The long loft on Mellom Kravik was built around the same time or slightly later than the long loft at Søre Kravik. However, the function was different. The rooms on the ground floor are food supply rooms while the rooms on the first floor are bedrooms with fixed beds along the walls. The loft has two rooms on each floor and each room has entrance from the long gallery outside. A stair from the gallery on the ground floor leads up to the gallery on the first floor.
Until the 1800s the gallery on the first floor was connected to the main building with a walkway. The walkway was covered with walls and roof and connected the two buildings. This made it possible for guests at Kravik to be indoors and move between the buildings.
Portals with billowing columns
The gallery on the first floor in the long loft on Mellom Kravik was enclosed in the 1800s, but the portals of the two storage rooms are still preserved in their original form. The doors have beautiful cruciform fittings in Gothic style with small flower- and leaf ornaments. At the top of the door and on the beam above small tar cross are painted to protect the building. The columns on each side of the doors on the ground floor has a typical medieval construction, especially in the area of Setesdal to Numedal, but also in Gudbrandsdalen. These portals have columns with a clear convex profile, which gives them a powerful billowing shape. It looks like the columns have a big bulging belly, which many have interpreted as a fertility symbol. This can have a connection to the function as storage building. The swelling may also be a visual expression to make it look like the columns carries heavy weight from above. The ancient Greeks had a similar thought when making marble pillars for their temples. They considered pillars as “muscles” and gave them a bulging shape called Entasis. This was only a visual function, and we can not rule out that people in Medieval Norway had the same motivation when making columns in their buildings.
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