Stensparken is not Oslo’s largest park, nor its most manicured. What it offers instead is something rarer: a layered landscape where everyday recreation rests directly on top of the city’s older, darker, and more practical history.
This modest hill on St. Hanshaugen is one of the last tangible remnants of Christiania’s former bymark – the open land that once lay outside the dense city, used for functions the city itself did not want too close.
From bymark to city park
Before Oslo became a compact capital, large parts of what is now the inner city were open commons: grazing land, dumping grounds, burial places, and workspaces for necessary but unwanted activities. Stensparken was part of this transitional zone between the orderly city and the unruly outside. Wind-swept, elevated, and marginal, it was never intended as a place for leisure.
That changed gradually in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when public health reforms, urban planning, and a growing middle class transformed former utility landscapes into parks. By the 1930s, Stensparken had taken on its current role as a green refuge – though its past never fully disappeared.
The Nightman: a marginal but official role
The Nightman (nattmann) was an officially appointed municipal function in Scandinavian towns from the late Middle Ages until the 19th century (source: Wikipedia). His work was essential to the functioning of the city, but socially stigmatized.
The Nightman was responsible for tasks that were considered impure or dishonourable: emptying latrines, removing waste, handling animal carcasses, and carrying out executions or burying those who could not be buried in consecrated ground. Because of the nature of his work, he and his family were often excluded from ordinary social life and lived on the margins of the urban community.
In Christiania, the Nightman was provided with housing by the authorities, typically located outside the dense city area. In the early 19th century, this included residence at Korpehaugen, an elevated area later incorporated into what is now Stensparken. The profession was gradually phased out during the 19th century as modern sanitation systems were introduced and urban hygiene was reorganised. The office of Nightman in Christiania was phased out in the last half of the 19th century, marking the end of a centuries-old occupation that had operated in the shadows of the city, yet was fundamental to its daily life.
Language, stigma, and forced choices
The terminology surrounding the Nightman reflects the deep social stigma attached to the role. In Norwegian, the Nightman was often referred to as “rakkeren”, a word originally meaning an executioner or one who carried out dishonourable tasks on behalf of the authorities. Over time, rakkar or rakkeren became a general term of abuse, still present in the language today. The position was so marginalised that it was often filled by people with no other options. In several periods, accepting work as a Nightman was one of the few ways a condemned person could obtain a royal pardon and escape a death sentence, effectively trading execution for lifelong social exclusion and compulsory labour on the city’s margins.
Blåsen: the city hill
The highest point in the park is called Blåsen, a name suggesting exposure to wind and weather. Over time it acquired several nicknames: City Hill, Korpehaugen (“Raven Hill”), even Jotunheimen in ironic reference to one of Norway’s most famous mountain ranges.
Long before picnics and sunsets, this hill functioned as a burial ground and a place for what had to be kept at a distance.
Today, Blåsen offers one of the park’s finest views. The irony is unmistakable: a place once associated with waste and death has become a vantage point for contemplation, coffee cups, and conversations.
Sigrid Undset and The Half Brother
Stensparken is also tied to one of Norway’s most important literary voices, Sigrid Undset. She lived nearby and used the area as part of her mental map of the city.
Though the park does not serve as a single literary setting, it belongs to the lived environment that shaped her sharp, unsentimental understanding of urban life.
Another literary reference is Stensparken as part of the scenery in the book “The Half Brother” by Lars Saabye-Christensen. T
Fagerborg Church: anchoring the hill
At the southern edge of the park rises Fagerborg Church, completed in 1903. Built in granite, it anchors the hill both physically and symbolically. The church marks the moment when the area became fully integrated into the city’s moral and architectural order. Where the Nightman once lived, a house of worship now stands – a telling transformation.
Shelter, service, and the everyday city
Beneath the park lies a reminder of the 20th century: a civil defense shelter, part of Oslo’s Cold War preparedness. Like so many layers in Stensparken, it reflects a city planning for worst-case scenarios, quietly embedded beneath daily life.
At ground level, the park includes a small seasonal café, a pragmatic continuation of its social role: a place to pause, observe, and meet.
The urinal: secrecy, surveillance, and protection
Near the church stands one of Oslo’s more discreet public features – a historic urinal, constructed in the 1930s and today a listed cultural heritage monument. Beyond its practical function, the site is closely associated with a hidden chapter of Oslo’s social history. For decades, such urinals and nearby parks functioned as informal meeting places for men who had sex with men at a time when homosexuality was criminalised in Norway (until 1972) and heavily stigmatised long after. These were spaces defined by discretion, risk, and coded behaviour, shaped as much by police surveillance as by necessity. The preservation of the urinal today acknowledges not only a piece of everyday urban infrastructure, but also the lives and strategies of people forced to exist in the margins of public space.
Deeply Oslo
Stensparken is deeply Oslo: restrained, layered, slightly ironic, and quietly honest about the fact that cities are built not only on ideals, but on things that take place in the dark.
References
- Wikipedia contributors. Stensparken.
https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stensparken - Wikipedia contributors. Nattmann. https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nattmann
- Wikipedia contributors. Rakkar (historical term). https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rakkar
- Wikipedia contributors. Homofili i Norge – historie og lovgivning. https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homofili_i_Norge
- Riksantikvaren. Kulturminnesøk – fredede og vernede kulturminner i Oslo (for information on protected urban structures and public facilities). https://kulturminnesok.no/
- Oslo kommune, Byantikvaren. Parker, kulturmiljø og verneverdige anlegg. https://www.oslo.kommune.no/slik-bygger-du/byggesak/vern/
- Kirkelig fellesråd i Oslo. Fagerborg kirke. https://kirken.no/nb-NO/fellesrad/kirkene/fagerborg/
- Christensen, Lars Saabye. The Half Brother (Halvbroren). Cappelen Damm, 2001. (Geographical and cultural context: Fagerborg–St. Hanshaugen area)
Historical interpretations related to urban sanitation, marginal professions, and queer meeting places are based on publicly available research and heritage documentation. Interpretive responsibility remains with the author.
As most of the articles in this Osloguide blog, the article is written with extensive help from artificial intelligence.