Svartviks herrgård, Svartvik south of Sundsvall

The Patrons' Invisible Guests at Svartvik Manor

Svartvik, south of Sundsvall, is one of the most important cradles of Swedish industry and is today a protected cultural heritage area. In the middle of this area stands Svartvik Manor, built in the 1820s as a residence for the sawmill patrons. It is historically well documented that the manor was the center of an intense and lavish social life during the glory days of the sawmill boom, when the patrons and their international guests held grand celebrations. The ghost stories here are rarely frightening; rather they are 'historical echoes' from the manor's heyday. Staff and visitors have testified to the sound of clinking glasses, faint party music and rustling gowns from empty salons. The best-known phenomenon, however, is 'the grateful guest' — an invisible figure said to make the beds in the manor's guest rooms or leave behind a faint scent of old pipe tobacco in the library.