Jorlia

Down in Orkdalen, between Ry and Å, there is a large farm high, free and alone up in the valley side. It is Jorlia, the last farm in Rennebu before the trail enters Orkland municipality.

Jorlia was cleared sometime around the year 1000 and developed into a large farm, and it was the forest in particular that was the farm's most important resource. Jorlia had over 50 houses for a period, but sometime in the 18th century the farm burned down and the houses that stand here today were built after the fire. The farm was bought in 1907 by Chr. Thams. He separated the forest and the river and sold the farm on. Fortidsminneforeningen has owned the farm for a period, but has sold it on to a private owner.

Distinctive for Jorlia is that the soil has never been worked intensively by machine, here, until recent times, operations have been done the old-fashioned way. This means that the areas around Jorlia are today an important cultural landscape with a diversity of species that cannot be found in many other places.

In Gudbrandsdalen, the old farms often have two yards, an inner yard and an outer yard. This is how we can see it, for example, at the farm Budsjord in Dovre. Here at Jorlia, we encounter a completely different form of garden - the square garden. The distinctive traditional trønder yard developed from the Middle Ages, when the barn and storehouse were first given two floors, and the square yard shape became more and more refined. From the beginning of the 18th century, the farmhouses also followed. From the end of the 18th century came the characteristic trønder loans, and at the same time business buildings with many functions under one roof. This is how the tune at Jorlia appears today.