Wira Bruk is a historic 17th-century ironworks village fairly close to Stockholm. Founded in the 1630s, it was Sweden’s premier blade-smithing centre and military supplier, producing swords, rapiers, and sabers for the Swedish army. After that it shirted production to gricultural tools like scythes and axes in the 19th and 20th centuries until active forging ended in 1948.
The village is now a living museum with a cafe, an ice cream bar, an art gallery, two working smithies and a silversmith.
The silversmith when we were there was Helge Hernelind, who had the most amazing selection of handmade silver jewellery I have ever seen in this type of environment. He says the pieces take him anywhere from three hours to produce. Each one is unique and the prices were very reasonable. I wish I could have spent hours looking at each item, but it started to rain and we did not know how hard the rain would get as we rode home.
