A Viking Network Project

A Kirkegate with no Church

by Ingvild Våge, 11, Vigernes skole, Lillestrøm Norway

My name is Ingvild, and I go to Vigernes Elementary School in Lillestrøm, Norway. We live about 20 Km north-East of Oslo. We do have a `Kirkegate', but there is no church in it. This was very strange so I had to find out why.  
Lillestrøm is fairly new for a town. In 1850 just a handful of people lived here, but in 1854 a railway was built from Oslo to Lillestrøm and beyond. Some saw-mills were also built and people started moving in. In 1865, 400 people lived in Lillestrøm and in 1900 there were 4000. Today 15 000 people live here.

The first few years there was no church in Lillestrøm at all. People had to go to a church far away. In 1876 the owners of the saw-mills gave a lot of building materials for free to build a church and on October 22. 1876 a small church built of wood was ready and the street became a Kirkegate. This was the only church in Lillestrøm until 1935 when a new church was built at a different place, but Kirkegata kept its name.

When we were walking along our Kirkegate to take some pictures, there were quite a few people there. We started from the end where we first looked at the old police station. There were also some more old buildings, among them the old KIRKEGATEN SKOLE. It is not a school any more. On the site where the old church was, we saw a large building owned by the Norwegian Telecom. There was also a shop where you can buy garden furniture and some other things. The cinema building is no longer a cinema, but you can go there to listen to concerts and watch plays. In the rest of our Kirkegate there were only ordinary houses where people live.

Updated September 1, 1996 - The Viking Network