Faroe Islands Houses: Turf Roofs, Tarred Timber and Village Colour

Drive into almost any village in the Faroe Islands and the first thing you notice is the houses. Black timber walls, white window frames, red and green and yellow neighbours, and here and there a roof that is simply a slope of grass.

They look charming in photos, but every detail has a reason. Faroe Islands houses were shaped by wind, rain, a shortage of trees and centuries of making do with very little.

Why timber was precious on treeless islands

The Faroes have no native forest. Apart from planted woodland, such as the plantation in northern Tórshavn, there were no trees to cut, so every beam and board had to come from somewhere else.

For centuries that meant ships from Norway. A document from 1271 records two ships sailing regularly from Bergen to Tórshavn with salt, timber and grain.

Driftwood mattered too. Islanders treated wood as a valuable material, and Faroese history is full of stories about timber arriving by sea.

The weather made the job harder. Houses had to cope with salt spray, frequent rain and strong Atlantic winds, so builders favoured low, compact forms that sat close to the ground.

Timber scarcity explains a lot. Houses were kept small, built carefully and repaired rather than replaced, and old timber was often reused when a building was rebuilt.

The classic look: tarred walls and grass roofs

The traditional Faroese house is a modest timber building on a stone foundation, with a low, gently sloping roof. The walls were tarred black to protect the wood from salt air and endless rain.

On top sits the turf. Turf roof houses were once common across the Nordic countryside, and the Faroes kept the habit longer than most places.

In the Scandinavian tradition, the grass is not really what keeps the water out. Several layers of birch bark under the turf did that job, and the sod held the bark in place. Modern turf roofs usually rely on a waterproof membrane instead.

The weight helps, too. A sod roof weighs roughly 250 kilograms per square metre, which presses the structure together and makes it more draught-proof, while the soil adds insulation against cold, wet winters.

If you have read about Icelandic turf houses, the idea will feel familiar. The difference is that Faroese houses use turf mainly on the roof, with timber walls doing most of the work below.

Inside the old farmhouse

The heart of an old Faroese farmhouse was the roykstova, the smoke room. This was the main living space, with an open fire, where cooking, work and family life all happened in one warm, smoky room.

Over time, larger farms added more rooms around it. At Kirkjubøargarður, for example, the large room known as stórastovan was built in 1772, centuries after the oldest part of the house.

That layering is typical. A Faroese farmhouse is rarely the product of one building campaign; it is a record of repairs, extensions and reused timber across many generations.

The smoke room is worth knowing about, because it is the part visitors are most likely to see in the islands' best-known historic farm.

Kirkjubøur: a house that has been lived in for centuries

At the southern tip of Streymoy, the village of Kirkjubøur holds the islands' most important historic buildings. Next to the medieval Saint Olav's Church and the ruins of the Magnus Cathedral stands Kirkjubøargarður, the old farmhouse.

Its oldest parts date back to the 11th century, and it is often described as one of the oldest still inhabited wooden houses in the world. It served as the bishop's residence and seminary from around 1100.

Legend says its timber came from Norway as driftwood, already bundled and numbered so it could be assembled on arrival. Whether or not that is literally true, it says a lot about how precious wood was.

The Patursson family has occupied the farm since 1550 and the 17th generation still lives there. Part of the house works as a museum. Its oldest section is a roykstova, and the loft room, now the farm's library, is where Bishop Erlendur is thought to have written the Sheep Letter in 1298, the oldest known Faroese document.

Tinganes: houses in the Faroe Islands' oldest quarter

In Tórshavn, the small rocky peninsula of Tinganes divides the harbour in two. The Norse settlers held their ting, or assembly, here in the Viking Age, making it one of the oldest parliamentary meeting places in the world.

Today it is a tight cluster of red-painted and tarred wooden buildings, many with turf roofs. Many of the houses on Tinganes were built in the 16th and 17th centuries and are still in use.

The Faroese government still sits here. Its main building, Skansapakkhusið, stands on the outermost point, and you can walk the narrow lane of Gongin through the oldest part of town.

For more buildings in the capital, our guide to notable architecture in Tórshavn covers Argja Kirkja and the old Skansin fort.

Villages where the old style still shapes the view

Outside the capital, the best way to understand houses in the Faroe Islands is to see how they sit in the land. Villages grew around small harbours and patches of flat ground, with houses tucked close together against the weather.

Gjógv, on the northeast tip of Eysturoy, is named after the sea-filled gorge beside it. Its houses follow the colourful Faroese style, with red, white and green the most common colours, and about 50 houses remain in the village.

Saksun, in the northwest of Streymoy, is known for its turf-roofed white church above a tidal lagoon. The church was first built in Tjørnuvík, then taken apart in 1858, carried over the mountains and rebuilt in Saksun.

Nearby, the heritage farm Dúvugarðar occupies a 17th-century farmhouse and is still a working sheep farm. Since 2023 there has been a fee to visit the lagoon, so check before you go.

Hoyvík, now part of Tórshavn, has a 17th-century farmhouse run as an open-air museum by the National Museum. It is an easy way to see a traditional interior without leaving the capital area.

Colour, and the new Faroese house

The famous colours are a mix of local tradition and personal taste. Against green hillsides and grey skies, red, yellow and blue walls stand out from a long way off.

Hoyvík shows how personal it can be. In some newer terraced housing there, buyers purchase the outer walls and then finish the house in their own colours and design, so each home looks different from its neighbour.

Contemporary architecture has kept the turf, too. The Nordic House in Tórshavn, which opened in 1983, was designed by Ola Steen from Norway and Kolbrún Ragnarsdóttir from Iceland after a competition with 158 entries.

Its 2,000 square metre turf-covered roof makes the building look like a green hill, with steel struts helping it resist the strong winds that sweep the islands.

Seeing Faroe Islands houses respectfully

Many of the most photographed houses are private homes. Keep to roads and paths, avoid walking on turf roofs or through gardens, and ask before photographing people at their doors.

If you want to stay in one, a cottage in the Faroe Islands with a grass roof is a lovely way to experience the islands. Look for listings that are honest about heating, access roads and how far you are from the nearest shop.

To plan a wider trip, browse our Faroe Islands building guide by town, then add a village or two to your route. The old farmhouses and harbour quarters show how a small island community built homes that could stand up to the North Atlantic.

Cover photo: Raf24, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.