Stranden Colonial

Welcome to a nostalgic and tangible experience of city life, commerce and café culture, as it might have been in Stavanger more than 100 years ago.

With Stranden Colonial, we open the "back" of the merchant houses, that once were facades with entrances to shops, offices and apartments. Here the neighbourhood will be bustling with life and Stranden Colonial will offer ground coffee and a treat in the small tea room.

Stranden Colonial will be open during the museum's opening hours during the summer season.

"Colonial" History
The port city of Stavanger has imported exotic goods from abroad for hundereds of years. Coffee, tea, tobacco, sugar and wine were brought in on ships from distant lands, weighed and and sold in shops in the city centre.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Nedre Strandgate was one of the city's busy commercial streets with many shops called "Colonial", that sold both local groceries and exotic items from the "colonies" in other parts of the world.

The "Colonials" provided people with most of what they needed. In social life, coffee, tea and chocolate were served with vanilla-scented cakes and Christmas baking was not the same without syrup, cardamon and cinnamon. Milk, peas, flour and oats were also measured and weighed. In addition, the "Colonials" were meeting places where people shared the latest news.