“Målabuo” at Gjerde in the Mauranger Fjord was decorated with magnificent renaissance ornamentation, which today is all but gone. The year 1588 is carved on one of the cross-posts above the door entrance to the storehouse. The smoke house on the farm is from 1786, and a two-storey loft is also probably from the 1700s.
A close study gives us some idea of the lines in the colourful interior of the house. In the gable there has been a large rosette surrounded by vines and roses. Around the walls from the rafters to the benches, there has been a row with kassettornamentikk (box-like decoration), with changes in colour from reddish brown and black and (perhaps) ochre and white. A four-bladed rosette decorates every square.
Tradition tells us that the storehouse was originally erected as a “bride’s house” for a gracious wedding. In 1588 Børge Gjerde was the proprietor of the farm. He was a representative to the jury and one of the prominent farmers at Mauranger.
On one of the stained glass windows in the storehouse we find a motif that also belongs in the 15th century: a woman who offers a ewer of welcome drink to a knight. It was a widespread custom in Europe to give a stained glass painting with a figurative motif and owner/owner’s name as a “house gift” for a new house. Both at Ænes, Torsnes and Mel were rich families who could have been friends of the farmer at Gjerde.
