The Commonwealth farm in Þjórsárdalur is one of Iceland’s best kept secrets. The farmhouse, built on the site of one of the manor farms of the Age of Settlement, is constructed as experts thought it would have been.
Visitors have the opportunity of acquainting themselves with the buildings the Icelanders’ ancestors lived in and of learning about the conditions they lived in and about their daily life.
The Commonwealth farm is based on the ruins of the former manor farm, Stöng in Þjórsárdalur which is considered to have been abandoned after its destruction in the Hekla eruption of the 1104.
To celebrate the 1100 anniversary of the Settlement of Iceland in 1974 it was decided to reconstruct and manor farm from the Age of Settlement. The well preserved ruins at Stöng were considered to be very suitable on which to base a replica manor farm. Building work on the Commonwealth farm commenced in 1974 and it was completed three years later. The building was formally opened on 24 June 1977.
When building the Commonwealth farm every effort was made to replicate as exactly as possible, according to the ruins of the farm at Stöng, and thus to try to give as credible a picture as possible of a dwelling of an Icelandic chieftain from the Age of Settlement. The farm building itself is a kind of museum piece, illustrating ancient handwork and where this was not possible then imagination took over as is the case in historical novels. The Commonwealth farm is a living witness to the fact that the dwellings of the Icelanders of yore were well built and majestic constructions.
