| On May 7 1697,
at about 2 p.m., a fire broke out in the attic
above the Hall of State, in the west wing of
the Three Crowns castle. The castle was mainly
built of stone but parts of it had a turfed
roof. There were six to eight fireguards that
patrolled the castle to look for fires. They
walked two by two. On this May afternoon the
fireguards were not doing what they should.
One of them had got an order from his boss to
take some cloth to a tailor. The other one had
gone down to the kitchen to drink some beer.
When the first fireguard came back he could
smell the burning and gave the fire alarm. The
fire rapidly spread to the entire structure.
The late king, Charles XI (1655-1697), had
died only one month before, aged 41, and was
still in his coffin in the castle church,
waiting for the funeral. His body was one of
the things that was rescued first from the
flames. |
|
The royal
family had to take up their abode at the
Wrangelska Palace at Riddarholmen. Nicodemus
Tessin, the Royal Architect, had to quickly
transform it into a royal residence. They were
to live there until 1754.
The day after the fire, Tessin was called upon
by the dowager queen, Hedvig Eleonora, and the
Regency Council to give his views on the
calamity. It was clear to all that the
reconstruction should begin immediately. Six
weeks after the fire Tessin presented the
drawings of the New Castle. It was to be built
in a style called Roman Baroque. The
rebuilding of the destroyed castle proceeded
rapidly until the outbreak of the Great
Northern War in 1700. During the war it was
difficult to find good, skilled workers. When
prisoners of war arrived in great numbers the
labour shortage was eased but there was a
shortage of building materials instead. |
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