Nääs Castle

Castle Nääs located in the municipality Lerum about 25 km northeast of Gothenburg, Sweden. The castle, which is located high above the lake Sävelången, dates from the 16th century, but was rebuilt in the early 19th century in the classical style.

1868 August Abrahamsson bought the castle and began to refurnish it. Together with his nephew Otto Abrahamsson 1872, he founded a craft school that specialized in the training of craft teachers ( shop class ) and at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century enjoyed an international reputation for its new pedagogy.

When August Abrahamsson 1898 died childless, he bequeathed the castle and the associated estate to a charity that was to continue the craft school. While the economy rooms were used for school purposes, were the other rooms of the castle remain as they looked at the end of the 19th century. The castle is one of the best examples of the grand interior style of this period in Sweden and was declared a cultural monument in 1991.

Selma Lagerlöf devoted to the craft school in Castle Nääs a chapter in her novel The Wonderful Adventures of Nils Holgersson with the wild geese.