The name Vreta most likely comes from old Swedish "vretar" which is the same as new land for farming.
Our farm Vreta was earlier a small village and is documented in writing already 1445.
People have however lived here much longer. Several traces from the Bronze Age have been found on the farm. We have rock carvings in the shape of small cavities and an axe from the Bronze Age has been found in the fields.
Maps from the 18th century show that the farm was located at the same place as today. The map from 1710 show every little peice of the fields and what was cultivated there. Just east of our house, there was a garden patch with herbs and where we have the apple trees, they had cabbage and hops.
On the map from 1772, the placement of the houses can be seen. The village then contained three groups of houses with three to seven houses in each group that formed a "rectangle". It seems like six families lived in the village as both the houses and the fields are marked A to F.
In most cases, the map was produced in three copies, one for "the King", one for the local authorities and one for the farm. When we improved the isolation in the attic, we found a half map of the farm from 1772 that someone placed there under the sawdust, most likely 1916 as the papers under the sawdust was from that year.
Year 1863 to 1864, a major change of the ownership of the fields was done for the four families living there. Earlier every field was divided so each family had a peice of that field but now each family got all their land in one place to get easier farming. However, two of the families was forced to move their farms from the village while two families were allowed to stay. One of the moved farms moved 600 meters to the north while the farm that was supposed to move 300 meters to the north never was built. Some sources say that they started to build a house but it was moved to Petersberg and became their main building.
Many changes of ownership of the land is made since then and parts of Vreta was transfered over to Petersberg that was built in the end of the 19th century. The two farms that was still located in the village was later merged and 1939, Vreta farm was a bit more than 200 acres (60% fields and 40% forest) and was valued at 45.500 Swedish Kronor.
The farm then had 2 horses, one young horse, 12 cows, 8 young cows, 5 pigs and 40 hen. The farm had tractor and telephone.
Around 1940, the Olsson family bought the farm and they had cows on the farm to late 1980's (not confirmed). In mid 1990's, one of the two main buildings burned down and it was not re-built.
Year 2003, we bought all the buildings and a bit more than 25 acres of land. The rest of the land was kept by the Olsson family.
Year 2009, the rest of the land was sold to Petersberg that have cultivated the land since long. Around 20 acres of this land was bought by us year 2010 so the total area of our farm is now about 45 acres.
Sources:
Riksantikvarieämbetet's homepage
Lantmäteriet's homepage
Svenska gods och gårdar - Upplandsdelen (1939 or 1940)
The book "Två sockenkrönikor - Sparrsätra, Bred" by Arvid Bladh