Kilen 2, Visby

At Kilgränd, less than 100 m south of Donners Plats is the house Kilen 2 with recesses in the gable facing the street.

The north-western corner of the house has an angle of 84 degrees. The northern and the southern walls are parallel with each other up to a line across the chimney. The southern wall continues in straight line to the east while the northern wall near the position of the chimney breaks its straight line and deviates about 5 degrees, narrowing the body of the house eastward.

The medieval house has three storeys and is closely bonded to a much younger house to the east. In the attic of the younger house the preserved eastern gable of the medieval house is seen. In spite of the narrowing body of the house the eastern gable has the same width as the western gable and also has recesses.

Obviously it was meant to be looking nice from a view at the upper level east of the house and to give an impression of a regular shape of the house. In this case we can infer that an earlier erected building to the north blocked the erection of the northern wall along a straight line.

In many other cases medieval buildings may have oblique corner angles which are not explained by lack of space. Examples of this statement are the western gable of the church of Suntak in the province of Västergötland and the ruins from medieval buildings north of the church of Lau.

From a staircase with 10 steps one reaches a big room with 14 beams visible in the ceiling and with probably another two beams behind a particle board. The beams (joists of the upper floor) are fixed in the wall without presence of wall-head or supporting beams.

Bore-cores from 8 of these beams are dated, two of which have waney edge. The outermost annual ring is dated 1306, thus the same year as the joists of the floor at Residenset 2A and the truss of Hornet 1.

From the truss in the attic 10 bore-cores have been taken. All are dated but one only has waney edge. The outermost annual ring is dated 1518.