Baggensstäket

59.30222222222218.281944444444Koordinaten: 59 ° 18 ' 8 " N, 18 ° 16' 55" E

Baggensstäket ( The German Baggensstäk ) (also Baggarstäket or Södra Stäket ) is a sound in the archipelago of Stockholm. It is located between Värmdö and the mainland (the Skogsö Peninsula). It provides a route between Baggensfjärden and Lännerstasund represents the fairway continues in a northerly direction over the Skurusund to Stockholm continued. The sound is narrow and shallow and can only be crossed by small boats which should have a maximum of three meters depth. The narrowest part of the Sound, Knapens hål, has a width of only 20 meters. On its southern side of the Sound, in part, the nature reserve Skogsö touched.

History

The Baggensstäk was called in the Middle Ages Harstäket or Hargstäket, this probably is related to the oldest names on Boo, Hargsö. This was the southern sea route between Stockholm and the Baltic Sea. From the 13th century the main shipping channel was about Baggensstäket, Lännerstaviken, Järlasjön until after Hammarby and then continue on Lännerstaviken and Skurusund. The Baggensstäk was until the end of the Middle Ages the main shipping channel to Stockholm. After that country increases made ​​it difficult to seafaring, another reason was that the ships were getting bigger and consequently had a greater depth. Probably you have the fairway made ​​impassable even by the introduction of underwater obstacles, as has happened in the defense of Stockholm in the entire archipelago. There are reports that these obstacles were spent during the war years 1518-1520 there. Only King Gustav Vasa ordered to make the fairway again passable.

The successor of Gustav Vasa, King Erik XIV, ordered that all foreign ships should be controlled in Vaxholm and to collect from these customs, for all goods which would bring them to Stockholm. Many sailors wanted to bypass this scheme and loaded their goods to smaller ships and let them go through the Baggensstäk. In this way, this was a then very popular smuggling route. The then acting as Regent and later King of Sweden, Charles IV, decreed in 1602 that even in Baggensstäk a customs station should be established. The station was built at the narrowest part of the Sound. This is now called Knapens hål, after the first used there customs inspector Olof Knaap. In 1680 the customs stations of Vaxholm and the Baggensstäk were transferred to Blockhusudden.

The owners of the manor of Boo, the architect Nicodemus Tessin, offered to deepen its own expense the Baggensstäk what he wanted to have a part of the customs revenue. To this end, the Baggensstäk should be blocked with floating obstacles that could not pass the ships. In 1704 he received permission to carry out his plan. This was done under a heavy workload. An old source reports of 90 prisoners, 40 people from Dalarna, 12 lumberjacks, 24 horses and coachmen who were involved in the implementation of the measure. In April 1705, the work was completed, but it was Nicodemus Tessin not been able to bring the channel to the promised of his depth.

About the Baggensstäk came the last great plague epidemic in Sweden in 1710. This raged there until the year 1714. A boat from Pärnu in Estonia had the infection on board. As the skipper died in Erstavikskrogen and was buried there, the plague in the country could gain a foothold.

In 1719 a Russian fleet attempted to penetrate within the framework of the Russian devastation to Stockholm to take this. However, they were repulsed at the last line of defense in the battle of Södra Stäket, by Swedish troops. Shortly after they began to restore the hill at Stäkets Krog. The following year, was a redoubt at Lilla Stäket and a more just to the north of it, built on a mountain. Another year later, in 1721, erected the Stäket redoubt on the Skogsö page. After peace was concluded, fell all the defenses, so you had to build up to 1743 temporary fortifications in 1742 in its place.

During the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, the suggestion was made to broaden and deepen the shipping channel to obtain in this way a comfortable sailing route south of Stockholm. However, this proposal was rejected because the associated costs appeared too high. As an alternative of the Wallenberg family an approximately one -kilometer long tunnel at Moranviken was created in 1893.

In 1905 a memorial stone with two guns was erected on the southern side of the Baggensstäk of the Stockholm Association for solid defenses. This should remind us of the brave rescuers in Stockholm on August 13, 1719 at the battle of Södra Stäket.

Between the years 1853 and 1947, the company Gustavsbergsbolaget had taken over the supervision of the Baggensstäk and for the entertainment of the fairway. The company made ​​sure that worked the traffic in return got this a levy, which had to pay owners of vehicles with a deep draft. Approximately in 1870, a guard house was built for this purpose. From there, conceded the channel guard, with a kind of net, round-the- clock the charges. This went on until 1945, when the last channel guard retired. The pilot company and later seafaring society was founded in 1947 assigned the supervision of the channel. In the fall of 1985, the channel was dredged and widened, and the quay was newly serviced.