Almare-Stäkets borg: A Medieval Fortress Controlling the Almarestäket Waterway
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 3.9
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Sweden
- Primary era
- Medieval
- Eras represented
- Medieval
- Civilizations
- Swedish
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Castle
On this page11 sections
History
Almare-Stäkets borg is a medieval fortified complex in Sweden, built on Stäketsholmen beside the Almarestäket strait during the twelfth century. Its position at the inlet to Lake Mälaren gave it control of the water route toward Sigtuna, Uppsala, Västerås, and the Baltic approaches to Stockholm. The castle therefore became important in the long struggle between the Swedish monarchy and the church over control of the waterway and its surrounding lands.
Early stronghold and medieval control
A first stronghold probably arose shortly after 1100. The surrounding region had already been settled for a long period, as shown by Iron Age graves. A medieval monastic chronicle states that the estate of Almarestäket and the town of Sigtuna were burned in 1187 during an eastern invasion by a fleet from Estonia. An archbishop was killed during the attack.
The castle was burned during the political and military conflicts of the 1430s. The Swedish rhyming chronicle places its destruction on the night of 11 November 1434, when Eric Nipertz acted on the orders of Erik of Pomerania and Hans Kröpelin. Their aim was to prevent forces led by Engelbrekt Engelbrektsson from capturing the fortress. Erik of Pomerania was a king of the Kalmar Union, the late-medieval union that placed Denmark, Norway, and Sweden under a shared monarchy, while Engelbrekt was a Swedish rebel leader.
In 1440, Nils Ragvaldsson, the archbishop of Uppsala, received permission to build a new castle. It was completed approximately ten years later and was already described as a castle in the fifteenth-century Karlskrönikan. The site later acquired the name Sankt Erik’s castle after Eric IX of Sweden, a twelfth-century king who became a major saint in medieval Swedish tradition. Its reputation also reached the Poetic Edda, a medieval Icelandic collection of mythological and heroic poems, where the place is identified as the residence of the mythical King Agni.
Conflict in the sixteenth century
The fortress served as a base for military operations against Stockholm. In 1463, Christian I, king of the Kalmar Union, used it while suppressing a peasant revolt. Its strategic position continued to make possession of the castle a political issue.
During the conflicts of the 1510s, Archbishop Gustav Trolle held Almare-Stäkets borg. A papal order issued by Leo X assigned the castle and its surrounding lands to Trolle when he became archbishop. Sten Sture the Younger, a Swedish regent and Trolle’s political opponent, regarded the adjoining territories as royal property under his own administration.
Sten Sture began besieging the castle in autumn 1516. At a parliament in spring 1517, nobles, townspeople, miners, and peasants approved the siege despite the threat of excommunication. A further parliament in November 1517 ordered the castle’s demolition. The fortress was dismantled in 1519, and its bricks were transported to Stockholm for reuse.
Gustav Trolle was arrested at Västerås Castle in 1518. Christian II’s retaliation helped lead to the Stockholm Bloodbath of 1520, when Swedish nobles and other opponents were executed in Stockholm after the king consolidated his authority. After the demolition, the castle’s administrative functions moved to a nearby manor. Gradual postglacial land uplift, the rise of land after the Scandinavian ice sheet melted, later changed the former island into a peninsula.
Rediscovery and protection
The ruin was identified as a cultural monument during an investigation by the Swedish National Heritage Board in 1979. The castle is listed by the institution as an ancient monument.
Remains
The ruin hill
Foundations and floor levels
The surviving ruin occupies a plateau-like hill measuring approximately 125 by 80 metres. It rises about 3 to 4 metres above the surrounding ground and has relatively steep slopes. Visible remains in the northwestern part include wall foundations, house foundations, and floor slabs. Pits in this area contain grey fieldstone and occasional bricks, giving evidence of the materials used in the former complex.
Western slope
A line of stone blocks runs along the western slope and may come from a collapsed wall, although this interpretation remains uncertain. The ruin hill provides a broad view over Görväln and Almarestäket.
Waterway features
Obelisk and bridge remains
Below the ruin hill stands an approximately five-metre-high obelisk of red granite, erected in 1804. Remains of the adjacent bridge over Almarestäket also survive, linking the physical remains of the site with the waterway that shaped the castle’s position.
Stakes in shallow water
The name element “Stäk” refers to stakes driven into shallow water. Their original purpose is uncertain. They may have served as defensive stakes, or they may have formed the foundations of pile dwellings belonging to a fishing village.
Some trees and shrubs on the ruin hill were removed during the 1970s, leaving the surviving foundations and the shape of the hill more clearly exposed.
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