Margareta, set out from Krokstrand with cargoes of paving stones and came back with novelties. You can imagine the crew after having unloaded the cargo in Buenos Aires going ashore for some leisure time. They end up in the emigrant quarters and encounter a dance they have never seen before – tango. A sailor buys an Argentinian accordion, and later, one evening by Idefjorden, he picks out the same passionate rhythms. The new tunes reverberate into the People’s House. Tango had come ashore in Sweden.