At the beginning of the month, The Stove turned into Norway House as part of a project with research and design collective Lateral North. Over the course of three days, the Stove turned into a temporary house exploring Dumfries’ Norwegian Connection.
Norway House at the Stove became a place for exchange and conversation, for storytelling and remembering.
We had a lot of people coming in who remembered the excitement of the Norwegians arriving from when they were children of 7 or 8. That they would sometimes offer lift to the kids on their way back to where they were staying, which was various places around Dumfries but mostly the Troqueer Mills, there was a farm on the outskirts of Dumfries towards Lincluden, where the horses were kept.
We had a lady come in whose husband had lived in a house at address at 7 Nellieville Terrace when he was a boy and whose front room was used as the Norwegian Bank. He remembers the King visiting his home and often talked about the Norwegians visit, They had wanted to record or share his memories before he died but never managed it, I will now pass her detail onto Beverly Thom, who is writing a book of these stories so that it can hopefully be recorded.
The manager of the Greyston Rovers come in, they have been playing Norway regularly since 1951 when they were the first team to go play in Europe after the end of the war, keeping up the connection.
Norway House is part of an ongoing project, Cultural Wayfinding which looks at alternative ways of looking at and explore Dumfries’ culture and history, and hopes to build new connections with Norway into the future.
If you would like to stay in touch with the project as it develops, or would like to add your story to our growing Norway House project, please get in touch with [email protected]
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