Herräng () is the northernmost

locality Locality may refer to: * Locality (association), an association of community regeneration organizations in England * Locality (linguistics) * Locality (settlement) * Suburbs and localities (Australia), in which a locality is a geographic subdivis ...

Norrtälje Municipality Norrtälje Municipality (''Norrtälje kommun'') is a municipality in Stockholm County in east central Sweden. Its seat is located in the city of Norrtälje. It is the largest and northernmost municipality of Stockholm County and was created in 19 ...

Stockholm County Stockholm County ( sv, Stockholms län, link=no ) is a county or '' län'' (in Swedish) on the Baltic Sea coast of Sweden. It borders Uppsala County and Södermanland County. It also borders Mälaren and the Baltic Sea. The city of Stockholm ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

, with 422 inhabitants in 2010. It is located 40 kilometres north of the municipal seat

Norrtälje Norrtälje is a locality and the seat of Norrtälje Municipality, Stockholm County, Sweden with 17,275 inhabitants in 2010. It is one of the largest towns in Roslagen. History Norrtälje’s early history dates back to the Iron Age. Around 225 ...

along the coast of Singöfjärden, a bay on

Roslagen Roslagen is the name of the coastal areas of Uppland province in Sweden, which also constitutes the northern part of the Stockholm archipelago. Historically, it was the name for all the coastal areas of the Baltic Sea, including the eastern par ...

. The town has a history of industry and

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic via ...

. Today it is known mainly for being the site of one of the largest

lindy hop The Lindy Hop is an American dance which was born in the Black communities of Harlem, New York City, in 1928 and has evolved since then. It was very popular during the swing era of the late 1930s and early 1940s. Lindy is a fusion of many danc ...

dance camps in the world, the

Herräng Dance Camp Herräng Dance Camp (commonly abbreviated HDC, officially Herräng Dance Camp Aktiebolag) is the largest annual dance camp that focuses on Lindy Hop, boogie woogie, Tap dance, jazz dance, and balboa. It is held for 5 weeks annually from late J ...

Industrial history

Herräng and the area with ore findings that the town is situated close to, ''Herrängsfältet'' is the biggest mining area within Stockholm County.

Iron ore Iron ores are rocks and minerals from which metallic iron can be economically extracted. The ores are usually rich in iron oxides and vary in color from dark grey, bright yellow, or deep purple to rusty red. The iron is usually found in the fo ...

has been mined in Herräng since the late 16th century. The place was then known as ''Kuggvass'', and one interpretation of the name is that cogs from the

Hanseatic League The Hanseatic League (; gml, Hanse, , ; german: label=Modern German, Deutsche Hanse) was a medieval commercial and defensive confederation of merchant guilds and market towns in Central and Northern Europe. Growing from a few North German to ...

used to land at the place. The mines were situated by the coast, without any source of

water power Hydropower (from el, ὕδωρ, "water"), also known as water power, is the use of falling or fast-running water to produce electricity or to power machines. This is achieved by converting the gravitational potential or kinetic energy of a wa ...

to pump water from the mine, which kept the mining activities at a low level. In 1753, a stream further away south of the bay Bredsundsviken was used. The power was transported to the mine ''Lappgruvan'' with a mechanical device known as the

Flatrod system {{Short description, Invention The flatrod system (german: italic=yes, Kunstgestänge, Stangenkunst, Stangenwerk, or ''Stangenleitung''; sv, italic=yes, Konstgång or ''Stånggång'') was an invention of the mining industry that enabled the mechan ...

(''stånggång''). Mining was halted for a while and started again in 1822, now with a

steam engine A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be trans ...

to power the pumps. The company Herrängs Gruf AB was founded in 1889 by Per Nathanael Fröding, who advertised in several newspapers to get financial backing. He even advertised in ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'', and in the advertisement he called Herräng "the new Dannemora" which speaks both of Frödings high plans and of the international status of the Dannemora mines (''Dannemora gruvor''). At the previous turn of the century, Herräng also had a new

ironworks An ironworks or iron works is an industrial plant where iron is smelted and where heavy iron and steel products are made. The term is both singular and plural, i.e. the singular of ''ironworks'' is ''ironworks''. Ironworks succeeded bloomeri ...

with two

blast furnace A blast furnace is a type of metallurgical furnace used for smelting to produce industrial metals, generally pig iron, but also others such as lead or copper. ''Blast'' refers to the combustion air being "forced" or supplied above atmospheric ...

s. There are many buildings left in Herräng from this time, like houses where the workers lived and of course the industry buildings. The ore findings were not as rich as Fröding had hoped, and a couple of the mines had to be shut down after just one year of exploitation. Mining in Herräng gradually diminished until 1961, when all mining in the area shut down. The ironworks still ran, using ore from other mines, until 1969 when it closed. The

foundry A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal into a mold, and removing the mold material after the metal has solidified as it cools. The most common metals pr ...

is today used by Roslagsgjuteriet, a division of Nötudden Casting Group. The

headframe A headframe (also known as a gallows frame, winding tower, hoist frame,Ernst, Dr.-Ing. Richard (1989). ''Wörterbuch der Industriellen Technik'' (5th ed.). Wiesbaden: Oscar Brandstetter, 1989. pit frame, shafthead frame, headgear, headstock o ...

at one of the mines, ''Eknäsgruvan'', was meant to be repaired and kept as a memory of the mining industry in the area, but it burned in 1982.

References

Other sources

* ''

Nationalencyklopedin ''Nationalencyklopedin'' (; "The National Encyclopedia" in English), abbreviated NE, is a comprehensive contemporary Swedish-language encyclopedia, initiated by a favourable loan from the Government of Sweden of 17 million Swedish kronor in 19 ...

'', the entry ''Herräng'' (Swedish)
Herrängsfältet
(bergsbruk.se), accessed May 22, 2006 (Swedish)
Stockholm County Museum website
accessed May 22, 2006 (Swedish)

External links

Herräng Dance Camp
{{DEFAULTSORT:Herrang Populated places in Norrtälje Municipality Iron mines in Sweden