Historic sites in Röbäck include a 5 km trail around Röbäck’s athletic fields. You can find the following places here:

1. Röbäck spring
2. Bridge over Röbäcken
3. Stonemason meadow (Stenhuggarängen)
4. War graves
5. Röbäcken mills
6. Flax cultivation (on the history trail)
7. Ancient relics (on the history trail)
8. Norrstigen – Kustlandsvägen road
9. The Gallow hill
10. Kyrkberget (on the history trail)
11. Jättstuberget, cave, and lookout tower (on the trail)

1. Röbäck spring

The spring was acclaimed in the 17th century as a natural spa. As early as 1702, Urban Hjärne described the Röbäck spring, which was known for its health-promoting, iron-rich water. Linnaeus, who would later be knighted Carl von Linné, passed Röbäck 30 years later as a student. Source: Historic sites in Röbäck.
Read about more health springs in Umeå

2. Bridge over Röbäcken

This is Västerbotten’s oldest stone overpass. It was built in 1843 and was a bridge for the coastal road, which was the largest highway between Stockholm and Torneå. Röbäcken brook had much more water then than today. There probably used to be a wooden bridge. When the bridge was repaired in the summer of 2000, a block of stone with the date “7 July 1843” was found. This bridge, Söråkersbron, is the oldest preserved dry stone bridge in Västerbotten.

3. Stonemason meadow (Stenhuggarängen)

4. War graves

During the war with Russia of 1808–1809, Umeå and the surrounding villages experienced the horrors of war. In 1808, an order was received to build a war hospital in Umeå.

The war hospital was placed in the church cottages around Backen Church, but it was not enough. So another hospital was built in Röbäck, where all available space in the cottages and houses was claimed for use. Death among the sick was common, and over 570 people died and were buried in Röbäck. The number of deceased meant most people were laid to rest in a mass grave.

5. Mills in Röbäcken

Röbäck was a significant farming village even in the 16th century. The village’s fields were primarily planted with barley and rye. Mills, specifically watermills, were built in Röbäcken to grind the grain. A watermill has a water wheel with a vertical axle directly connected to the upper millstone. The water flow in the brook only permitted milling in autumn and spring.
There have been several mills in Röbäcken. All that remains of them now are the stone foundations on which they were built.

7. Ancient relics

In the Bronze Age, between 1,500 and 3,000 years ago, nine graves were placed on the crest of the ridge south of the Röbäck football pitch. The ridge was a sandy island way out on the coast.
There were also burial cairns on the hill south of the Linblomman schoolhouse, and several more cairns further south. The old sandy beach between the ridge and the football pitch has several small depressions, filled partially with fire-shattered stones. Additional depressions can be seen adjacent to the illuminated trail.

Kustlandsvägen road went here, which was the highway between Stockholm and Torneå. This road was expanded in the 1660s, allowing people to ride a horse and buggy from Stockholm to Umeå. In 1801, the road was equipped with cast-iron mileposts.
Norrstigen (“northern path”), which later came to be called Kustlandsvägen, went from Stockholm to Torneå. It is included in maps of Röbäck from 1693, 1711, 1730 and later.

8. Norrstigen – Kustlandsvägen

9. The Gallow hill

This was one of the execution sites in the Umeå region. The site was the southern slope of a hill on which executions were carried out. The last execution in Västerbotten took place here on 24 August 1853. Quarrying has made it impossible to precisely establish the location of the site. The last person to be executed here was Johan Natanaelsson from Hössjö. One year earlier, he murdered his father-in-law because he found the obligation of providing for him to be overly burdensome.

One hundred years later in 1953, when collecting gravel, a headless skeleton was uncovered with the remnants of wool clothing.

Read more about what happened at the Gallow hill

10. Kyrkberget

According to tradition, the stone used to build the church on Backen was taken from this hill in the early 16th century. Later in the 20th century, stonemasons from Röbäck used the hill as a quarry.
Many factors suggest that the farmers of Röbäck drove the stone on sledges in wintertime to build the church.

About Röbäck

Röbäck village is located about 4 km southeast of downtown Umeå. It is one of the oldest villages in Umeå Municipality and has also been one of the largest for a relatively long time.

About 9000 years ago and throughout the Stone Age, Röbäck was underwater and inside the bay, which was the mouth of the Ume River at that time. The sea drained away as the land rose.

Röbäck’s prehistory begins in the Bronze Age, around about 1000 BC. Burial cairns from this time can be seen on Thomasberget-Hägnberget, which are parts of the ancient coast. The population lived on hunting, fishing and to some extent, cattle breeding.
Röbäck has been home to several mills.

Carl Linnaeus’ visit to Röbäck in 1732

”Strax vid Rödbäck ligger en träfflig stor äng, helt slät. Om icke av 100-tals lindor (gräsvallar). Sylvosa (skogsbevuxen). Allestädes vid vägen i samma och vid ån, som strax vid staden Umeå flyter, rinna aqvaea accidulate, ochra plene et tunica argenta tectae (syrliga vatten (surbrunnar) fulla av ockra och täckta av en silverhinna). Av detta röda sediment tror jag att Rödbäck har sitt namn.

Umeå som ligger invid denna älven, som med färja seglas över och förer farkoster från havet, är nu en liten stad, som ännu ej väl reparerat sig efter det skadestånd han led av fiendens eld, då han fullständigt blev avbränd.”

More so than the other villages, Röbäck village emphasised agriculture because there were relatively few animals per farm. The plains of Röbäck have been known for an abundance of barns for hundreds of years.