About us - history since 1783 | Sandnes Teglverk

More than 200 years ago, a man was walking along the banks of the Gands Fjord. He had wrapped his footcloths tightly under coarse boots; to cope with the sticky surface. He may have examined a piece of gray mold with a monocle before his eyes, perhaps he even took a piece in his mouth and chewed it, to hear if it crunched; that’s the best way to separate good clay from soil.

On April 28, 1782, Christiansborg Kongelige Residence Kiøbenhavn grants the man permission and an exclusive right to make bricks for the whole of Western Norway. Sandnes’ industrial history began here, on the slope down to Gandsfjorden. This man bore the name Lauritz Smith Pedersen and the place he inhabited became Sandnes Tag- og Mursteens-Fabrique, later popularly known as GamlaVærket; the first company in Sandnes’ long line of Norway’s leading brickworks industry.

With co-owners in amtmann, two futer, two priests and the sheriff of Høyland, Pedersen starts producing bricks. The clay mill was driven by a horse, all other work was done by hand. Within the walls of the factory, the kiln burned with peat from Stokkamyra and lit up the premises where the workers sweated for their food. Seven men in the pan team and six men in the brick team. Twelve seconds per brick for 70 hours a week had to be kept for a good chord. The first brick machine arrived in 1873.

When Tjøl Larsen Søiland took over in 1807, the company had already set the standard for the city’s industry. Later came several brickworks and a number of potteries. Barrels, chamber pots, spittoons and jars were produced in the brown-burnt clay and Sandnes became widely known for its bricks and pottery. The clay yoke, which spread to distant ports from Kirkenes to the Baltic Sea, became the very symbol of Sandnes’ greatness in clay and adorns the city’s coat of arms right into our own time. This makes it possible to see the entire region’s history going back 200 years at our own GamlaVærket Gjestgiveri & Tracteringssted.