Millstone park

Join the stone adventure! Millstone Park in Hyllestad is an outdoor museum in the largest stone quarry landscape from the Viking period and Middle Ages in Northern Europe.

Join the stone adventure!

Millstone Park in Hyllestad is an outdoor museum in the largest stone quarry landscape from the Viking period and Middle Ages in Northern Europe. We take you back to a time when there was a high level of activity in Hyllestad! In hundreds of quarries, stonecutters extracted millstone after millstone. Everyone needed millstones. Without millstones, there was no flour – and no food! Hundreds of thousands of millstones left Hyllestad and were sold across Norway, Denmark and Sweden. This was big industry, involving skilled craftsmen, expert traders and a lot of money!

Visit the Millstone Park
At Millstone Park we take you on a tour through the stone quarries. The Vikings toiled here more than a thousand years ago, with skill, sweat, and perhaps tears when yet another stone got a crack and broke. This was a world in which it was very important to be able to make things with one’s own hands. 

After the tour, you can try stone carving, mill grain, bake bread, make soapstone jewellery – or relax by the fire and enjoy something to eat and drink.

Outside opening hours you can explore the Park on your own. 

Stone quarries in Hyllestad
Stone was the “gold” of Hyllestad. Stonemasons worked at hundreds of stone quarries, carving millstone after millstone to be shipped out into the wider world. At this time the millstone was a fundamental item. If you wanted to eat bread or porridge, you first had to grind the grain using a quern stone or water mill in order to make flour. The millstone trade in Hyllestad was a good source of income – for those who owned the land and held the power.