The name is derived from the stream Makrellbekken which runs through the area from north to south, and which had already given its name to some farms in the area. These existed before the modern development, and one of their farmhouses has been transferred to the Norwegian Museum of Cultural History in Bygdøy. [1]
The name
Makrellbekken (really Markskillebekken) before it flows into the river Hoffselva. The stream has also given a name to the neighborhood.
In Norwegian, the name Makrellbekken (Literally: Mackerel-stream) for many seems comical, if you realize that the fish mackerel does not live neither in streams or freshwater. However, the name has nothing to do with the fish, but is a distortion of "Markskillebekken" (Literally: The cropland-divide-stream), the former boundary stream between the farms of Huseby, Voksen, Smedstad and Holmen.[1]
History
The first business building was erected in Makrellbekken in the 1920s. The station on the suburban railway line opened on 24 January 1935 and is now served by line 2 of T-Banen. A quarry was operated in Makrellbekken before and during the German occupation of Norway, and Soviet prisoners of war were forced to work there.
