Keldur
Keldur á Rangárvöllum
Keldur is an old turf-built manor farm in the Rangárvellir district of South Iceland, at the foot of the volcano Hekla, preserving one of the oldest surviving farmhouses in the country. Its cluster of grass-roofed timber and turf buildings, arranged around a central hall, is kept as a heritage site by the National Museum of Iceland.
Region
South Iceland
Coordinates
63.8219° N, 20.0739° W
Plan the stop
- Allow
- 1 hr
Accessibility
- Wheelchair · None
- A cluster of historic turf buildings with low doorways, raised timber thresholds, and uneven earthen floors, with no step-free access.
- Limited mobility · Limited
- Grass and gravel yards between low-doored buildings, reached by a short walk from the parking area.
- Sensory · Partial
- Quiet rural surroundings; the turf interiors are dim and confined.
- Cognitive · Full
- A compact farm complex; guided or self-guided visits follow a clear route through the buildings.
Why it matters
Keldur appears in the medieval sources as the farm of Ingjaldur Höskuldsson in Njáls saga, and in the thirteenth century it was a stronghold of the powerful Oddaverjar family; the chieftain Jón Loftsson, foster-father of Snorri Sturluson, lived and is thought to be buried here. The timbers of the old hall are among the oldest surviving wooden building elements in Iceland, parts of them reckoned to date from the twelfth century, making the house the oldest of its kind in the country. Beneath the farm runs a jarðhús, an underground passage leading toward the stream, of a type described in the sagas as an escape route in times of feud; it was rediscovered in a 1998 excavation. The turf farm was lived in until 1946 and, with its roughly twenty buildings, church, and medieval hall, is preserved by the National Museum, and stands on Iceland's tentative list of turf-building sites proposed for UNESCO World Heritage status.