| Introduction
| | Here are a number of suggestions for readymade tours, where you can find detailed historical material for the individual destinations.
You reach a miniguide via a text icon on the start page of the tour from the upper meny or via the title of the tour in the left meny.
In the left meny You can also reach depth reports from the historical part of the Öresundstid.
You return to the guide when You click on the title of the tour in the left meny. |
Trip by Car
| | Via the text icon You can reach a guide to a trip by car in the northern parts of the Öresund Region.
You can go to the left menu and find more information in the historic part of Øresundstid.
You return to the guide when You click on the title "By car" in the left meny. |
A Car Trip With Children
This trip is directed at families with children, who are in school and depicts f
four days in a car on both sides of the Sound in th northern part of the Sound region. The trip offers lots of experiences and activities for the whole family. But you are free to choose one of the day trips, of course.
In the side menu of Øresundstid you can read of the historical background for the individual destinations.
Under maps and links you will find route directions and links for the home pages of the individual resorts, with information about opening hours, prices, etc.
Day 1
The trip starts in Elsinore, where there are ample overnight accommodations. Among other places, Elsinore Hostel, Elsinore Camping, a number of Bed and Breakfasts and hotels at various price ranges.
Look at the home page of the Elsinore Tourist Agency for this.
The first stop on the trip is:
Esrum Monastery
The monastery from the middle of the 12th century, but has now been turned into a modern museum, where the visitors will gain an exciting insight into the picture of the world and way of life of the Middle Ages.
Here you´ll find workshops, medieval markets, carriage rides and changing medieval themes.
If convenient go to Esrum Monastery’s own home page to see current themes and offers. See the side menu: Maps and links.
Esrum Monastery. |
North Zealand´s Summer Park
North Zealand´s Summer Park is an amusement park with countless imaginative amusements and activities. Among other things, indoor water complex, safari park, go cart track and remote-controlled boats.
After all these physical activities it is perhaps time to relax.
For this the nearby small seaside town, Gilleleje, is an obvious opportunity.
Gilleleje
Gilleleje is one of North Zealand´s well known bathing towns. The idyllic surroundings with the harbour and the tempting sand beach have attracted domestic and foreign tourists for more than a hundred years.
The magnificent view to Kullen on the other side of the Sound has also made Gilleleje popular.
Internationally Gilleleje is also known because it was one of the largest escape harbours for the Danish Jews during the Second World War. The attic of Gilleleje´s church was a place of refuge for app. 100 Danish Jews in October 1943. They were detected by the German occupying power and sent to German concentration camps.
You can choose to stay in Gilleleje for the evening and participate in the traditional ”mole rush” on the long mole. You can also drive on to scenic area ”Rusland” (Russia) and see the Rudolph Tegner Museum.
"Rusland" and Rudolph Tegner´s Museum
In one of North Zealand most beautiful landscapes called: "Rusland", you´ll see a strange sight. In the undulating landscape a massive bunker-like building appears. If you go inside, you´ll see a collection of sculptures with obvious references to Antiquity. The sculptor, Rudolph Tegner (1873-1950) paid for the building of the museum himself.
Several of the bronze sculptures you can see in Elsinore have been created by Tegner. For instance, the Dancers´ spring just north of Elsinore Shipyard and Heracles and the Hydra on the Kronborg quay in Elsinore harbour.
Day 2
The second day of the car trip offers castle visits, nature experiences and a visit to one of Denmark´s most famous art museums.
Frederiksborg Castle
The impressive renaissance castle was built in the beginning of the 17th century and is one of the most outstanding buildings from the reign of Christian 4.
Today the castle houses the National History Museum, Frederiksborg Castle, with a fascinating interior, an extensive collection of paintings and a large collection and portraits. The impressive baroque garden has been re-established and if you have time, you can end the visit with a sail on the castle lake with the ship M/F Frederiksborg.
Frederiksborg Castle |
Fredensborg Castle
A short drive from the castle you will find:
The small castle is from the 1720´s. The beautiful baroque castle royal residence today and the crown prince couple lives in the Chancellery House.
Fredensborg Castle |
Fredensborg Falconer Estate
Close by you will find:
The Falconer Estate is a unique place, if you want to experience how people and birds of prey have worked together since the Middle Ages in the hunt for tasty meal. Children and adults will be in close contact with the royal birds of the sky
From here the trip continues to the internationally known Louisiana Museum for Modern Art in Humlebæk.
Louisiana Art Museum
Louisiana is one of Denmark’s most attended art museums. It is beautifully situated in a park with sculptures and a fantastic panorama view of the Sound and Scania. The view can also be enjoyed from the cafeteria and the terrace.
The museum exhibits contemporary art from the world and the children may be creative in the museum´s marvellous children´s house.
Day 3
The third day of the car trip starts with the sail from Elsinore to Helsingborg. The trip nly lasts about 20 minutes with one of the large and well-appointed car ferries, which sail every 20 minutes!
This day´s trip takes the family to see of Scania´s most beautiful nature resorts.
Kullen
Furthest out on the Kulla Peninsula is the nature reserve Kullaberg. The view and the dramatic landscape formations have attracted people and furthest out on the spit you will find the highest situated lighthouse. From the lighthouse you may follow a marked out path to the so-called”Silvergrottan”. The Danish king, Frederik II, who lived in the 16th century thought that he could extract silver from a lode, which was discovered in the rock. The Nordic 7 year war got in the way and they did not start the extraction until 1571. It turned out that the ore from the ”Silver Cut Hole” as it as called, did not contain any silver and the project was abandoned. It was a silver shining rock, pegmatit, they had found. When you are inside the cave, you´ll understand why they thought that the silver glinting walls contained precious metals.
Kullabygden |
Nimis
On the north coast of Kulllaberg at Skälderviken is Nimis, a colossal building made of driftwood, which the artist Lars Vilks has collected and used to create a quite peculiar construction. You can crawl through tunnels, climb small towers and wander around in this strange climbing frame. Reputedly they have used more than 160000 nails for this construction.
The path to Nimis is from Himmelstorp´s Hembygdsgård marked with ”N”. It takes app. an hour to walk there. You should realize that the trip will take you through hilly country and at times you will be very close to steep slopes!
Back at Hembygdsgården you can get coffee and cake at Himmelstorp´s cafè.
Ingelbo Moose Park
60 kilometres east of Helsingborg close to a small town called Västra Torup, is Sweden´s most southern park, Ingel Moose Park. Here you can see ”the king of the animals” and get very close to nature.
There are places to barbecue and overnight accommodations in the park´s ”Bed & Breakfast”.
A popular way to spend the night is”to live on a farm”.
Live on a farm
As a cosy and different form of night´s lodging we recommend that you try ”Live on a farm.”
It is usually popular with the families.Under Maps and links you will find a number of offers.
Dag 4
The fourth day of the car trip offers nature experiences in the area east of Helsingborg.
Handcar drive from Nybygget and Ljungbyhed
At the level crossing keeper’s house ”Lilla Kloster” on route13 you can order a special treat. You can go by handcar on the section between Nybygget and Ljungbyhed, a 13 kilometre return trip. The railway goes through scenic areas with lots of game and you can take a break anywhere you like. You just have to lift the handcar off the track. Övad Skog is a recommendable place to take a break. From here there is a 800 metres walk north to a relic of antiquity in a beech wood. As restaurants don´t grow on trees in this area, you should bring a packed lunch.
Dinoland in Nyvång
From a distance you see the enormous cinders heap at Nyvång´s old coal pit. Just next to it you will find Dinoland, which houses one the world´s greatest collections of full-scale dinosaur copies. We are lucky that the almost 30 metres long Tyrannosaurus Rex is just a copy and not a living creature. You can also walk to the view place on the cinders heap, visit a small amusement park for children, take the train through an adventure forest or practise driving a Go-Cart.
Påarp Birds Park
In Påarp just outside Helsingborg, is Sweden´s largest birds’ park. There are several hundred species from all over the world, for instance macaw, parakeets and cockatoo. The birds can fly around in a large aviary measuring 33 x 10 metres.
The birds’ park is a suitable outing for the whole family. The children can play in the garden, keen ornithologists and amateurs can gather around the aviaries and everybody can enjoy the famous Swedish coffee and cake.
There are overnight accommodations in connection with the birds’ park and you can also stay at a farm nearby.
Day 5
The car trip end with a day in Helsingborg.
Dropp In in Helsingborg
Dropp Inn is an experience centre with exciting activities for children and adults. The topic is water and you can perform different experiments. You can also use your time to blow bubbles and explore the many play opportunities
With light and audio games and computers as educational aid you can follow the ways of water in nature and towns.
Outside there are other opportunities. You can sail remote-controlled boats, drive electric cars og play in the adventure park.
Helsingborg´s Tropikarium
A few hundred metres north of Olympia, close to Frederiksdal, is the Tropikarium. Here you can see lemurs, anacondas, crocodile, scorpions, dwarf marmosets and much more. If you want an exciting zoological experience, you must visit the Tropikarium.
Väla Centre
It is easy to go to Väla, the largest shopping mall in north western Scania, a few miles out of town. More than a hundred shops and ample parking attracts customers every day from near and far.Map and Links
| | Here we offer a guide to a tour by car in the northern part of the Öresund Region.
Via the linkicon you can reach homepages, where you can get informations about prizes, booking etc.
If You click on "By car" in the left meny You will return to the guide. |
Esrum,s Monastery
| | In time the Esrum Monastery became the larges landowner in North Zealand. It grew into a large enterprise with many different products. It owned a large number of copyhold farms in North Zeland, but it also had properties in Scania and Halland. |
Esrum´s Monastery
Esrum Monastery in North Zealand was established as a Cistercienser monastery in 1151 and was linked to the main monastery Clairveaux in France, named after the reformer Bernard af Clairveaux. There are still faint traces of the monastery´s ideal situation on a flat stretch close to Esrum Lake and the stream, which furnished the monastery with drinking water and water power. Esrum Monastery was favoured with gifts in the form of land and property from the start and in the course of the 13th century it developed into the largest land owner in North Zealand.
Esrum Monastery. | 
The Waterway | 
Esrum´s Location | 
Bernard of Clairvaux |
Bryde- and Copyhold Farms
In the first period until the middle of the 13th century, production on the large breeding farms were emphasized. These were the so-called grangiers, which was worked by the monks and the lay brothers of the monasteries. They primarily functioned as the monastery´s workers and did not participate fully in the monastery life. The lay brother arrangement was probably also a safeguard against poverty in times with plenty of labour.
Cistercians order did not pay tithe and the earth that the monks inherited and cultivated was exempt for taxes, which made the grangie system profitable. From around the middle of the 13th century it became hard to find labour and they started to dismantle the grangiers in favour of bryde farms, farms with bailiffs and affiliated smallholders. Around this time an internal regulation was abolished, which entailed that the land of the orders were not to be used for copyhold and after this they established copyhold farms.
The Cultivation Structure
The cultivation structure with bryde farms and the three furlong holding existed in the western part of North Zealand, Holbo Herred, where the best land was. In North Zealand there was a very varied production starting with a sort of forest agriculture, where the distinction between farm land and forest was vague and hay harvest and grazing played a major part.
Studies of Esrum Monastery´s Land Book from 1497 shows that more peasants did villeinage with hay harvest than with harvest of corn and the straw after the corn harvest must have been mixed with weeds and nourishing for the widespread livestock. Moreover mast production for pigs and timber felling also played a major part.
Production and Food
The composition of the natural produce and the situation of the monasteries in North Zealand show that the vegetable production dominates the northern and western parts, while the animal production dominates around Nødebo near Esrum Lake, where there were stretches of meadow land for grazing around the lake. Firewood and fish also play a part around Hornbæk. It is difficult from the source material to say anything precise about conditions of life nutrition, but one source the Scanian so-called ledingsret, gives an indirect picture of the composition of the food.
Esrum´s Production |
The Possessions of the Monastery
The possessions of the monastery stretched as far as the Sound Coast, where the utilization of water power for the mills took place around the present Egebæksvang.
However, the monastery´s possessions did not end in Zealand alone. Besides the 311 copyold farms, the monastery also owned an unknown number of farms in Scania. Moreover the monastery also owned a mill in Helsingborg and two stalls, which they had inherited. The interest in Halland related to timber, for instance oak, which as early as the 12th century was becoming scarce in Zealand.Gilleleje
| | Gilleleje is, besides a wonderful seaside resort and summer cottage area, also known for being one of the most important escape centres for the Danish Jews, who sought refuge in Sweden during the Second World War.
This wasn’t entirely without problems. The greatest tragedy took place in the loft in Gilleleje Church, where the Germans surrounded around 100 Danish Jews and took the to concentration camps in Germany. |
The Great Escape – Denmark
Thousands of Danes fled to Sweden in october 1943 across the Sound. Many from Gilleleje, Elsinore, Snekkersten and Espergærde.
The Escape Across the Sound |
Before October 1943
Shortly after the occupation the German occupying power banned travels between the Scandinavian countries. It was necessary to apply for a visa, which the Danes were to administer, but under German control. At the same time a Danish coast police was established to patrol the eastern Danish waters from Hundested in the north to Gedser in the south. The Danish marine was to control the adjacent waters.
From when Denmark was occupied April 9th 1940 to August 1943 only few refugees came from Denmark to Sweden. Partly because of the relative peaceful circumstances in Denmark, but also because of Sweden´s restrictive refugee policies. It appears from Swedish police reports that the Swedish policy of neutrality towards the strong and victorious Germany meant that they often sent the refugees back to Denmark.
The Coast Police |
Vendepunktet (Overskriften skal oversættes til engelsk)
After a series of intense events August 29th 1943 in connection with the resignation of the Danish government and the internment of the Danish military, the number of refugees in September increased to 609, of which 61 were Jews. The rest was first and foremost military persons, resistance people, stateless persons, policemen, but also some unemployed and adventurers, who fled from the blacked out and restriction-ridden Denmark.
Flygtningestrømmen vokser (Rubrikken skal oversættes til engelsk)
The internment of the Danish army, the hostage-taking and the increasing tit-for-tat murders led to a marked increase in the refugee stream to Sweden in the course of the month of September. A number of artists and intellectuals, among them quite a few Jews, began to see the writing on the wall and arrange the crossing to the neutral Sweden.
The nuclear physicist Niels Bohr crossed September 30th, the same day as the architects Poul Henningsen and Arne Jacobsen escaped from Skodsborg together with girlfriends and a fifth party, Herbert Marcus, who was also an oarsman. The boat had been collected by a Falck van in the Bagsværd Lake, as it was prohibited to have smaller vessels less than five kilometres from the coast. It was a dramatic crossing in an overloaded boat, which was unsuitable for that type of transport. Arne Jacobsen was of Jewish origin, and Poul Henningsen was on the list of the tit for tat murders, but he did not know that at the time. They both reached Stockholm, where they spent the rest of the war.
October 2. 1943: The Mass Escape of the Danish Jews
Dette tekstafsnit skal oversættes til engelsk fra Staffan eller Stigs tekst.
Werner Best | 
Duckwitz |
The Hunts for The Jews
The night between October first and second 1943 the Germans started a hunt for the Jews in Denmark with the object of sending them to the concentration camp Theresienstadt in the protectorate Bohemia-Moravia, the present Czech Republic. Officially the Germans explained in the daily press that the Jews were to blame for the disturbances in August. In order to compensate they simultaneously released the disarmed Danish soldiers.
The result was that 234 Jews were apprehended. The raid had follow ups in October and November, where an additional 190 Jews were apprehended. They were deported and 53 of them died in the camp. Most of them old and sick.
Concentration Camps in Europe | 
Theresienstadt | 
Martin Nielsen |
Sverige ändrar inställning
In the light of the events in August the Swedish state re-evaluated its policy of neutrality. October 2nd Sweden announced publicly that they would receive the Danish Jews as refugees. In close cooperation with – especially the Scanian authorities and administration, a number of privately based, illegal escape routes along the entire Zealand east coast were established.
The Civilian Resistance
The persecution of the Jews became a turning point for many Danes in their attitude towards the German occupying power. The close integration of the Danish Jews in the Danish society meant that the racial policy of Nazism offended the sense of justice of many Danish citizens. A larger number of the population now resisted actively; often citizens, who had no affiliation with the existing part of the resistance movement, who mostly were connected to the Communist Party and the Dansk Samling party.
In Copenhagen the students went on strike and some of them organized a collection of money, which came to very large sums: Approximately 1 million kroner, which in 1993 correspond to 20 million kroner.
Escape Routes
Thousands of Jewish fellow citizens from Copenhagen made for the Sound coast, where there was total chaos for the first few days with regards to the organisation of this migration. Escape routes sprung up and at first without mutual connections.
In Stockholm the Danish architect, Ole Helweg took the initiative for a meeting with the Swedish foreign minister and Ebbe Munck, who was the representative of the Danish resistance movement in Sweden, and with the help of Jewish circles in Sweden a boat was provided, which sailed from Malmo and this became the beginning of the Danish-Swedish refugee service, which was to sail 367 trips with refugees.
Very different people started separately or in groups to organize escape routes from the metropolitan area to the Swedish coast. Most came over from Copenhagen itself, but also from Gilleleje on the north coast and Snekkersten south of Elsinore were for a period of time became veritable escape centres.
From Where? | 
Ebbe Munch |
Vellykket redningsaktion (Rubrik oversættes til engelsk)
The result was that the vast majority of Denmark´s, approximately 95% 7000 Jews in the course of October crossed over to safety on the other side of the Sound. Approximately 2-3000 directly from Copenhagen, where 80% of the Jews lived.Frederiksborg Castle
| | Frederiksborg Castle was originally built in the time of Frederik 2., but in the 17th century Chr. 4.started an extensive rebuilding and made his own mark on the castle.
In the 1720´s Frederik 4. established an impressive Baroque garden, which was the only one that escaped being turned into a Romantic garden.
In 1996 the original overgrown Baroque garden was re-established. |
He continued in his father´s steps and continued building in North Zealand, and began around 1600 a rebuilding of Frederiksborg Castle, so it had a more uniform look. The large castle was finished in 1626. If Kronborg appeared as a closed fortification, Frederiksborg Castle had a large open courtyard, where the fountain and the surrounding buildings gave a more open, more representative and modern impression.
But the castle had simultaneously lost its significance as a fortification and instead functioned as a magnificent frame for the royal power.
Like Frederik II built his summer castle near Kronborg, Christian IV built a house next to Frederiksborg Castle, which was called ”Sparepenge” and even ”The Bath”, where it was more comfortable and informal to stay.
Frederiksborg is built in Dutch renaissance with towers and spires with richly decorated house ends.
Frederiksborg Castle | 
Frederiksborg Castle | 
The Audience Gate | 
Iron Grating | 
FrdgSlot |
Renaessance Style
Frederiksborg is built in Dutch renaissance with towers and spires with richly decorated house ends.In the time of Christian IV the characteristic mixture of red bricks and decorative sandstone bands, which is seen on many of the royal and noble buildings of the time, was developed. Like Frederik II built his summer castle near Kronborg, Christian IV built a house next to Frederiksborg Castle, which was called ”Sparepenge” and even ”The Bath”, where it was more comfortable and informal to stay.
Frederiksborg Castle | 
The Summer House | 
The Trinity Church |
Frederiksborg´s Baroque Garden
As early as 1702 the king considered removing Sparepenge and the garden to make use of the slanting terrain on the other side of the castle lake in order to lay out a larger baroque garden. In 1720 he starts to realize his plans. Sparepenge is demolished and some of the stones from here are used to build Fredensborg Castle. In the years 1720-25 the new garden is laid out according to the designs of the architect Johan Cornelius Krieger.
The garden is 100x 400 metres, laid out in three levels on the sloping terrain. The left side of the garden is concentrated in a mid axis, which is formed by a water cascade. The garden around this axis planted symmetrically, where the low parterre-beds on the first step consist of varied royal monograms.
Frederiksborg Palace Garden | 
The surroundings of Frederiksborg Palace |
Oversæt
OversætFredensborg Castle
| | After the end of the Great Nordic war in 1720 it seemed that Denmark had finally given up the thought of getting the Scanian countries back. Anyhow the desire for peace was so great that when the king built a new residence between Frederiksborg and Kronborg, he chose to call it Fredensborg (Fred = peace). According to tradition it was money, which was earmarked for the war that was used to the building activities. |
The European Big Powers Dominated
At the peace after the Great Nordic War in 1720 the two double kingdoms Denmark-Norway and Sweden-Finland almost an even match, but they were also reduced to pawns in the international game, which was dominated by the European big powers France, England, Holland and eventually Russia and the German area (Prussia), where unification efforts picked up speed in the course of the 18th century.
Fredensborg a Peace Symbol
It seemed that Denmark had given up on the idea of getting the Scanian countries back. The wish for peace is so great that the king chose to call his new residence Frederiksborg and Kronborg Fredensborg and according to tradition it was the money, which was meant for the war that was spent on the building.
Where Fredensborg Castle now is there used to be a hunting property or country house called Østrupgård, where king Frederik IV used to spend his time instead of the ostentatious Frederiksborg Castle. In 1719, when it was possible to see an end to the Great Nordic War, the king had a lime kiln built, cleared roads and forests as a preparation for a building on the spot. The main building was finished in 1722 and the new building was named Fredensborg, which referred to the peace after the great war. Originally the idea was to have a statue on the lantern of the dome of the peace goddess.
Fredensborg Castle | 
View from the Park |
The Adapted Renaissance Style
The original design consisted of the impressive main building with a dome hall, which also made up one side of an octagonal layout, which was built under the later master builder J.C. Krieger, who at the time was a gardener at the orangery in Rosenborg Garden.
The model was perhaps Marly, the French King´s pleasure castle, which the Danish king had seen on the first of his journeys abroad in 1691-92. Externally the castle did not resemble the over decorated French style. The smooth wall surfaces of Fredensborg are found again in Frederiksberg Castle. Only the broad window casings with the overlying frontons work decoratively, but they look most of all like the window casings in Kronborg, which is Renaissance style and does not have much in common with the over decorated Italian Baroque.
The adapted Renaissance style is quite unique and somewhat resembles the style of Stockholm Castle, which was built by the famous Swedish architect Nicodemus Tessin the younger. Most likely the inspiration had gone via the later master builder Johan Conrad Ernst, who was with Tessin in Stockholm to study for the construction of a residence castle, which Christian V wanted to build in the Amalienborg Garden in Copenhagen. In this way the building of Fredensborg Castle was a testimony to the cultural exchange between the two countries in spite of the war and controversy.
The Original Draft | 
Doors and Windows |
The Influence of Jardin
After the building of Fredensborg in 1773 almost all the important architects of the century came in contact with the building in connection with expansions and changes, which fortunately enough did not spoil the original character of the castle. Late, but no least, the French architect, N.H. Jardin was involved in plans for a comprehensive rebuilding of the main building of the castle and the garden, which was reorganized over a number of years from 1759-68.
The most of the other projects were dropped when the king around 1762 needed more money for armament because of a conflict with Russia.
Fredensborg 1729 | 
Jardin´s plan 1760 | 
The Normand Valley |
Kullen
| | Kullen is the name of the mountain in the Kulla peninsula in north western Scania.
The outermost tip of Kullen bounds the Sound from the Kattegat.
The area around Kullen, the Kullabygden, became a popular outing for the tourists of the 19th century and the small fishing villages Arild and Mølle became tourist attractions.
The Kullabygden is often referred to as ”The Scanian Riviera". |
Kullen-Arild and Mølle
The beautiful and dramatic landscape on the lengthy Kulla Mountain (Kullaberg)in Scania , was, as early as the 19th century, a popular recreational area for summer guests from both sides of the Sound.
The painters were the first to feel attracted to the romantic nature, but quickly the men of letters followed, and later on the area became a popular recreational area for the more wealthy part of the population. The old fishing villages, Arild and Mølle, in the vicinity of the western and eastern area became, with their picturesque small houses and their proximity to the water, a popular recreational area.
The Kulla mountain (Kullaberg) is only 187 metres high, but the fact that it rises directly up from the sea makes the terrain formation dramatic. The mountain itself is only 16 kilometres long and at most places only 2 kilometres wide. At the extreme end the mountain ends with a steep slope.
The steep slops of Kullen towards the dangerous sea on both sides and the many caves, have, from time immemorial, naturally created the providede the breeding ground for countless legends and myths.
Kullen by the Sea | 
The Silver Cave from the Outside | 
A Cave with a Wiew | 
The Silver Cave |
Palnatoke´s Skiing and the Kullen Man
During Romanticism the interesest for the old Nordic legends awoke. Some of them are linked to Kullaberg. As early as 1809 Adam Oehlenschläger wrote the tragedy ”Palnatoke” and thus gave life to Saxo´s story of the old Danish legendary figure. Palnatoke had, to prove her prowess in skiing to Harald Bluetooth, taken a downhill race down Kullen´s slopes. (An achievement many Danes in a somewhat smaller scale try to imitate today by doing risky mountain climbs).
In his book “Valdemar Sejr” Bernhard Severin Ingemann told of "Kullamannen", (The Kulla Man), who told the future of the Valdemar Sejr´s sons.
The Kullen man was part nature being and part an authentic historic person in Kullen. According to tradition it is supposedly a knight by the name of Thord Knutsson Bonde.
Palnatoke´s Slope |
The Roamntic Names of the Kulla Mountain
The national and nature romantic interest is evident in the names of the rock formations and caves on Kullaberg. They were named in the latter part of the 19th century. For example Kullamannens grav (the Kulla Man´s Grave), Valdemarsgrotten (The Valdemar Cave) and Palnatokes skrænt (Palnatoke´s Slope), not to mention the beautiful-sounding names: Kaprifoliegrottan, Paradiset, Josefinelust, and Silvergrotten. Josefinelust is named after Oskar I:s wife Josefin, who visited the place.
Josefinelust | 
The Josefinelust Cave |
Arild, Early Artist Community
On Kullaberg´s east side we find the old fishing village Arild with a view of Skälderviken, Bjärehalvön and Kattegat. The pleasant climate, the romantic and idyllic atmosphere with the remote fishing village and the light from the sea contributed and still does to the attracting power of the place.
As early as the 1830´s a number of Scandinavian painters were fascinated by the beauty of Arild´ss landscape and eventually they created a fertile artists´ environment, where among others the two prominent landscape painters , the Dane Frederik Christian Kiaerskou and the Norwegian Adolf Tidemand had their easels put up.
Arild | 
Oversættes | 
Arild-Fishermen | 
Arild´s Harbour 2006 |
Mother Cilla
In the middle of the 19th century Arild had a popular centre for thetown´s fishermen and the visiting artists and summer guests. That was the energetic and outspoken Cecilia Andersson, who converted her big home into an inn, which she called Mother Cilla.
The house still exists in a completely changed rebuilding, but was then a centre for artistic activity and socializing. A sort of forerunner of the famous Brøndum´s Hotel in the Skaw.
Among the artists was also Natanael Beskow., who portrayed Mother Cilla in September 1891 on one of the doors in the hotel. The portrait is still there. The tradition of artists paying the host with paintings, was quite alien to Mother Cilla. She wanted money on the table. The story doesn´t say anything about whether an exception was made in the Beskow´s case!
Mother Cilla´s status as the uncrowned queen of the fishing village in the 1890´s, was finally established, when King Oscar II visited Arild in 1894. The lunch was taken at Mother Cilla´s. At the head of the table sat the king and his partner, well, Mother Cilla, of course!
Mor Cilla | 
Hotel Mother Cilla | 
The Visit of Oskar II | 
Royal Letter |
Danish Artists in Arild
Peter Severin Kröyer, who became one of the most renowned Skaw painters, stayed in Arild as early as 1872 and revisited the place in 1881 and 1885. Some of his works from here can be seen at the Skaw Museum.
The naturalistic drawings of the poor fishing village´s population show the tendency to move away from the former period´s romantic depictions.
Another frequent summer guest among the artists was Viggo Pedersen, who also established and managed an artists´ school. The number of Danish Arild artists were large and August Jerndorff and Bernhard Middelboe also deserves a mention.
When you consider how many of the Danish artists, who gathered in Arild, Hornbæk and the Skaw, it is clear that it is the small fishing villages, which often created the inspiration.
P.S.Krøyer | 
Mother Cilla | 
Girl from Arild | 
Shoemaker in Arild |
Swedish Artists in Arild
The Swedish artists also came to Arild and Mother Cilla, but they came later than the Danes. Carl Fredrik Hill visited Arild in 1870, 72 and 73, but most Swedes didn´t arrive until some years into the 1880´s. Richard Bergh, who later became the head of Sweden´s National Museum, came to Arild for the first time in 1884, Gustaf Cederström arrived on his first summer visit in 1887. Fritz von Dardel was in Arild in1891, where he made a drawing from Mother Cilla´s 65th birthday. The most frequent guest was Gustaf Rydberg, who lived in Arild every summer from 1889 to 1909.
Many female artists were productive in Arild. Elisabeth Keyser lived here for several summers in the 1890´s and even established a painters´school. Emilia Lönblad lived in Arild in 1891 and 1892. Sophie Stiernstedt became a summer resident in 1901. A local talent was Gisela Trapp, who in her young years (the middle of the 1890´s) came to Arild to paint. She was married to Oscar Trapp, one of the consuls of Helsingborg, and she eventually became important in the area. She was deeply religious and had a Catholic chapel built in her garden in the western part of Arild. It was finished in 1921 and is still used by the Catholic Church.
Without mentioning all the Swedish and foreign painters, who came to Arild, it can be seen as an early centre of outdoor painting and can be compared to the Skaw.
Mother Cilla´s 65th birthday | 
Viking Style Arild | 
Bo Folkvi |
The Kulla Village – A Cultural Melting Pot
It was not only the advocates of Romanticism and the painters, who found a place where they could breathe freely in the Kullen area´s dramatic and romantic nature. You could also meet culture figures with quite a different understanding of the life.
Georg Brandes stayed in Mølle in 1890, for example. August Strindberg described a visit to Mölle and to Kullen in his "Legends". However, it was mostly his soul and his troubles he depicted here, while Selma Lagerlöf ten years later was more occupied with Kullen´s animated nature in her: "Niels Holgerssons Wonderful Journey Through Sweden". Selma Lagerlöf lived in Mölle in the summer 1906 with Sophie Elkan.
Hjalmar Söderberg met the Dane Emelie Voss during his stay in Mölle in 1907 and was cheered up after his failed marriage.
Further on in the 20th century Vilhelm Ekelund, Ivar Lo Johansson, Anders Österling and Ola Hansson visited the Kulla Village for longer or shorter periods of time.
Ablahamn | 
Hotel Kullaberg | 
The Tourist Hotel Mölle |
Mølle – The Seaside Resort
Mölle gradually became the real tourist magnet. Everybody was talking of the ”shameless Mölle", where men and women bathed together! The fact that Mölle was one of the first places in Europe with such a frank behaviour did not go down well with som of the Mölle inhabitants. When they were out of town they often said that they came from Arild where such risqué behaviour was unheard of.
Oskar II:s visit in 1894 in Arild and Mølle and Emperor Wilhelm´s landing in 1907 became the highlight and a proof of the area´s attracting power. Oscar scratched his name in one of the caves in Kullen, which later was named ”the Oscar Cave”.
Mölle by the Sea | 
The two sexes in bath | 
Beach Nymph | 
Ransvik |
Berlin - Mølle
In the first decades of the 20th century Mølle´s tourism grew intensely. A new train connection between Mølle and Höganäs, which was opened in 1909, was a deciding factor in area´s transformation into southern Sweden´s first and largest tourist area. The international status of Mølle was underlined with a direct train connection between Berlin and Mølle.
Tourists in Mölle | 
Viking Style Mølle |
The White Mølle
Mølle´s attraction gradually, especially after the turn of the century, occasioned the building of a number of hotels. Hotel Kullaberg, Hotell Elfverson, Turisthotellet and Grand Hotel, for example. But even before the prime of the hotes, a number of houses had their own local characteristic. The typical Mølle house had a high base floor with a scullery and on this was the apartment itself. The houses are white and that colour is still typical of the houses in Mølle.
Mölle – The White Town | 
Mølle 2003 | 
Attractive tourist area |
The Tourist Hotel Mölle |
Hotel Kullaberg |
Kullen´s Old Lighthouse
The outermost part of Kullaberg borders the Sound from Kattegat, but also the land from the sea in a very marked way. For centuries the dramatic landscape has fascinated man and made it a popular resort. But the promontory, which juts out into the sea, has always been a danger for ships. This is why they early on decided to warn the ships with a lighthouse. In 1561 they laid out a lighthouse place ordered by Frederik II. It was improved two years later with a brick tower.
The lighthouse keeper in charge was Tycho Brahe, who later on fell from favour with Christian 4. because he was accused of having neglected his assignment.
The earliest picture known of the lighthouse is drawn by the Dutchman, Simon Frisius in 1615, when he sailed between Holland and Russia. In the next centuries the lighthouse has been rebuilt several times.
Kullen´s Lighthouse |
Kullen´s Present Lighthouse – an Idea from the 19th Century.
Kullen´s present lighthouse is only 15 metres high, but as a shining crown on the top of the majestic rock it is still a magnificent sight. The light source is 78,5 metres above the sea and thus one of the highest situated in Sweden.
In 1898 the authorities accepted the designs for the present lighthouse. The architect was Magnus Dahlander from Dalarne. They started building in 1899, and the new lighthouse opened in the year 1900. At this time they also delivered the lens instrument, which still rotates in the lighthouse.
The lenses, which increased the light source were the result of research by the French physicist and engineer August Frensel (1788-1827). He had studied how light is refracted through different lenses and established here that if you place the light source in focus in a burning-glass, the beams are refracted, so they radiate from the lens in parallel. The discovery was made as early as 1822. They were now able to construct lenses, which reinforced the light much more efficently than the old paraboloidal reflectors.
The first Frensel lens was put in the famous French lighthouse Cordouan on the Frech west coast in1823. But t wasn´t until the end of the century that the Paris company Barbier & Barnard could deliver the new construction to the lighthouse in Kullen.
The lens instrument was at the time the largest in Sweden with its three large lenses. It was rotated with clockwork and a weight, which was used until 1937.
The light source itself was electrified in 1907 with a 1000 watts bulb, which gave and still gives the strongest flash in Scandinavia every 5th second.
Kullens Lighthouse | 
Kullen´s Lighthouse – A Place with a View | 
The Lenses | 
The Light Source | 
The Lighthouse´s Old Weight |
By Bicycle
| | Via the text icon You can reach a guide to a trip by bycycle in the northern parts of the Öresund Region.
You can go to the left menu and find more information in the historic part of Øresundstid.
You return to the guide when You click on the title "By Bicycle in the left meny.
(Nyt billede under produktion) |
For the tourist interested in exercise we here are suggestions as to how to experience the cultural heritage of the region, arts and crafts and culinary offers at reasonable price.
On the page menu of Øresundstid (Sound Times) you can read more of the historical background of the individual destinations.
Under Maps and Links there is a directory and links to the homepages of the individual destinations including opening hours and prices.
Day 1
The first day the tour starts in Elsinore. From the centre of Elsinore we cycle, via Marienlyst Allé by Gl.Hellebækvej a couple of kilometres to one of the Danish trade union´s strongholds – the LO-School.
The LO-School
The LO-School is a course and conference centre, where the Danish trade union in the middle of the 1960´s built a magnificent monument of a school to educate their shop stewards from all over the country.
The school is also known for its large collection of Danish post war art and the beautiful view to the Scanian landscape on the other side of the Sound.
The LO -School, Elsinore |
Hammermøllen
Hammermøllen in Hellebæk is an example of the earliest industrialization in Denmark. The mill was restored in 1980 so it appears as in 1765, when it was an important link in the extensive weapons production, which took place in the area. Placed in Hellebæk´s idyllic surroundings the mill is a popular outing for tourists and schools.
Hammermøllen |
Domain Aalsgaarde
The temperature in our Nordic latitudes is not normally suited for wine production. However, Domain Aalsgaarde´s geographical placement is an exception. An enthusiastic Danish wine farmer has established Denmark´s first vineyard with tour, talks and wine tasting. Five different white wine sorts are produced here.
Domain Aalsgaard | 
Domain Aalsgaard Guide |
The Flynderupgård Museum
The Flynderupgård Museum in Espergærde is beautifully situated between Egebæksvang Wood and the cultivated fields. They have changing cultural history exhibitions here, a fishing collection, an old grocery store, a class room, a peasant sitting room and a rose garden as in 1920. In the ”civic restaurant" old Danish courses are served. The museum also has an outdoors cultural centre with examples of the agriculture of the old days.
Flynderupgård | 
Flynderupgaard Guide |
Louisiana
Louisiana Museum for Modern Art in Humlebæk was established in 1958. The starting point was an old patrician villa from 1855 and the museum´s fascinating architectural design has been created in close connection with the terrain
The art museum with its permanent and changing exhibitions is one of the most visited museums in Denmark
From the museum there is also a magnificent view across the Sound to Hven and Scania.
Krogerup Home Farm
Krogerup Home Farm is an organic agriculture with a farm shop and café. It is situated just 500 metres from the Louisiana Museum and has an extensive production of vegetables. It is part of a larger organic development complex called “Årstiderne” (The Seasons). The home farm is the neighbour to the well known Krogerup Højskole. The landscape around Krogerup is being declared an area of outstanding natural beauty.
Krogerup Home Farm | 
Krogerup Home Farm Guide |
Andersen Art
Andersen Art, Strandvejen 390 in Espergærde, is a small, but exciting art gallery with changning exhibitions, sculpture garden, beautiful position and and a view of the Sound. The The patrician villa used to be a summer cottage owned by one of Denmark´s great politicians during the occupation, Christmas Møller.
Marienlyst Hotel and Nationernes Allé
The hotel dates back to1859, but is a modern hotel today by the banks of the Sound. The hotel offers bathing facilities with a tropical climate, terrace spa, sauna, massage and a view of the Sound and Kronborg.
Historically Marienlyst Hotel has been a fashionable meeting place for more than a hundred years, where a number of national and international personalities relate of their experiences here.
Close to the hotel we find Nationernes Allé. Before the tour takes us to Elsinore Hostel, we should look at the magnificent villas in Nationernes Allé. They were originally built for the more fashionable section of the hotel´s guests. Historically the houses are interesting. Some of them have traits of the national romantic Viking style.
Sur la Plage | 
Nationernas Allé |
Danhostel – Elsinore´s Hostel
Only a stone´s throw away from Marienlyst Hotel, Ndr.Strandvej 24, we find one of North Zealand´s best situated hostels, where it is possible to spend the night at a reasonable price. It is situated in beautiful natural surroundings with a private beach and comfortable rooms.
In Maps and Links via Elsinore Tourist Agency there are further details.
Day 2
And now we are going to Hven. In the morning we take the ferry "Harald Blåtand" from Elsinore harbour to the beautiful island.
Harald Blåtand | 
Harald Blåtand Guide |
Hven
Hven is all that is left of the isthmus, which until appr. 8.000 år ago, connected Scania and Zealand. Left was only the island of Hven
Hven is also the island, where good food and drink. A place for those, who appreciate life. Grapes are cultivated here and wine is made. The island has it´s own mineral water and they make their own rice. Here they cultivate the durum wheat, which is used in the island´s wonderful bread and pasta. Here is also garlic cultivation, a fishing smokehouse and goat cheese production. They also plan to have their own whisky distillery.
Hven is, in short, the perfect place for an excursion. Just follow the the weel maintained bicycle paths.
Map of Ven | 
The Bicycle Ride on Hven |
Sct. Ibb´s Medieval Church
Start with looking into the small medieval church, Sct.Ibb. It was the apostle Jacob, the patron saints of merchants, which became the patron saint of the church. The oldest part of the church is form the 13th century. The church vault is from the 15th century. Here they have recently uncovered remnants of murals.
The altarpiece from1578 is donated by Tycho Brahe, the worldfamous Danish astronomer, who also was the vassal on Hven in the end of the 16th century.
The magnificent view of the Sound from the top of Backafallens top increases the experience.
Artists and Craftsmen
Many artists and craftsmen have set up on Hven. The studios are there like a pearl of string. You won´t regret the visit.
Start with seeing the exhibition in the community centre. Right next is Tunaboden and Hven´s weaving workshop. Here the make the beautiful Malvalamp, but also summer hats and grass mats.
A few hundred metres further on you can visit the sculptor Lena Cedergren´s study, Landsvägen 259.
The Tycho Brahe Museum
Afterwards it is a good idea to go to the Tycho Brahe Museum, which is established in the former Allhelgonakyrkan (All Saints Church). Tycho Brahe was one of the world´s leading scientists and he lived and researched Hven from 1576-1597. Here he had the small castle Uranienborg, built, surrounded by the renaissance ideal of geometrically framed gardening. The castle was disgracefully demolished in the 17th century, but half the garden lay out has now been re-established with plants characteristic of the period.
Next to the castle he let build a subterranean observatory, Stjerneborg.
Tycho Brahe´s world wide fame is due to the fact that he in Hven built the first real science institution in Europe. The island became a stamping ground for scientists and royals from all over the continent.
In the museum you will get an impression of this. It is also possible to go down in the remnants of the subterranean Stjerneborg.
Tycho Brahe | 
Uranienborg |
Turistgården´s Restaurant etc.
We are approaching lunch time. This could with advantage be consumed at the restaurant on Turistgården. Free of charge, as an extra dessert, you can enjoy the view across the Sound to Denmark.
Hvendurum
If you go a bit back you can look in on the bakery, Hvendurum. When you open the door you will enjoy the smell of newly baked bread. They also produce pasta from the durum wheat, which is grown on the island. Hven is the only place in Europe where this species of grain is cultivated
Cassiopeia Trädgårdsgalleri
Close by is Cassiopeia Trädgårdsgalleri. Here you can find beautiful things for your garden and your home.
Anis Galleri
Around the corner, on Norreborgsvägen, you will find Anis Galleri. Here you can buy unique glass and ceramics, made by the gallery.
The Silversmith
Next to it is the Silversmith, where Jan-Åke Ståhl designs and sells jewellery and Hven souvenirs in silver and gold.
Backafallsbyn
After lunch you can go to Backafallsbyn. Here is an opportunity to stay the night in a casual environment. While twilight falls, you can enjoy a well-prepared dinner, perhaps with fine wines.
The whiskey bar speaks for itself. It is considered one of the best in the world. It offers appr. 500 different brands, among them Sweden´s largest collection of Single Malt whiskey. However, it is not required that you taste all the brands!
Day 3
On the third day of the bicycle tour we are still on Hven. The many craftsmen on the island often have open workshops, where you can observe their craftsmanship, and on the culinary front you can enjoy the small enthusiastic foods enterprises with each their speciality.
Marielund´s Artists´ Farm and Sophie Design
In her rebuilt childhood home, Marielunds Artists´ Farm, the painter Céleste hold exhibitions and courses with her collegue Stig-Owe Jemseby. The artists´ farm is surrounded by a beautiful sculpture- and flower park.
Close by you can pop in at Silverblänk & Guldkorn Sophie Design; a workshop selling art and handicrafts.
The Sculpture Park in Marielund | 
Celeste-Joy |
On the Road
If you continue further down the road, there are more studios and smaller eating places with various specials.
Tunagården
Landsvägen 142. Here Gunillas Glass & Bernt H Ceramics have workshops with various handicrafts.
Potteverkstan
Landsvägen 134. Ceramic manufacture
Hvens Getost (Goat Cheese)
Landsvägen 66. Nina and Glenn Björne has established a farm shop with their own production of a number of specialities: Goats´ milk, goats´ cheese, mutton, etc..
The northern end of the road is a steep hill , which ends at Bäckvikens havn. From here boats go to Råå. In the waiting time you can enjoy an ice-cream from Hven´s Ice Cream Factory. You can buy them in the harbour´s kiosk.
Hven’s Goat Cheese Guide |
Råå
The sail to Råå takes an hour. The idyllic fishing village with the low town houses along the narrow alleyways and lanes has had a dramatic and changeable existence. In the 17th and 18th century Råå was the scene for several violent acts of war. Around the year 1900 Råå was the largest fishing town in Sweden.
After the landing many tourists have their lunch at Havnekroen, where you are in close contact with the boats and the activities on the harbour.
Ramlösa
In 2007 Ramlösa Brunns celebrate their 300th anniversary. The Ramlösa of today is characterized by housing and office areas, but some of the buildings from the heyday are still there. Royals and other prominent people came here and if you use your imagination you can see them walking about in the beautiful brunnspark, while waiting for a restorative drink from some of the springs, a soothing bath or participated in elegant dinners on the Brunnshotel. Perhaps some were boarding a horse drawn carriage in order to go to the Sound beach. Others, perhaps, were patients on their way to Brunnsparken´s Hospital for a more thorough treatment.
Ramlösa as a Refugee Camp
Many living Danes and Norwegians have a great deal of gratitude for Ramlösa Brunn, which during the Second World War functioned as a refugee camp for those, who had fled the German occupying power in Denmark and Norway.
The Spa Hotel |
Pålsjö
There are a few kilometres from Ramlösa to Pålsjö, but you can take interesting stops along the way: The popular "söder", centre with shopping and intensive ferry traffic, the modern housing area in Norra Hamnen and the street life around Gröningen and Fria Bad on a nice summer´s day.
Pålsjøbadet is in the northern end of the beach promenade and is a classic bathing house on poles in the water. When you are there you can spoil yourself after the exhausting bike ride with a herbal bath and a comfortable massage.
Some might be tempted to have a cold drink in Pålsjö Kro, which is only a few steps away.
Pålsjöbaden in Helsingborg |
The Thalassa Hostel
The hostel is a splendid for an overnight stay. From the Pålsjöbadet you cycle through scenic areas to the overnight accommodations in Pålsjö Wood. Here they have comfortable rooms with your own balcony, from where there´s a view of the seat.
You can have dinner at Thalassas à la Carte Restaurant.
Villa Thalassa | 
View from Villa Thalassa | 
Villa Thalassa Guide |
Day 4
On the last day of the bicycle trip we visit the well-known tourist attractions in Helsingborg. It doesn´t matter if you´ve seen them before. They all deserve more than one visit! But we wake up in the hostel in Pålsjö Wood.
Pålsjö Wood
If you choose to take a morning stroll in Pålsjö Wood, you´ll see a varied life: Joggers, cyclists, dog walkers and people, who just want to experience nature.
Pålsjö Cemetery
The trip may continue to the war cemetery. Here you will get a moving impression of Sweden´s dilemma during the Second World War, when the Swedish state felt it necessary to defend its neutrality in spite of the population´s sympathy for the Allies. Not everybody knows that quite a few soldiers from Germany, England. Canada and Australia were killed on Swedish territory and are buried here.
War Graves in Pålsjö |
Sofiero
From Thalassa Sofiero, Helsingborg´s most popular tourist attraction, is only a five minutes bike ride away. Sofiero Castle was the Swedish royal family´s summer castle until 1973. King Gustav VI Adolf fell ill that year during his stay at Sofiero and died a few days later in Helsingborg Hospital. It turned out that the king has willed the castle and the park to Helsingborg municipality. They now own it all.
It is especially the park with its unique collection of rhododendrons, which each year attracts thousands of tourists to Sofiero. In the main building there is a restaurant as well as a bistro.
Sofiero Castle |
Dunkers Arts Centre
From Sofiero there are 5-6 kilometres to the centre of Helsingborg. That won´t take long. It is downhill most of the way and there is often a tailwind from the north west.
The arts centre is situated at Norra Hamnen and contains an arts hall, exhibition halls, laocal historical exhibitions, a theatre, a music school, a restaurant etc.
Dunkers Kulturhus |
The Church of Saint Mary
Wedged between the houses, just south of Storttorget, you will find the Church of Saint Mary. Together with Kärnan, these are Helsingborg´s finest medieval gems. The Gothic church is from the 15th century and contains many art treasures from Nordic Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The famous Diderik Buxtehude was the organist in the Church of Saint Mary in the 1650´s.
The Western Front of the Church of Saint Mary | 
The Vault of the Church of Saint Mary |
The Central Helsingborg
When you are in the middle of town, it is tempting to go shopping in the many shops, or perhaps just a stroll down Kullagatan, the first pedestrianized street in Scandinavia.Map
| | Here we offer a guide to a tour by bike in the northern part of the Öresund Region.
Via the linkicon you can reach homepages, where you can get informations about prizes, booking etc.
If You click on "By bike" in the left meny You will return to the guide.
|
LO-school
| | The LO-School in Elsinore is an example of the high quality building activities, which took place in the Sound region after the Second World War.
On both sides of the Sound there are fine examples of how the innovative architecture of the 1930´s were carried on. The integration of buildings and landscape prioritized. |
Elsinore Grows
In the inter-war period a fine building tradition was developed in Elsinore by the renowned mayor Peder Christensen (King Peder). They started early with non-profit building, co-operative houses and cluster houses, for instance ”Hamlet´s Vænge” (1920) and the so-called ”Negro Village”, which became a model for many others. King Peder´s ambition was to create a model municipality, especially when it came to houses, and he succeeded.
Just before the Second World War the municipality stopped interfering in the house building and in 1938 the task was handed over to a newly established cooperative housing society. The building activity during the occupation was limited, there was great demand for houses, and in 1946 500 families did not have a home. The first great projects after the war was the neighbourhood ”Rolighed”. 17 blocks of flats were finished in 1951. The project, which had been designed by the architect V. Drosted, was quite unconventional as the houses were not placed in a long row, but had been adapted to the landscape and the terrain.
The Sound region in 2013? | 
Roligheden |
Modern Building Techniques
In the following years the neighbourhoods ”Blicherparken” and Gefionsparken” were built. In 1953 the first prefab construction buildings in concrete, ”Grønningen”, which was finished in 1957. Only the group heating station’s chimney was built by masons. The rest was made in concrete on the spot and was assembled by specially trained workers. The laundry room was furnished with modern electric machines, which could lighten the load of the hard-working housewife. Approximately 250.000 entered the labour market in the 1950´s.
By the end of the 1950 Elsinore was a town in rapid development. The new mayor, Sigurd Schiøtz, expressed his hopes for Elsinore´s expansion like this; ”We want a large town, not a large city”. In 1961 ”Sundparken” was built, a project in three stages with typical block of flats adjusted to the surroundings, but not as convincingly made as the earlier ”nature-adapted” projects.
The ideas about the interplay between the modern house building and its environment go back to the early industrialization. Through so-called ”park building” they tried to place the houses near green spaces. The first functionalistic building projects, for instance ”Blidah Park” at Strandvejen in Hellerup, opened in the beginning of the 30´s new possibilities for the placing of buildings. These projects were probably the models for ”Rolighed” and other building projects in Elsinore.
Grønningen |
Utzon´s Cluster Houses
When the architect Jørgen Utzon in 1958-60 designed his famous cluster houses, the Kingo houses in Elsinore and later in Fredensborg (1962-63, he probably knew about the local building tradition and its efforts to adapt to the surroundings. The placement of the individual houses is the most important in this these built-up area. Every house is shut in, but it still merges with the other houses and form a coherent unit. The Kingo-area with its 63 patio houses was listed in 1987. Jørgen Utzon also designed several private houses on both sides of the Sound.
Utzon´s Kingo House | 
Building Plan | 
Drawing | 
Oversæt | 
Oversæt |
The LO-School, Elsinore Folk High School
Elsinore´s traditional role as one of Denmark´s largest industiral towns since the end of the 19th century, was behind the decision to build the united larbour-movement´s largest folk high school close to the town..
The original architectural competition was won by the world famous Danish architect, Jørgen Utzon, who wanted to build a high-rise block in the hilly terrain, but it was the winners of the second prize, who was given the assignment
They chose to ”lay down the high-rise block” and design the school as a modern village with a medieval and south European element. The main building with education premises, restaurant etc. is centrally placed and around it six building are grouped, which contain the rooms of the participants in the courses.
The school was opened in 1969 and is together with the contemporary Louisiana in Humlebæk a popular resort for architects from all over the world, who admire the simple architecture and its interaction with the surroundings.
The large area around the school has meant that the school since 1969 has been enlarged several times.
A large art collection with around a thousand paintings - mainly Danish contemporary art after the Second World War - is there for the benefit of the many people, who go there.
The LO -School, Elsinore |
Kvickly – The Epoch of the Supermarket
Around 1960 the development towards welfare gained speed. This was evident in the increased consumption and the changed shopping and consumption habits. The co-op in Elsinore had successfully extended its assortment of goods with mopeds, TV’s and furniture. They took the consequences and started in 1961 to build a supermarket, designed by the architect Mads Drosted, 36.000 square metres of which 19.000 square metres was shop floor. May 6th 1965 Denmark´s largest co-op shop with a 45 metres long refrigerated counter opened.
Kvickly was built in an old industrial lot in the centre of Elsinore. At the same time a few other houses were built in the middle of town, the present Danske Bank corner house (with façades in marble, glass and copper) and the bank, Bikuben´s counterpart in Axeltorv. In other respects the Elsinore centre is marked by a preserving redevelopment policy.
Kvickly´s Department Store |
The Municipal Reform in 1970
In connection with the municipal reform in 1970 Denmark’s largest rural municipality is joined with the typical market town of Elsinore. This gave Elsinore opportunities to expand in new areas. A new centre was established in the area ”Prøvestenen”, where also earlier estates, like Vapnagård, was made into enormous housing estates. In time the market town grew together with the coast communities Snekkersten and Espergærde.
The redevelopment of the old Elsinore continued in the end of the 60´s with the houses in ”Lappen”. This work became a model for the preserving redevelopment of the town´s old centre, which was carried by the town council in 1972.
Vapnagård |
Espergærde – The Commuters´ Paradise
Espergærde, an old fishing village on the southern edge of town, spread out and the lille town Mørdrup was soon swallowed. Tikøb municipality also started to have growing pains. Partly the pressure on the coastline of the municipality was increased and partly the first motorway in the country (between Elsinore and Copenhagen) opened up new perspectives. Now you could go to your work place in Copenhagen in less than an hour.
In 1959 the idea of expanding Espergærde arose. It was calculated that the population would increase from 4.000 to 15.000-18.000 inhabitants. Two architects, Peer Bruun and Per Christiansen were hired to design the so-called ”white town”. It was to contain houses, schools, institutions, post office and bank, sports ground, church, green areas and a large shopping centre, i.e. everything which make up a town´s structure – possibly except a historical background.
The White City |
New Tendencies
Close and low building has in time become a standard and new variations of the theme are constantly emerging. One example is ”Sjølundsparken” in Hellebæk from 1978. Here the modern, Swedish house fabrication has become a new touch. Next to Sjølundsparken is a whole residential area with Swedish standard houses and they exist today all over North Zealand. The explanation is the low production costs. On the other hand today you can see expensive residential areas, designed by Danish architects in Norra Hamnen in Helsingborg. The integration have come far when it comes to the building of houses.
The Sjølund Park | 
Somewhere in Sweden? | 
Somewhere in Denmark? | 
The north harbour Helsingborg |
Hammarmöllan
| | Elsinore. The point of departure was the utilization of the waterpower in the area. In Hellebæk it was the fabrication of weapons, primarily rifles to the Danish army. Hammermøllen, in the middle of the picture, was the central part in the fabrication lay out. |
Industrialization in Hellebæk
The Importance of Water Power
At the beginning of the building of Kronborg in the time of Frederik II, they discovered the possibilities in the utilization of the waterpower of the area, primarily in Hellebæk. In order to procure bread for the many workers they built a corn mill close to the beach, but under Christian IV they also started to become interested in other projects. When they found bog iron ore in the area, he organized a project to smelt and cultivate iron ore from here. In 1601 Poul Smelter was appointed to:
“in the new melting mill, which we have built at our castle, Kronborg, with diligence and without delay to smelt and cultivate the iron ore, which is found in the clay”.
The First Experiments with Iron Production
The iron production experiments were never a success, it was transferred to Norway instead, but the carried on forging a considerable amount of different iron material, more than 10.000 pieces of smelting goods for Frederiksborg Castle under the direction of Caspar Fincke, who was a master at the mill in the period 1622-30. There were several different products like locks, hinges, latches and grates. A copper mill was also built in the area, probably with water from Kobberdammen (the Copper Dam) as motive power, but the circumstances here are not clear. The copper plates were to be used for roof on the king´s many buildings. The total plant worked until 1650, but was destroyed by the Swedes in the war of 1658. It took another 100 years before things started up again.
The conditions for the whole enterprise were the utilization of the water resources and the extensive regulation system, which was to ensure a stable water supply all year round.
The Central Area for the Utilization of the Waterpower
The central area for the utilization of the waterpower was Hellebækken (The Helle Brook), which ran from Bondedammen to the beach with a drop of more than 20 metres. The work with damming and utilizing the waterpower system was begun in 1575 with labour from Elsinore. At first they began work on the lower part of the system, but as early as 1577 a channel between Sortesø and Klaresø (lakes) were dug. It took a lot of work to maintain the water system and the mills.
Hammermøllen | 
The Water System in Hellebæk |
The Rifle Factory
In the beginning of the 18th century there were plans to place a rifle factory in Hellebæk, but it was not until the works was put up for auction in 1743 and regiment quartermaster Stephan Hansen from Elsinore bought it for 15.250 rix-dollars, that something happened.
Stephan Hansen was good example of a commoner, originally a farmer´s son, who with diligence and industry worked his way up in society. In connection with the building of the rifle factory he was seen as a private entrepreneur and he had the monopoly of rifle manufacturing for 20 years. In 1743 he was making a career for himself in the military and he also functioned as a grocer in Elsinore. In the period 1750-70 he also had commercial rights in the Faroe Islands. Around 1750 he built Hellebækgård in connection with his enlargements of the business.
Stephan Hansen managed to re-organize and renew the works. Old buildings were renovated, he called in specialists from abroad and built a number of buildings, among them the characteristic yellow houses in Bøssemagergade in Hellebæk, where a number of craftsmen and their journeymen lived and worked.
Contemporary Map of the Plant
In 1752 an employee at the works drew a map of the plant. The map shows the distance from Bondedammen to the coast. According to the map there were two hammer mills at this time. It is assumed that one had a so-called over drop wheel, the other as can be seen on the restore mill a under drop wheel. The original mill was rebuilt in the time of Stephan Hansen and was finished in 1765, the same year the state bought the works back.
In connection with the restoration of the mill in 1980 the enlarged mill from 1765 was reconstructed. The mill wheels were placed at the house ends. The highest wheel, 6 metres in diameter and ¾ metres in width, powered the bellows to the forge, while the lower wheel, 5 metres in diameter and 1,5 metres wide, powered two hammers, a so-called stretch hammer, whose head weighed 100 kilos and a barrel hammer, which weighed 20 kilos. There were also connections to the bellows in the loft.
Map of the Plant 1752 | 
Hammermøllen | 
Cross Section of the Mill Works | 
The new Hammer Mill |
An Example of the Transition from Craft to Industry
The interesting thing about the plant in Hellebæk is its character of transition form from craftsman like production to industry.
Characteristic of the craft was that a few skilled workers individually designed the products with simple tools and usually to a known market, like for instance Elsinore. In contrast the industrial industry was targeted against an unknown, or variable market and the production was divided into sub-processes and was carried out by way of machines, which was operated mechanically.
Manufacture
Manufacture was characterized with the gathering of a large number of workers in one place (building). This was a beginning division of labour, but still not a common power supply, which dictated the procedure. This production form existed in Denmark as early as the time of Christian IV in the form of state manufacturers, which were to supply the court with for instance silk products.
In this form it was a question of a national self-supplying strategy, and a “closed” market, which was to provide independence in strategic areas. Deliveries of gunpowder, bullets and so on were also characteristic and this was where the state´s interest in the rifle factory entered the picture.
Transference Industry
The transference industry primarily focused on the organization of the production with regards to the financing and sale of the goods. The production itself transferred to the workers´ homes, typically in connection with early textile production. The transferor provided raw materials for production, often also the work tools and bought and sold the goods. This production form was characteristic for early textile production in Denmark and still exists in the form of home seamstresses.
It could be interesting to try and determine what kind of factory the rifle factory was. To help this it could be useful to involve a description of the procedure:
“In order to follow the development of Hellebæk it can be useful to see, how rifles were produced and how the development in the construction of the rifles proceeded. The fabrication included rifles, ramrods and bayonets. The single parts were manufactured in separated mills and workshops. The gun barrels were forged in Hammermøllen. The iron was forged into a strip, which was a little longer than the actual barrel. The strip was bent on an anvil into a U-form. Then the iron was bent over a mandrel. The iron was heated to welding temperature and welded together over a mandrel under a water hammer with sinkers with cylindrical hollows in both anvil and hammer. When a plug was welded in one end, the barrel was ready for boring and grinding. These operations took place in special mills.
A capable smith could forge 2 1/2 barrels in one workday, probably 12 hours. Ramrods and bayonets were forged in a special hammer mill; they also had their own grinding mills. Smiths, who had works shops in connection with their houses, forged the locks and other accessories. There were also works shops for the stocks, which were made of walnut wood, or, for the less fine rifles, elm.
When the barrel was finished it was tested by the “test master” in the “the Test House”, which still exists in Hellebæk. The building was divided in two. One was brick and had a tile roof. This was the test master’s workshop.... During the test the barrels were fastened up to 50 at the time. There was a groove for gunpowder, which could be ignited from outside...”
“Of the tested rifles 4,5% were blown up at the test of a total production of 88.700 barrels and of the finished rifles 18,2% were discarded. Left were 70.000 pieces (the period 180-1819). It was therefore not strange that riflemen said a prayer before they fired a shot, and fast shooting was not possible.
However, some of the rifles that were discarded in Copenhagen were used. They were used as payment overseas, for slaves, for instance. Many of these rifles blew up rather quickly, but that did not bother the sellers”.
To Kisling´s description can be added that the master journeyman as a rule could choos from receiving raw materials (iron and coal) measured out, or get the work on contract and then pay for the raw materials. It is also assumed that the employed gunsmiths have been able to carry out all the processes in the manufacture, but in practice the singular processes have been specialized.
The State Interferes
In 1765 the state bought the plant in Hellebæk back from Stephan Hansen for the amount of 120.000 rix-dollars. In 1767 the king almost handed over the plant to major general J.F. Classen, which already had a deed on the powder works in Frederiksværk, in exchange of the yearly deliverance of 600 rifles.
However the minister of finance H.C. Schimmelmann interfered and occasioned that the plant was put up for an auction, where he bid 1.000 rix dollars over the son of Stephan Hansen and acquired the plant for 70.000 rix dollars.
Hellebæk Farm |
The Industrial Baron
H.C. Schimmelman was, like Stephan Hansen, an upstart, the son of a Pomeranian grocer and already very rich, when he was attached to the Danish government as a financial advisor and guarantor. He arranged big loans to the Danish state and reorganized the state finances.
He himself bought the estate Lindenborg and was ennobled (baron). In this connection his purchase of the state´s sugar plantations with refineries to match in the West Indies for 400.000 rix-dollars, is also very interesting.
Schimmelmann (1724-1782) | 
H.C. Schimmelmann (1724-1782) | 
The Frigate Fredensborg |
The Triangle Trade
With the purchase of the rifle factory in Hellebæk Schimmelmann was personally able to the characteristic triangle trade between Europe, Africa and America. Manufactured goods like guns were sent from Europe to Africa, where the goods were traded for slaves, who where sent to the West Indies. From here raw materials like sugar, which were sent to Europe for further processing. Schimmelmann also had a monopoly of the sugar sale in Norway.
Thus Schimmelmann had a share in the slave trade and one of the slave ships bore the name “Countess Schimmelmann” H.C. Schimmelmann´s son, Ernst, later worked actively for the abolishing of the Negro trade. In 1792 a transition period of ten years were introduced with a prohibition against the import of slaves to the West Indies, but they were allowed to be traded on the islands, and married couples and children could still be separated at a sale.
Muzzle Loader – an Obsolete Construction
In Stephan Hansen´s time 300 rifles were manufactured yearly, in the period 1769-1800 approximately 6000 a year. The rifle production continued through the 19th century, but during the war in 1864 the slow muzzle loaders showed themselves to be technologically obsolete and the production was abandoned.Flynderupgård
| | Flynderupgård´s Main Building
In Elsinore people were accustomed to nature worship and summer residents. By the end of the 18th century the local middle classes began to leave the town in order to spend leisure time in country houses in the environs.
At first inside the municipality, later further out in the country, for example in Nyrup, Fairyhill, Claythorpe and Gurre. |
Summer Residents
Around the middle of the 19th century different aspects of the mentality and lifestyle of the middle classes were taking shape. The fight for an existence did no longer overshadow everything else and a characteristic distinction between work and leisure were developing. Leisure time was invented, so to speak and nature became a good place for meditative and recreational activities. This resulted in an extensive leisure and holiday life, which took place on both sides of the Sound with summer resident life, spas, hotels and the like.
Elsinore as an Example
Nature worshipping and summer life was and early feature in Elsinore. As early as the end of the 18th century the local middle classes in Elsinore had begun to leave the town and spend their leisure time on summer estates in the vicinity. At first inside the boundaries of the municipality, later further out in the country like Nyrup, Fairyhill, Claythorpe and Gurre.
At firs tit was the many Englishmen in town, who knew the custom from back home, later others, among them the merchant Jean Jacob Claessen, who bought several estates in the environs around 1790. The practise spread gradually and in the course of the 19th century Hellebæk and northeast Zealand as a whole became a popular resort for holidays for the Copenhagen middle classes.
A somewhat grandiose example of the ambitions of the well-off middle classes to compare with the English lesser nobility is found in the architecture of the main building of Flynderupgård in Agnetevej in Espergærde.
City Dwellers in the Country | 
Summer Residents | 
Fairyhill |
Flynderupgård | 
The Steamship |
The North Coast 1820 | 
Ålsgårde 1880 | 
The Summer Estate Belvedere | 
Family Gathering |
The New Infrastructure
An important factor in this was the gradually improved infrastructure, especially the steam ships and railways. Elsinore was the first provincial town, which was visited by Denmark’s first steam ferry, “Caledonia” as early as 1819. Throughout the 1920´s and 30´s there was irregular traffic along the coast. At the end of 1842 there was a permanent steam ship connection via the ferry “Hamlet” between Elsinore and Copenhagen. In 1945 the service also included Helsingborg. Moreover, from 1856 there was a permanent connection between Elsinore and Helsingborg.
This meant that it was possible to transport family members and luggage over greater distances. The steam ships landed at various places along the way from where people were rowed ashore to the desired summer residences. With the steam ships and the railway connection between Copenhagen and Elsinore via Hillerød it was possible for the head of the family to travel to the city and take care of business in the summertime too.
Caledonia | 
Hamlet | 
Ophelia | 
Vedbæk´s Harbour | 
The North Railway |
The North Railway | 
Train Timetable | 
The Hornbæk Railway | 
Klampenborg |
Officials and Artists
At first it was mainly the higher officials and artists, which visited North Zealand. The Collin family and the married couple, the actress, Johanne Louise Heiberg and her husband, the poet arbiter of taste Johan Ludvig Heiberg, were among the first to visit the coast north of Elsinore.
The Heibergs knew the increasing leisure time culture from Copenhagen and they now actively participated in the movement. Johanne Louise Heiberg depicted her first encounter with Hellebæk as a contrast to the ”city life” of Copenhagen in her memoir, ”Et liv genoplevet i erindringen".
The Holiday Area
After the artists came the town middle classes, and gradually the life of the summer residents became a must for the city people, as it is depicted in Herman Bang´s biting text Landliv. Bang knew the modern city life as well as the country leisure life, perhaps mostly known from his novella Sommerglæder, which pretends to take place in Jutland. The subject is also referred to in Herman Bang´s journalism, as when he wrote about Hellebæk in Illustreret Tidende in 1885:
»Nu er det for sent at skrive om Hellebæk. Naar Regissørklokken har lydt, er Lejet ikke mere interessant. Feriesommeren er forbi, og det rigtige Efteraar, det er endnu ikke kommet. Maaske kan vi tage derop en Dag fra Byen, naar det gaar til Ende med September, og de sidste flyttevognes Spor er slettet ud. Så holder jeg af det deroppe. Da er Naturen blevet ene. Den har faaet Tid til at blive sig selv igen. Den har rystet af sig alle Sommergæsternes profane Aah, og den har glemt Turisterne. Der er blevet stille i Skoven. Tyst sysler Pan. Letbenet vildt tegner over Engen flygtende Skygger, naar, for at drikke, Bredden af Skovsøens Vand. Gulnede Elme hviske saa sagte derover.
Luften er klar. De første Blade faldt i Gaar langs Stien. De dufte nu, mens de hviske«.
Ålsgårde 1880 | 
Hornbæk Beach 1906 | 
The Coastal Road Snekkersten | 
Summer Residents in Hornbæk. | 
The Joys of the Summer Residents |
Twine House in Snekkersten | 
Hotel Gefion |
The Tourist Industry
Holger Drachmann, who had grown up in Fredensborg, knew northeast Zealand intimately and spent time in Hellebæk, Hornbæk, Snekkersten and in "Marianelund" in Gurre. In his story "Skraaplaner" from 1881 he reflects on the importance of the summer residents for the local communities and their development.
The artists put up at first the existing inns, or privately, but gradually an industry of boarding houses and seaside hotels sprung up. As Drachmann wrote the summer residents started to buy land and houses and clientele broadened. The artists fled to other and less crowded areas in the holiday area. This was the case with Holger Drachmann. However, he died in a private clinic in Hornbæk in 1908.
H. C. Andersen as a Summer Resident
H.C.Andersen is known in posterity for his many travels abroad and his many visits to the landed gentry. Lesser known perhaps is his short visits in North Zealand, where he visited friends and acquaintances, who were summer residents. Primarily the Collin family, who lived in the country in and around Hellebæk in the 1860´s and 70´s.
H.C. Andersen had a somewhat strained relationship with the north coast and after a passage in 1837, it was not until 1864 that Andersen had a short stay in the newly opened Hotel Marienlyst with his young friend, the ballet dancer Harald Scharff. The train service from Copenhagen to Elsinore was opened in 1864 and that marked the beginning of a number of short visits to the north coast in the following years.
In 1867 Andersen was back again. The Collin family had bought a summer cottage on the slope. Andersen stayed for lunch, but took his dinner in Hotel Marienlyst. The two hour train journey from Elsinore to Copenhagen seemed to suit Andersen, who visited Hellebæk that same year once again.
Around 1870 Andersen was twice in Elsinore and Hellebæk, the first time to visit the Collin family and “see their new house”. The second time Andersen put up at Hotel Brix in Elsinore. That was probably the last time H.C. Andersen visited these parts, as a diary note from 1873 testified that he received a visit from Mrs. Collin from Ellekilde. H.C. Andersen died in 1875.
The North Railway | 
The Location of the Hotel | 
The Mature Andersen |
Train Timetable | 
Transport From the Station |
Up and Down the Coast
The writer Meir Aron Goldschmidt has also contributed with depictions of the life along the coast, for example in the long short story Ravnen (The Raven). In this story you can make out the clash between the traditional life form on the coast and the intrusive industrial culture. In the short story En dampskibstur from 1883 ”…the human spirit chases away nature´s spirit…” and the dream life of the protagonist plays a prominent part – a new epoch in the intellectual life is ushered in
A stay in on of the seaside hotels of the age is depicted by the German writer, Thomas Mann, whose novel´s final chapters take place in Hellebæk-Aalsgaard. The main character has an identity crisis and makes use of his stay at the seaside hotel for some soul-searching. The local population plays a part as representatives of the cool, assured side of his personality, as opposed to the other side, his temperamental, Mediterranean ancestors.
August Strindberg, who for a number of years was at work in the vicinity of Copenhagen, put up privately in Hornbæk in 1901 with his new wife Harriet Bosse. That lasted until he attacked a photographer, who wanted to take a picture of his wife in her bathing costume.
The Steamship Horatio | 
Ålsgårde Seaside Hotel | 
Søndre Strandvej | 
Strindberg in Hornbæk |
Seaside Life in the Year of 1900
With the summer holiday life on the coasts of the Sound region came the seaside life, which at first wasn´t allowed directly from the beach, but only from bathing jetties and cubicles, or the gender divided public baths, which was source of a characteristic architecture along the coast.
With the parcellation and the building of summer houses, the holiday life became more formalized. It became an object for investments for the middle classes and creates another dimension in the life of the family. In many ways other, more gentle rules of conduct became prevalent.
Emma Gad |
Ålsgårde 1880 | 
Beach Life | 
Snekkersten´s Cold Bath Houses | 
Snekkersten´s Cold Bath Houses |
The Coastal Road Snekkersten | 
Helgoland | 
The Cold bath House in Landskrona |
Pålsjöbaden in Helsingborg | 
Snekkersten Public Bath |
Seaside Life in Hornbæk | 
Hornbæk Beach | 
Borupgaards Bathing Hut |
Marienlyst Hotel
| | The Marienlyst Seaside Hotel became the fashionable stamping ground visited by royalty as well as the middle classes, and where you could enjoy yourself with bathing, outdoor life and diversions in the adjacent late-romanticist park, which ostensibly held Hamlet’s grave as well as the spring of Ophelia. |
Marienlyst Seaside Hotel
The improved communications also meant that the leisure life in North Zealand gradually took on a more international stamp. An important step towards this was the establishment of Marienlyst Seaside Hotel in 1859. The starting point was the existing Marienlyst Castle, which was expanded with buildings until the erection of the present main building around 1897 – the same year Kystbanen (the coast railway) was opened. For a while Marienlyst Hotel was owned by the Elsinore municipality, but was passed into private ownership in 1882.
In “Badetidende” from 1879 it was possible to read in Danish and German which bathing guests are present and which members of the town middle class have season tickets for the bathing resort. Furthermore are stated rates for the use of the “Spa and Hamlet’s Terasse”, timetable for steam ships and trains, rates for “hot baths, mineral baths, mineral waters, stream-heavy rain and showers”. And of course the thermometer reading for the previous week, a real Danish summer, for instance June 30th: The air - 16 degrees Celsius, the water – 14 degrees Celsius, midday.
Marienlyst 1891 | 
Advertisement | 
Marienlyst Seaside Hotel |
The Location of the Hotel | 
The First Hotel Building |
Beach Life |
The North Railway |
Transport From the Station | 
Marienlyst Seaside Hotel | 
New Main Building |
Nationernas Allé |
A Fashionable Meeting Place
Celebrities from home and abroad visited the fashionable Marienlyst, even the Danish and Swedish royal couple, and in the park surrounding Marienlyst castle a romantic garden, which was said to hold the grave of Hamlet and Ophelia’s Spring, was laid out.
Many artists stayed at the hotel among them Herman Bang (Danish author), who was a guest in 1880, where he wrote parts of his debut novel “Håbløse Slægter”. In 1905 he wrote in the hotel diary: “Dearest to me in the world Paris, Prague and Marienlyst” – no comparisons by the way.
Herman Bang and Marienlyst
Bang visited Marienlyst throughout his adult life and took part in the social life there. He participated in bazaars and held lectures, which also relieved the eternal lack of money. The then manager Anders Jensen has in an interview with a local paper depicted Bang´s close relationship to the place:
"En af de første og en af de mest interesserede gæster var Herman Bang. Han kom inden vi fik lukket op om sommeren. Han var næsten med til at tælle dækketøjet, så ivrig var han, og det er ham der har æren af det smukke palmearrangement i forhallen. Han boede de første år oppe i tårnet, senere flyttede han ned i en villa i Nationernes Alle, og der holdt han små dameselskaber om aftenen. Næste dag kom han for at fortælle os, hvad hver dame havde haft på. Han var så glad når de havde pyntet sig. Om aftenen satte han sig tit på kontoret for at spise sit smørrebrød, og der drøftede han praktiske forhold med min kone, de to var så gode venner.”
Herman Bang visited Marienlyst as late as 1905 and once wrote in the hotel´s diary: "Dearest to me in the world is Paris, Prague and Marienlyst". Herman Bang also participated in the debate on the development of the holiday areas, as when he in an article in the newspaper “København” in 1904 vehemently opposed the plans for the building of a railway through the scenic area.
Romantic Staging
Herman Bang was a modern man, who cherished the romantic air and gardens of Marienlyst, where you are able to visit Ophelia´s Spring and the grave of Hamlet. The worshipping of nature gradually became a timetabled and ritualized matter in the lifestyle of the bourgeois. The commercial side of it played a more undisguised part. Romanticism became pure staging and form, which was evident in the late-rmantic building style, which characterizes the new Marienlyst.
Nationernes Allé | 
Modern Forms |
Tycho Brahe
| | Tycho Brahe lived worked in Ven for 21 years (1576-97). He performed astronomical and meteorological experiments there, which he carefully noted, he performed chemical experiments, grew plants, made astronomical tools, drew maps, wrote poems and much more. With his versatility Tycho Brahe was a typical example of a renaissance man. |
Tycho Brahe - a Renaissance Man
In the year 1634, when a French messenger, Charles Ogier, after having visited Elsinore, left the town and travelled south towards Copenhagen, he saw the island Ven and this made him think of the world famous astronomer Tycho Brahe.
It is doubtful if you can perceive the almost square shape of Ven from the coast of Zealand, but it is no coincidence that Ogier noticed this. The symmetrical, well ordered and continuous appeals to the renaissance man, the scientist Tycho Brahe, who Danish standards is the best example of a universal genius in the spirit of the renaissance.
Map of Ven |
Childhood
Tycho Brahe was born a nobleman and it was therefore expected of him that he would make a career for himself as a landowner, warrior and perhaps member of parliament, as so many other in his family. Tycho had, however, a somewhat ambivalent relationship to his noble colleagues.
Tycho Brahe was born December 14th 1546 in the estate Knutstorp in Scania, but was literally abducted and raised with his childless uncle Jörgen Brahe in Tosterup in southeastern Scania. This was not uncommon within the aristocracy, as kin was more important that your own family. The Brahe family is portrayed in Kågeröd church, which was the patronage church of Knutstorp. The plaque is from 1613, after the death of Tycho Brahe. Tycho (the scholar) sits next to his father and after him you see the brothers, Sten, Axel, Jörgen and Knut. Next to the mother sit the sisters Lisbeth, Margareta, Kristina and finally Sophie Brahe, who was very close to Tycho.
Tycho Brahe | 
Knutstorp | 
Tosterup | 
Brahefamiljens epitafium |
Studies
At the age of six Tycho started school, which was not uncommon among the aristocracy. Uncommon was however the interests, which he developed. At the age of twelve he entered the University of Copenhagen, which at the same was open and marked by the renaissance humanist currents of the time.
We know, form his book collection, that he in this period was interested in astronomy. In his study travels in the beginning of the 1560´s he started, under cover of law studies, to practise this science. As travel companion Tycho had the commoner Anders Sørensen Vedel, who also was an important renaissance figure. He collected and published old Danish folksongs.
Anders Sørensen Vedel |
Astronomi
Nova Stella and the New Picture of the Universe
Tycho studied abroad and did not return to Denmark until the end of 1570. He spent his time with his uncle Sten Bille, who was very much interested in chemical and mechanical experiments.
In November 1572 Tycho Brahe observed in Herrevadskloster what he thought was a new star in the constellation Cassiopeia. Strongly encouraged, but against his will, he published a book on the new star in 1573. It was controversial for a nobleman to engage in such matters and the book is prefaced with a number of arguments pro and against a publication.
The book, which was printed in a few copies in Copenhagen was written in Latin and contained apart from the thesis on the new star, an astrological and meteorological almanac for the year 1573, a thesis on a future lunar eclipse and finally a poem dedicated to the god Urania.
This may seem as a strange concoction, but in Tycho Brahe´s mind there was a connection between the different parts.
Nova Stella | 
Tycho Brahe´s picture of the world | 
Picture of the world |
The Importance of the Empirical Knowledge
Perhaps Tycho Brahe did not realize the importance of his observations. The leading astronomic perception was that the universe had been created by chance and that there had been no changes without God´s direct participation. Thus they perceived the universe af static. Therefore it was sensational that Tycho Brahe had discovered a change in the firmament and this discovery led to the conception of a dynamic universe. Via later publications he contributed to such a conception. The great importance of Tycho Brahe was his exact empirical observations. Experience had greater importance and the sense of a static cosmos retired.
Tycho Brahe showed that the universe is much greater than hitherto assumed and that it developed and changed continuously. However, he could not accept Kopernikus´ new picture of the universe with the sun and not the earth as the centre of the universe.
Tycho Brahe´s picture of the world | 
Obeservationsscene | 
Sextant | 
Notes |
Stjärneborg
It was important that the instruments were completely stable, which was difficult in a buidliing. This is why Tycho Brahne built Stjärneborg, where the instruments were placed on the ground or even underground. This made the foundation so stable that technical errors were almost eliminated.
Stjärneborg | 
The layout of Stjerneborg | 
Venter på tekst |
The Comet
When Tycho Brahe a few years later in Ven in 1577, had studied a comet, he wrote down his observations in the small publication ”Om kometen”, which became another example that you could draw empirical conclusions.
The Astrologer
Tycho Brahe mixed empirical observations with astrological predictions. His astrological predictions he commented thus:
”... even if it is hidden for everybody to know the right reasons for future things, you can however, from the old experienced astrologers´ observations and knowledge, get some indications of things that these miracles in the sky and do and this can be done without any superstition at all.
Tycho Brahe demonstrated his dissociation of superstition knowing well that the reputation and position of astrology was much debated, not least in the church and among the thinkers of the renaissance. But astrology still had a certain official status. The royal power demanded that Tycho Brahe make predictions and he drew up the horoscope of the crown prince.
The starting point in astrology was the fundamental observations about the influence of the planets, for instance that the sun provided heat and light and that the moon changed the level of the sea. Furthermore they saw that the alternation between summer and winter was dependant on the position of the planets. It is not strange that they attributed importance to the position of the planets. Although Tycho Brahe had doubts about superstition he attributed astrology an certain importance, an importance he later south to limit.
Horoscope |
The Creator
He even attributed the belief in God importance, but approached the idea that God was the initiator of the system, but he did not intervene in the course of history and could not be influenced by prayers or rites, i.e. a deistic perception.
Recognition
Tycho Brahe in time won great recognition and from 1574 he lectured at the University in Copenhagen, which was notable for an aristocrat. He was even offered the position as rector of the university, but refused. The offer still testified to the recognition, which was offered him, also on the part of the royal power.
Uraniborg in Ven
The renaissance prince Frederik II saw Tycho´s greatness and offered his support. February 18th 1567 he was awarded a yearly sum of 500 daler, a very large governmental support. The king had, during his inspections in the building site of Kronborg, come to think of the island Ven as a suitable place for Tychos activities. Tycho was offered the island on favourable terms, if it could prevent him from leaving Denmark. Tycho Brahe accepted.
A Symbolic Castle
The central part of the ground plan was made up of a square, which measured 60 feet, approximately 15,5 metres on every side. This square was divided by perpendicular corridors, which formed four smaller square rooms. The corridors also tied the central part with symmetrical extensions in the north and south and with symmetrical entrance portals in east and west.
The building consisted of two storeys, attic and basement. On the outside there were balconies, which were used for astronomical observations. The basement functioned as a chemical laboratory.
Astronomy and chemistry/medicine was the sciences he was to engage in and two statuette niches marked this over the entrance portals. Two short Latin inscriptions connected these allegorical works of art: Despiciendo suspicio och Suspiciendo despicio, which roughly means, ”When I look down, I look up” and ”When I look up, I look down”. The first maxim refers to the chemical experiments and the other undoubtedly on the astronomical observations. The deeper meaning is that chemistry and astronomy are connected.
Uranienborg | 
Ground plan |
Uraniborg - a View of Life
Uranienborg was not only Tycho Brahe´s home and workplace, but it also expressed architecturally and in other ways, the philosophy and the view of life, which characterized Tycho Brahe. A belief in research and the mapping of reality was to make us understand the cosmological connections.
A Renaissance Garden
The garden was, just like the castle, very symmetrical lay out. They also considered the practical use of a garden and planted fruit trees and sowed vegetables and herbs, which could be used in medical recipes.
We know that Tycho as well as his learned sister Sophie Brahe, who lived with him for long periods of time, devoted themselves to the manufacturing of medicinal preparations, in fact to such an extent, that the pharmacies in Copenhagen complained about the competition. It is very likely that Sophie Brahe participated in the lay out and the care taking of the garden, although there are no evidence of this.
The Garden | 
Ground plan |
Tycho Brahe leaves Ven
Tycho Brahe stayed in Ven for 21 years until 1597, when felt forced to leave Denmark. It is said that he had fallen out with the inhabitants in Ven, that he neglected his duties and that the new king Christian IV did not support him like Frederik II had done.
The circumstances surrounding Tycho Brahe´s fall are still unclear and much debated. Form Rostock Tycho Brhae wrote the kin in 1597 that he had not gone into exile and emphasized his loyalty. The king reproached him for having left without permission and pointed out several unsolved problems. He wrote of the peasants in Ven: ”There have been complaints about you from our poor subjects in Ven”. And of Tycho´s negligence of the church in Ven: ”...as the word of the baptism have been neglected with your knowledge for a long time against the use of the realm that is notorious for anybody”.
That Tycho Brahe did not take care of his estate obligations is probably correct, but one may wonder why the controversy with the peasants was brought up in a time, where it was the right of any lord of the manor to exploit his subjects and when the plight of the peasants was increased significantly.
The Exorcism
If it is true that they had omitted certain parts of the baptismal rite in Tycho Brahe´s time in Ven that could be a serious matter. The baptismal rites and especially the devil incantation, which was part of it, was one of the theological disputes of the time. Exorcism, a Catholic ritual, was still present in the Lutheranian church, but many did not like it and wanted to get rid of it. This was the view of the supporters of the Calvinistic reformation.
The conflict about the exorcism broke out seriously, when the priest Iver Bertelsen in Møn took out the incantation from the rite and was put on trial in 1567. Iver Bertelsen spent 3 year in prison, before Frederik II pardoned him. In 1588, during the regency of Christian IV a new case cropped up, when the priest at the Holy Spirit Church in Copenhagen, Jon Jacob Venusin, at a christening omitted the Devil incantation. Three weeks after this they issued in the king´s name and with threats of punishment a ban on ”resuscitating undue disputes”. Venusin, who came from Ven, where his father had been the vicar, was the brother-in-law of Tycho Brahe´s son-in-law.
Complaints
It was around this time that the king began to attack Tycho Brahe. Firstly the accusations were directed against the vicar in Ven for not having punished Tycho Brahe of his lack of Communion and his immoral behaviour. The allusion was Tycho Brahe´s life together with a non-aristocrat, something which was not illegal in itself. Last, but not least the priest was accused of having omitted the Devil incantation on the request of Tycho Brahe. The priest lost his job and the next time around the accusations were directed against Tycho Brahe himself.
Another complaint against Tycho Brahe was that he had produced medicine without the permission of the church.
Several Reasons
It was not only the dissatisfaction of the peasants and the dissatisfaction with the neglecting of his duties, which caused him to move. The suspicion of the church about his astrology, his medicine and not least his liberal religious views in a time of strict Lutheranian orthodoxy, may have been decisive.
Tycho Brahe´s correspondence with the king was not published until the king´s death in 1648. In 1597 Tycho wrote a poem of his break with Denmark. Here is a section of the poem:
”Denmark, what have I have for you to cast me off so cruelly?
How can you, my native land, treat me as an enemy?
I have lifted your name, it is mentioned far and wide with honour
how can you be angry that my work has encircled you with roses?
Tell me, which of your children have given you better things to own?
Are you angry that high in the vaulted arch, native country?
Your name I wrote in twinkling stars
Why thrust me aside? Sometime you will remember me.
In days to come my worth, my work will be understood,
By children of a later generation, everything that I gave for you to build”
Tycho Brahe died in Prague in 1601.
A Renaissance Woman
Charles Ogier relates that he met Tycho Brahe´s sister Sofie in connection with his leaving Elsinore in 1634. She was then almost 80 years old, had survived her famous brother with almost 30 years, and had lived in Elsinore sine 1626.
Sofie was, like her brother, gifted in many ways and she had many interests. She spent a lot of time doing genealogical studies of Danish noble families, but she was also very interested in gardening, medicine, astrology and astronomy and she was at her brother´s side during the years in Ven.
Sofie Brahe also made medicine and in 1625 she sent a recipe for plague elixir to Christian IV.
Epitaph in Kågeröd | 
Sophie Brahe | 
Memorial Tablet |
The Garden Art of Sophie Brahe
Unfortunately we don´t know much about the garden art of Sophie Brahe, which is praised by her brother. She has probably helped her brother in the garden in Hven, but she also grew her own garden in the estate Eriksholm in Scania and later in Elsinore, where she owned a town house with adjoining land on the outskirts of town and close to Kronborg.
A letter to the Swedish nobleman Johan Sparre from September 14th 1629 testifies to her knowledge. The first part is about genealogy - she had borrowed and corrected some genealogical tables. Then she writes about bulbs and how to handle them.
Emperor´s Crown | 
Renaissance Garden | 
Garden Section |
The Idea of the Renaissance Garden
The garden layout of Uranienborg was, as seen in contemporary engravings, a square layout marked by symmetry down to the last detail. The outer shape was probably fruit trees surrounding the inner part with the geometrical beds, which contained utility as well as ornamental plants. The transition between the two parts is marked with four identical summerhouses.
Uranienborg´s garden is special with the consistent symmetry, which probably refers to the area´s scientific nature. In this sense the garden fully lives up to the idea of the Renaissance garden. It must divert, but also challenge and stimulate the curiosity of the visitor and incite intellectual and spiritual absorption. The pleasant is combined with useful, and the planting testifies to this. (Picturesr: Villa d ´ Este and Leiden).
Florence 1545 | 
Norton´s Botanical Work 1597 | 
Angelica 1597 | 
Lavender 1597 | 
Tulip 1561 |
Råå
Alliances
After the death of Karl X Gustav Sweden was governed by regency headed by Gabriel De La Gardie. After the peace in Copenhagen the foreign policy was a matter of avoiding war and the guarding of the Danish border. This was to be done by a balance policy between the great power blocks of Europe.
Opposite the big power France stood a union between Austria, Holland, Spain and Brandenburg. In 1672 Sweden approached France and they formed an alliance. When the European Great War began Denmark joined Sweden´s enemies and when France succeeded in making Sweden go to war against Brandenburg, Denmark and Sweden ended up on different sides in the European conflict. When the Swedes were defeated in Swedish Pomerania, the Danes attacked Sweden seeing the opportunity to revenge the disastrous defeat in 1658.
Danish Attack
The Dutch and Danish fleet defeated the Swedish fleet south of Øland in the summer of 1676. The Swedish battle ship Kronan, at the time the biggest warship in Europe, was sunk.
On the command of the Danish king Christian V around 15.000 men were landed in Rå south of Helsingborg and subsequently the citizens of Helsingborg pledged allegiance to the Danish king. Furthermore a Danish mayor was elected.
The Danish Invasion Fleet 1676 | 
The Naval Battle of Øland | 
The Invasion Fleet on its Way to Råå | 
The Capture of Helsingborg |
A Bloody War
The Scanian was a cruel and bloody war, which mainly took place on Scanian soil. The Danes drove the Swedes back and gained control over all of Scania except Malmo. Many Scanians joined the Danes. Violent battles were fought at Christiansstad, Halmstad, Lund and Landskrona.
The Battle of Lund was the bloodiest battle ever fought between Denmark and Sweden. The young king Karl XI led the Swedish troops. The battle turned the war in favour of the Swedes and they were able to drive the Danish troops back. At the end the Danes only held Landskrona and Helsingborg, but they were forced to face the fact that the situation was hopeless. Thousands of refugees crossed the Sound to Denmark.
The Citadel in Landskrona | 
The Capture of Landskrona | 
The Capture of Landskrona | 
Landskrona Surrenders to Christian V | 
The Siege of Christiansstad 1676 |
The Capture of Christiansstad | 
The Battle of Lund 1676 | 
The Battle of Lund 1676 | 
The Battle of Lund 1676 | 
The Battle of Lund 1676 |
Karl XI | 
The Battle of Malmo 1677 | 
The Battle of Landskrona 1677 | 
The Battle of Tirups Hed, Landskrona | 
The Battle in Køge Bay 1677 |
Anti-Swedish Alliance
The young Swedish king Karl XII, who succeeded his father Carl XI, was opposed by an alliance of states, which demanded revenge after Sweden´s conquests in the 17th century. Denmark, Russia and Saxony (including Poland) were in this alliance. However at this time Sweden were well prepared. Carl XI, who had also reformed the defence, which at this time consisted of 65.000 men and 38 war ships, had built a new naval port in Karlskrona. Finally the new border with Denmark at the Sound had been fortified extensively.
In the year 1700 a Swedish army under the command of Carl XII was transported from Helsingborg and Landskrona to Humlebæk in Zealand. Copenhagen was threatened and Denmark was forced to make a separate peace.
Carl XII continued his expedition towards Russia and Poland and advanced in eastern Europe, but when the Swedish fortune of war changed in the Battle of Poltava (1709) Denmark declared war on Sweden.
Karl 12. | 
The Swedes´ Landing in Humlebæk | 
The Bombardment of Copenhagen |
The Danish Helsingborg
The Danish main forces, which included 14.000 men landed in Råå in November 1709. Helsingborg defended itself with a garrison of 360 men and a Swedish unit of 1500 men were in the area around Rå. They could not defend the town and retreated.
Frederik IV took up headquarters in alderman Schlyter´s farm in the central Helsingborg and its citizens pledged allegiance to the Danish king. In Helsingborg Danish church services were introduced a Danish almanac according to the Gregorian calendar. This involved a difference of ten days.
Herman Schlyter´s House |
Magnus Stenbock in Helsingborg
The Swedish king was far away, so Magnus Stenbock, who was Scania´s general governor, organized the Swedish defence. He gathered a large army in Småland, as the Danes had entered Sweden all the way up to Karlshamn in Blekinge. Stenbock succeeded in gathering 16.000 men, who went into Scania in the end of January 1710. The Danes retreated towards Helsingborg and took up position north of town under the command of major general Rantzau.
February 28th 1710 the two armies clashed in the battle of Ringstorp outside Helsingborg, and it ended in a crushing Danish defeat, which Stenbock´s courier, Henrik Hammarberg reported to Stockholm.
Stenbock, Magnus | 
Message of the Victory of Magnus Stenbock | 
Memorial Stone for the Battle of Helsingborg | 
Fortification of the Swedish Coast | 
Helsingborg 2010 |
Ramlösa
| | Ramlösa Spa was opened as early as 1707, but had its heyday in the 19th century. The healing water and the royal interests attracted many visitors to the spa hotel and by the end of the 19th century this ostentatious main building in modern style was erected. |
The Holy Water
On the Scanian side Ramlösa became a centre for well water drinking and baths. At first it was the drinking of the water that was Ramlösa´s niche. Water has always been considered as purifying and life giving. Of course, this is not that curious as water is nature’s lifeblood. In most religions water is considered holy and in the Christian and Islamic religions washing and rinsing are in the nature of holy ceremonies. But is has also been common that special springs and currents have been considered especially effective. In the Antiquity the explanation was that some springs had divine powers and their water was thus deemed holy. In Pergamon, for instance, there was the holy well at the Asklepios Temple. (As Asklepios was the god for medicine the water at his temple was considered medically effective.)
Christianity took over this thought and various saints were associated with different springs, where the water was drunk, and the performing of sacrifices in the form of coins in holy wells were also found. Thus the drinking of well water and baths in holy springs very early had a religious association. After the Reformation this spring cult was opposed by the Protestant priests, but in the 17th century the effect of these holy springs became interesting from a scientific point of view.
In Sweden Urban Hjärne carried out water analyses and many doctors associated certain wells and springs with curative qualities. Thus the spring cult had a renaissance in the 18th century. But these types of water were not only effective internally. Washing and bathing were curative and therefore swimming baths were established in the health resorts. In the 1700 and 1800´s many travelled to Spa, Aachen, Schwalbach and other health resorts to drink the well water and bathe for health reasons. When some doctors also began to advertise the salty spas´ curative qualities, the spas situated by the sea had a particular upturn.
Ramlosa – How It Started
As early as 1707 Ramlösa spa was opened. For some decades it had been said that the spring in Ramlösa gave health and power and the doctor Johan Jacob Döbelius had emphasized the spring’s curative effects. The iron carbonate in the Ramlösa water allegedly cured rheumatism, kidney gravel, sciatica, heart diseases, etc. As early as the 18th century the establishment visited Ramlösa, but it was during the first half of the 19th century that Ramlösa spa had its heyday.
It became especially important when doctor of medicine at the university in Lund and one of the greatest medical authorities in Sweden, Eberhard Munck of Rosenschiöld became a spa doctor. Thus Ramlösa had a special position as the health spa had a scientific attachment. Rosenschiöld also advertised the salty baths and Ramlösa therefore became a spa with access to both well drinking and sea baths.
The ferruginous water | 
Johan Jacob Döbelius | 
Munck af Rosenschiöld |
Royal Guests
Ramlösa Spa was surrounded by royal glory. King Gustav IV Adolf visited the well often during his three months stay in Helsingborg in 1807. The crown prince Karl August spent several summers there and he invested money on the hospital building in the park.
The hospital activities gradually became quite extensive and at the turn of the century it was possible to receive 160 patients. The frequently ill son, Oscar (Oscar I) visited Ramlösa several times during the 1810´s and 1820´s, which was to a great part due to the fact that the spa doctor was Munck of Rosenschiöld.
Oscar´s mother, Queen Desideria, spent several summers in Ramlösa and thrived there. But she often complained about the conditions in her new homeland. Perhaps she missed her former fiancé, Napoleon Bonaparte and the glory that surrounded him?
The presence of the royal family attracted visitors from the higher classes and Ramlösa became an upper-class resort and a high society life developed with the royal family at the centre. In time many noble families had their own houses built in the park, which eventually was dominated by wood architecture in the style of neo-romanticism and neo-classicism.
Desideria | 
The hospital |
The Foundation Grows
A horse drawn railway – the first in Sweden – was built down to the sea in 1877 so that the guests could comfortably be transported to the water. There were frequent time tabled tours – in the morning every 15 minutes and in the afternoon every 30 minutes. A bathing hut was built at the Sound and at the beach a whole place of entertainment sprouted up complete with a shooting range, a restaurant and a music pavilion. Thus Ramlösa raised its profile as a bathing resort and this was even clearer with the bathing facilities that were built close to the spa hotel.
At the end of the 19th century Ramlösa Spa changed and became more and more a recreational area offering relaxation and entertainment. It was at this time the alkaline spring was discovered, which is the content of Ramlösa mineral water, as we know it.
The Spa Hotel | 
The horse tramline | 
The bathing ground | 
A neo-classicist building |
The Radical
In July 1858 a big Scandinavistic meeting was held in Ramlösa and thousands of Danish participants were greeted with kettledrums and trumpets in the harbour of Helsingborg. The city had been decorated with flags and there was an intense festive atmosphere was prevalent. The meeting was not only a Scandinavistic manifestation, but developed into a strange history of ideas. Almost 12000 Scandinavists had gathered in Ramlösa, where Ploug, Ahnfelt and all the other Scandinavism-enthusiasts held speeches. Fredrik Borg mounted the platform and presented his view of women, which made the listeners gape. He explained that he thought it unfair to see women as “mother, wife, mistress”, while men at the same time not only was seen as “father, husband and lover”, but also as a fellow citizen and he demanded civil rights for women and the same rights to education and working life.
This was an equal rights policy, which was way ahead of its time, and Borg was the first to demand women suffrage in parliament in 1884, when he was active as a member. But his proposal was not met with sympathy for his convictions and it took 35 years before the parliament introduced women suffrage. The speech in Ramlösa was way ahead of its time and it was brilliant. Borg struck a note, which was to become a recurrent theme in Öresundsposten. The speech was printed in the paper July 16th 1858 and some of it is reported here as a source, but we cannot help quoting the ending here: “ Put her in the sunlight, in whose warmth her loving nature can bloom and yield fruits for society”.
Refugee Pressure on Helsingborg
Helsingborg received in the course of the hectic month of October 1943 more than 4000 Jewish refugees and an enormous organising was required. During the first refugee accumulation in the begining of October the Grand Hotel was filled and several other hotels. It was then necessary to find a refugee camp, which could be used for some time, before the refugees were taken further up the country in order to make room for others.
Ramlösa Spa, which was hibernating, was opened and functioned as a receiving central for all those, who were landed in Landskrona and north. The Ramlösa camp had a permanent doctors´ station, headed by a Danish doctor. As the flow of refugees were steady it was important that they could taken to new camps further up in the country and such an organisation quickly started to function.
Medical Examination | 
Joint Cooking in Ramlösa |
| |
 | Small | Large | Helsingborg – Accommodation in Ramlösa Spa |
Norway´s Freedom Celebrated Too in Ramlösa
With the joy of Denmark´s liberation people now awaited the liberation of Norway. When it came, happiness was complete, not least in the Ramlösa camp, where many Norwegians had been accommodated. In the camp they also showed their gratitude to the policemen in Helsingborg, who had supported the refugees all the way.
This time too, a peace service was held in the Gustav Adolf Church with the dynamic and popular vicar Gunnar Stenberg.
Celebration in Ramlösa |
Pålsjö Beach and Pålsjö Cementary
| | Pålsjö was in the end of the 19th century a popular seaside resort.
A sharp contrast to this can be seen in Pålsjö Churchyard, where Allied victims of the Swedish policy of neutrality during the Second World War and German soldiers are buried side by side. |
Seaside Life in the Year of 1900
With the summer holiday life on the coasts of the Sound region came the seaside life, which at first wasn´t allowed directly from the beach, but only from bathing jetties and cubicles, or the gender divided public baths, which was source of a characteristic architecture along the coast.
With the parcellation and the building of summer houses, the holiday life became more formalized. It became an object for investments for the middle classes and creates another dimension in the life of the family. In many ways other, more gentle rules of conduct became prevalent.
Emma Gad |
Ålsgårde 1880 |
Beach Life |
Snekkersten´s Cold Bath Houses |
Snekkersten´s Cold Bath Houses |
The Coastal Road Snekkersten |
Helgoland |
The Cold bath House in Landskrona |
Pålsjöbaden in Helsingborg |
Snekkersten Public Bath |
Seaside Life in Hornbæk |
Hornbæk Beach |
Borupgaards Bathing Hut |
Resistance and Terror in Sweden
The neutral Sweden defended its neutrality against the Allies and the Germans. In Pålsjö Cemetery’s gravestones the tragic results can be read. Here you can also read the epitaphs of a number of soldiers, who died in connection with the shipwreck of a war ship and were washed ashore in the Scanian coast.
War Graves – Pålsjö Cemetery Relates
In the northern part of Helsingborg is Palsjö Cemetery. At the entrance of the cemetery there are to signs. One says that here is “Commonwealth war graves”, and the other informs of “Deutsche kriegsgräben”.
These two burial plots relate how northwestern Scania experienced the Second World War and how foreign young soldiers found their last resting place here – far from their home.
Of the 113 pilots from the British Commonwealth, who died in the Second World War in Swedish territory, 47 are buried in Pålsjö Cemetery. A few metres next to them lay German soldiers, who died in the same was in this area. They have found their final resting place not far form their enemies from the West Alliance, but also next to fellow countrymen, who died during the First World War. 93 German soldiers lay here.
The Allies
The “Commonwealth war graves” consists of 47 meticulously placed white marble stones and a big sword-decorated cross in the one end. The gravestones tell that it is mainly young soldiers in their twenties. Some death dates appears more often than others and nobody died alone.
July 4th 1942
On the night of July 4th 1942 Bruce Morgan and J. Samson died with four other fellow soldiers. The next morning Helsingborg Dagblad said:
“British plane crashed in Lerberget.
Was hit by the air defence on the Danish side over Hornbæk."
Helsingborg experienced the reality of war at 1 one o´clock last night – perhaps closer than ever. Two aeroplanes, which in all probability were English, flew in a southern direction along the Sound and back, when the Danish air defence fired at them with an unheard of intensity.
One of the planes crashed approximately 200 metres from Lerberget. One of the seven-crew members, a Canadian was saved and taken to Helsingborg´s Hospital. In spite of an intensive search there have been no signs of the other six.”
The two aeroplanes had been on a mission to drop mines in the Sound, and in the course of the next couple of days five mines were rendered harmless by minesweepers. They were on their way home from the assignment, when one the planes were shot down. Of the seven-crew members only the Canadian, who flew the plane, survived. The others were buried here in Pålsjö Cemetery July 17th 1942 and several thousands of Helsingborg´s population slowed their sympathy.
Flowers arrived from high-ranking military persons and institutions, but also from ordinary people. The inhabitants in the area around Lerberget had sent a flower tribute and in Helsingborg they had collected money for a gift for the surviving hospitalised Canadian.
The police in Helsingborg sent the death message to Canada with newspaper clippings from the funeral. After some time an answer came from Bruce Morgan´s stepparents. The answer is quoted in Göte Friberg´s book ”Stormcentrum Øresund”.
”For the last twenty years we have taken care of him like he was our own son. The message you sent that his body has been taken out of the sea and that he has been buried with military distinction, have brought us happiness. These young men have given their life for us, and the freedom of the world, and although our hearts are crying, we are proud of them. The beautiful thoughts and the loving work, which the inhabitants of your town have expressed towards these heroes, was completely overwhelming and we are very grateful to you all.”
Bruce Morgan | 
J. Samson |
August 30th 1944
J. Kennedy died, 21 years old on August 30th 1944 with twenty others. The next day Helsingborg Dagblad said:
According to the available reports seven aeroplanes have crashed during overflights Tuesday night in the areas around the following towns: Knäred, Vittsjö, Örkelljunga, Båstad, Ljungby and Svensköp, and in the waters outside Vejbystrand. Five of the planes were of British nationality. Swedish air defence before the crash according to a close investigation hit some of the planes.
A large number of English aeroplanes flew back after a planned bombing expedition against Königsberg (Kaliningrad). They had been discovered by a German fighter and forced to withdraw. Over the Sound Danish and Swedish sides fired at them. Six planes crashed in northwestern Scania, among other places in Båstead and Skälderviken. Two planes that crashed in Svensköp in Scania and in Agunnaryd in southern Småland had been under fire from the Swedish air defence.
21 pilots were buried on September 7th ceremoniously in Pålsjö Cemetery. The Swedish crown princess, who was English, had sent a wreath. On the D.L.D Moon´s gravestone it says:” To the world, he was only one but to us he was all the world.”
The next day they lowered wreaths in the Skälderviken, where one of the planes had crashed.
J. Kennedy |
D. L. D. Moon |
February 8th 1945
Six young boys died on February 8th 1945, among them P.L Kirkpatrick, 20 years old from Australia. Helsingborg Dagblad said the following on February 9th:
“Aeroplane Crashed in Brohult, completely demolished.
Cattleman´s house 40 metres from the crash, only one pilot found yesterday."
For the first time a foreign aeroplane has crashed inside the Helsingborg city boundary. This happened yesterday evening around 8 o´clock, when a four-engine British bomber was shot over Helsingborg and crashed at Brohult´s farm.”
There was a lot of activity in the air space in the beginning of February. The Allies carried out massive bombing expeditions against German cities Berlin and Dresden. February 8th a number of allied planes entered Helsingborg´s air space from the north and was fired at by air defences in Sofiero. One of the aircrafts was hit and flew burning over the Tågaborg district and crashed at Brohult´s farm, east of Helsingborg.
In his book “Stormcentrum Öresund” Göte Friberg has testified to the despair, which the men at the anti-aircraft gun felt after the shooting, and Helsingborg municipality made a demand that the minister of defence should change the directives for the shooting of the air defence.
The aircrafts were shot down by the Swedish air defence and at the funeral the memories of the dead were praised by representatives of the Swedish defence and afterwards the families thanked for the marks of honour via Helsingborg Dagblad.
P. L. Kirkpatrick | 
Helsingborg Dagblad February 9th 1945 |
German soldiers
A few metres from “The Commonwealth War Graves” German soldiers are buried. More than 40 of them died on March 1st 1945. Among these Heinz Reck, 26 years old and Horst de Wall, 20 years old. The next day this piece of news dominated Helsingborg Dagblad:
“Horrifying ship´s disaster near Helsingborg.
German war ship with 70 men capsized in the storm.”
A German war ship, a minesweeper was on its way to Aalborg form Copenhagen. The had to turn back because of the storm, but capsized between Viken and Hornbæk and sank outside Vikingestrand in northern Helsingborg. The disaster was this not due to any war action. 42 dead bodies floated ashore along the coast from Landskrona and to the north, most of them just north of Landskrona.
Even these had their last resting place in Pålsjö Cemetary. Many people attended the funeral and the number of people, which had participated in the rescue work, was remarkable. This was not a question of Germans or Englishmen, but a question of life and death.
From the burial report in Helsingborg Dagblad:
“It was a moving moment when seven fishermen from “Gravarna” laid down a wreath and chauffeur Karl O. Hjelm said the last words for the dead and asserted that he and his firends had done what they could to save the their lives during the ill-fated storm night."
German Soldiers | 
German Soldiers | 
Helsingborg Dagblad March 2nd 1945 | 
Helsingborg Dagblad March 10th 1945 |
A Forign Crowd of Peoble
Far from their homes here in Pålsjö Cemetery almost one hundred young men lay buried, one hundred of the many millions, who were sacrificed in the Second World War. Most of the victims of the world war are buried in the same way far from their homes. Göte Friberg, a policeman from Helsingborg gave this precise description of the ceremonies in Pålsjö Cemetary, a description, which probably covers thousands of other funerals during the Second World War:
“No families, no close friend were present, just a collection of correct men with and without uniform and in the background a large, silent, foreign crowd of people.”
Göte Friberg |
Sofiero
| | Even royalty had summer residences. This is Sofiero by the Sound coast north of Helsingborg, which the Swedish royal family bought privately. The Swedish crown prince Oscar, Karl XV´s brother, decided in the 1860´s to build a summer residence to himself and his family just north of Helsingborg. |
In the 1860´s the Swedish crown prince, Oscar, Karl XV´s brother, decided to build a summer residence for himself and his family just north of Helsingborg. One may wonder why he chose Helsingborg. Certainly, the Bernadottes had always had a certain affection for this town ever since Karl Johan went ashore there in 1810. The royal family often visited Helsingborg and Ramlösa and perhaps they felt at home here. Furthermore it is possible that being close to Denmark was tempting during the time of Scandinavism and the idea of a union between the countries could be an opportunity to have a summer castle near Denmark. Or maybe his grandson Gustav VI Adolf was right, when he said that the boat interested Oscar simply was drawn to the sea and boats and that the intensive boat traffic on the Sound was particularly tempting. After some efforts he succeeded in getting the estate, “Skabelycke”, which was named Sofiero after Oscar´s wife, Sofia. One building was constructed, designed by and engineer by the name of Forsell and who had previously designed railway stations. Many feel that this is the reason that Sofiero more looks like a railway station than a royal castle.
When Karl died in 1872, Sofiero became a place fit for royalty and king Oscar II extended the castle, an extension, which was finished in 1876. But it still could not match the Danish counterpart, Fredensborg, but it is to be remembered that it was not a state castle, but en entirely private building. In any case the area was revived until the death of Gustav VI Adolf almost 100 years later, when Sofiero stopped being a royal summer castle.
Among the leisure activities that Oscar II liked the most was the yearly hare hunting on Hven and many inhabitants on Hven still talk about these hunts. But even though Sofiero was a private summer residence, it was also used for official duties. Tsars, royalty, presidents and prime ministers from higher politics visited here. In addition to these state visits they had government meetings here in the summer and Sofiero thus had a more official status than the present royal summer residence in Borgholm on Öland.
Sofiero Castle | 
Oscar and Sofia with the children | 
Gustav Adolf and Margaretha | 
Interior from Sofiero | 
Hare hunting in Hven |
Dunker´s Arts Center
| | Dunker´s Arts Centre in Helsingborg is a willed present form one of Sweden´s richest families. The fortune was made via the rubber cartel Tretorn, which had plants in Helsingborg as well as Elsinore.
The arts centre is designed by the Danish architect, Kim Utzon. |
The Galosh King
Dunker, the family that founded and developed the Tretorn-empire, came to Helsingborg from Denmark.
A new method to process raw rubber into a material, which was soft, waterproof and durable, gave opportunities for exploiting rubber industrially, for instance to produce galoshes, rubber shoes and other kinds of modern goods of quality.
“The rubber age” had arrived to the Sound. It turned out to be a fortune for the Dunker family, but later on also for the cultural life of the region.
The Rubber Age
Rubber had been used for a long time and it worked very well – as india rubber. The American Charles Goodyear discovered a method, which opened up for completely different possibilities for the utilization of rubber in 1839. He had succeeded in processing raw rubber into a material, which was soft, waterproof and durable. The method was called retreading , and was, technically the heating of a mixture of caoutchouc and sulphur.
This method gave completely new opportunities for exploiting rubber industrially.
One idea, among many others, was to produce a protecting shoe, which was to worn on elegant shoes when it rained. The galosh, the French name for overshoes, was born. The winters by the Sound would now be bearable with the new wind- and waterproof shoes. Galoshes became extremely popular and were manufactured all over the world. Sweden imported the new idea from Russia.
Johan Dunker – the Beginning
In Helsingborg there was a harbour master called Johan Dunker. He was originally from Schlesvig-Holstein. The Dunker family lived in Esbjerg, when the son, Henry, was born in 1870. Johan, who was active in the Helsingborg economic life, understood that the demand for rubber would increase. With the optimism for the future of the age in mind, he built a rubber factory in the expanding Helsingborg. With the support of Petter Olsson, among others, he founded Helsingborgs Rubber Factory Inc. in 1891.
Johan Dunker |
Henry Dunker – a Man for Development
Johan Dunker´s son, Henry, went to Russia to find know how for his new factory. In St. Petersborg he did not have much luck, but in Riga, which belonged to Russia at the time, he came into contact with a chemist, who was interested in developing the factory in Helsingborg. His name was Julius von Gerkan and he was instrumental, when it came to the quality of the Helsingborg galoshes.
Henry Dunker became a sub-manager in 1984 and after some troubles in the beginning the factory expanded. He worked for his position in relation to other rubber factories. Thus he took over the rubber factory, Velox, in Trelleborg of founded Trelleborg´s rubber factory in 1905, which became a part of Dunker´s expanding empire. One of his ideas was to start his own sales offices, and thus avoid selling via wholesale dealers. In that way he could gain control over a bigger part of the chain from producer to consumer.
Sales offices opened between 1910-20 in all parts of Sweden, but also abroad, for instance in Copenhagen in 1909, Berlin in 913 and Vienna in 1913. Not only the company expanded but also the range of goods. What began with galoshes and other kinds of rubber shoes, now continued with balls, bathing caps and tyres. Henry Dunker realized the value of specialisation and moved the production of tyres to Trelleborg.
Henry Dunker |
Cartel and Group
In order to obtain a better competition situation abroad and avoid competition in the home market, he established a cartel in 1912. The result was that the prices could be raised in Sweden and lowered abroad, which resulted in a higher profit.
During the depression of the 30´s many states wanted to protect their own production by way of customs duties and import prohibition. Henry Dunker built factories in Hamburg and Elsinore and could maintain production and sale in Germany and Denmark. The factory in Elsinore, which was founded in 1935, grew steadily and at the end of the 50´s it was the second largest place of work in the town with more than one thousand employees. The old “Helsingborg Rubber Factory Inc.” had grown into a multinational group and the company had changed its name into Tretorn Inc., in order to get rid of the provincial ring of the old name.
Tretorn Factory in Elsinore | 
Tretorn poster from 1939 |
The Richest Man in Sweden
The demand for rubber products was enormous. From being used only as india rubber, the range of goods grew via rubber shoes to tyres, bicycle tyres, rain clothes, balls, gym shoes, rubber bands, weather strips - the list was almost endless, and the 30´s and 40´s were rightly called “the rubber age”. The fruits of this success made “the galosh king”, Henry Dunker to the richest man in Sweden.
Henry Dunker´s villa, ”Hevea”, which was built in the 20´s in northern Helsingborg, gives an insight to the environment of the well-to-do.
Villa Hevea | 
The Working Class District | 
Shower Room |
Dunker, the Employer
The management skills of Henry Dunker can be described as tough on the tough, but somewhat softer on the weak. The higher the position in the company, the more Dunker demanded. He was no friend of unions and strikes either, and naturally he did not engage himself in big business in order to play the part of the benefactor.
When he established a private kindergarten in 1911, it was in order to employ more women. In the 1930´s most of the employees in the company in Helsingborg were women.
The Unions | 
The Nursery |
The Municipality as Heir
From time to time Dunker displayed good will and released somebody from debt, but that was only his own workers. The staff in his villa, Hevea, liked him.
Dunker´s fortune was, at his death, willed to the Helsingborg municipality and his villa was made into a nursing home. In that way his money was given back to the people in town. Without these means it would not have been possible for Helsingborg to offer its citizens the theatre and arts centre, which now adorns the town. However, one should not forget the thousands of people who worked and slaved in dirty and evil-smelling factories.
Dunker´s Arts Centre |
The Church of S:t Mary
| | The Church of St. Mary in Helsingborg has a long history. In its foundation it was finished in 1410. The church is, like its counterpart in Elsinore, built in Gothic style and contains a number of art treasures – many from the Middle Ages. |
The Church of St. Mary
The late medieval church is situated right in the centre of the old Helsingborg. In the Helsingborg of the 21th century it is not a dominating part of the town picture and can hardly be seen from the sea. It is actually a little difficult to see, but when you are standing in front of it, you have to admire the beauty of the thorough Gothic gilding style. If you go inside a great deal of Helsingborg´s late medieval church culture´s interior is preserved.
The Eastern Facade of the Church of St. Mary |
Gothic
The St. Mary Church was finished in 1410 after a long building period of about 100 years. It is built as a basilica and is almost a cathedral. The mid aisle is, like the great Gothic cathedrals in Europe, low and has no windows under the vault. The building style is often called half basilica or ”pseudo basilica”. The same characteristics can be seen on the other side of the Sound, where the Mary Church in Elsinore has the same architectural traits.
The Gothic characteristics are prominent, the pointed arched windows and the pointed vaults. This also can be seen in the gable doorsteps of the exterior and the external buttresses, which support the church.
The church replaced an earlier Roman sandstone church from the 12th century. And in comparison to the small houses of the time, it became a striking and dominant building in Helsingborg. There were other churches in town, but only Kärnan and the Nicolai Monastery were able to compete with the dominant St. Mary Church.
The Western Front of the Church of Saint Mary | 
The Buttresses of the St. Mary Church |
The Vault of the Church of Saint Mary | 
Helsingborg in the Year 1400 |
The Art Treasures of the Middle Ages
The font is from the 14th century and cut from Gotland limestone. Originally it was painted and scientific examinations point towards fragments of red and blue oil paint.
The altarpiece is in remarkable good condition. It is painted around the time of the church´s inauguration in the period 1449-1452. Probably by a master from Stralsund. In the centre of the piece the scene with Mary and the newborn Jesus dominates. The motifs around are from the life of Christ as it is described in the New Testament.
The altarpiece, which is designed as some sort of cupboard can be closed at certain periods in the church year. During Lent, for example. Here the viewer must do without the sculptures and contents himself with looking on the motifs from Christ´s last days. One of these scenes shows how Jesus drives the merchants from the temple. An interesting detail here is that the appearance of some of the coins in this motif can be located in Stralsund. One detail which makes it probable that the altarpiece have been made n this town.
The triumph crucifix in Gothic style is from the latest Middle Ages. It is interesting that the foot of the cross says 1753. But it only states the time when the crucifix was repainted/restored. This is further complicated by the fact that the cross itself is of a later date that the crucifix. The originator of the crucifix is unknown, but experts assume that it is made in the southern part of Scandinavia.
The original plaster, which covered the church walls has later been removed. The walls now appear as brick walls. However, there are still remnants of the old plaster behind the altar, where there are still fragments of the old murals. Among them the saints: S:t Magnus and Brandanus. The murals are from the 15th century and are done by the so-called: Helsingborgmester, (Helsingborgmaster), whose somewhat better preserved murals can be seen in Brunnby Church in the Kulla peninsula.
From the Middle Ages are also the so-called piscinan at the bottom in the choir wall.
The Altarpiece of the Church of Saint Mary | 
The closed altar cabinet | 
The merchants are driven from the temple | 
St. Mary´s Church´s Crucifix | 
The Font of the Church of St. Mary |
The Mural of the Church of St. Mary | 
The Picscina of the Church of St. Mary |
A New Day Dawning
The tower was not finished before 1500. I.e. by the beginning of the century which was not only to change the church organisation and dogmatism in the North, but also the Middle Ages as it was later called.
However, the medieval origin of St. Mary Church is still very pronounced. Despite the later modernizations with pulpit, organ and rows of benches. The church is, rightfully so, characterized as an example of what the Middle Ages can display when it comes to stylish architecture, capable constructions and amazing craftsmanship.
Good Deeds
The altarpiece has a double portrait and three pictures above each other on the left side. The portrait shows a noble couple, perhaps the vassal of Helsingborg´s castle, Arild Urup and his wife Thale Thott. Their gold chains can identify them, which symbolize noble wealth and power.
The motif is, like in the dining hall in the Our Lady monastery in Elsinore, the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. The poor beggar Lazarus will get his reward in Heaven, while the rich man is tormented in Hell.The subtext says:
You Christians, whom God have given enough, consider the poor, who suffer grief, sickness, misery and distress, poverty and hunger for bread, with something in this collection box. Show your faith with good deeds and God in his Heaven will look agreeably upon you.
The old notion that God looks agreeably on good deeds seems to have outlived the reformation.
Nobel couple |
Sickness and Health
Epidemics were well-known since the black death in the middle of the 14th century, but in the latter half of the 16th century Elsinore was struck 13 times. It has been established that more or less local epidemics took place every other year. It was different forms of the plague, but also typhoid fever, cholera and children´s diseases took many lives. The priest and writer in Elsinore, Hans Christensen Sthen, wrote a comfort script after having lost eight children in one of the epidemics.
Tycho Brahe lost in 1576 a two-year-old daughter, after which he put up this plaque in the Mary Church in Helsingborg with this inscription:
Kirstine led, when she went away, her tender dust here.
She, who was once Tycho Brahe´s daughter.
She was just an insignificant inhabitant of this world.
But in that short time, she grew considerably. In spiritual goodness, she exceeded her gender, in good deeds her young age, in eloquence her contemporaries.
This is why nature has taken her back
So that she would not exceed the boundaries of the standards.
But still she lives; she has defeated the resistance of nature.
Instead of the short time, she now owns the period of eternity.
And improved by the Heavenly Good she rejects the Mortal,
as she through Christ have been admitted to Heaven.
Died in the Plague on September 24th
in 1576, lived for 2 years and 11 months, 11 days and 11 hours.
Death
The sooner the more dear
The later the bitterer
To Kirstine my beloved daughter
Lively and well-bred for her age,
Have I, the father, written this.
Tycho Brahe’s Daughter’s Epitaph |
Buxtehude – A Sound Citizen
It is difficult to say how the man in the street experienced Scania´s abrupt transition to Sweden at the peace treaties in 1658 and 1660. In paragraph 9 in the Roskilde peace treaty it was stated that all estates in Scania had the right to maintain their distinctive cultural characteristics and inherited rights, so nothing prevented them from living as they had done before. Furthermore it was difficult to say how much nationality meant for the individual. Sweden as well as Denmark was at this time complex – in reality multinational states, which to some extent demanded some loyalty from their citizens, but hardly a national disposition in the modern sense. That came with Romanticism’s worship of the nation and the people at the end of the 18th century.
The example of the composer Diderich Buxtehude may illuminate this connection. Posterity has not succeeded in establishing where he was born – in Holstein, Elsinore or Helsingborg – in any case he was born in an area, which belonged to the Danish state around 1637. His father, Johannes Buxtehude came from Oldesloe in Holstein – to where he probably had emigrated originally. In 1638 he became an organist at the Maria Church in Helsingborg. In the years 1638-41 the father worked in Helsingborg and here Diderich had some childhood years. In 1642 the father was the organist at the St. Olai Church in Elsinore, where he was active until around 1670. Diderich Buxtehude thus spent his childhood and youth in Helsingborg and Elsinore.
Music with Class
During the first half of the 17th century the musical scene at the Danish court and in the major churches was of a very high standard. (It is to be remembered that the court and the churches at that time were the most important customers, when it came to music and thus the music scene evolved around these institutions). Names like Heinrich Schütz and John Dowland are still remembered. Schütz was a church musician in Copenhagen and there he established the court orchestra. Dowland, a famous lutanist and composer, was a court musician. He lived in Elsinore. Johann Lorentz worked during the first half of the 17th century as a royal organ builder and he built or rebuilt all the important organs in the Sound region in a quite conservative renaissance style, a style, which then were represented by Schütz and Dowland. One of the most important remnants of Lorentz´s activity is in the organ facade in the Holy Trinity Church in Kristianstad.
New Organs
Diderich Buxtehude followed his father’s footsteps and became the organist in the Maria Church in Helsingborg. In 1660 he applied for and got the organist post in Elsinore´s Maria Church. Probably because this post was better paid and by taking it he came closer to the rest of his family. In the time up to 1668, where he went to Lübeck to apply for a post there, he lived in the same house as his mother and father. The house still stands.
Simultaneously the old Lorenz organs were modernized in a modern Baroque style, a style, which was represented musically by Diderich Buxtehude. The German organ builder did the modernization and he was the man behind the building and rebuilding of organs in Copenhagen, Elsinore, Halmstad, Helsingborg, Landskrona and Malmo.
Diderich Buxtehude experienced and participated in a very active renewal of the music scene through the new building, which was made. Two years after he had moved to Elsinore he came back to Helsingborg to supervise the rebuilding of the organ in the Maria Church. This indicates that the Swedish takeover in Scania in 1658 did not affect the music scene right away.
The Maria Church in Helsingborg | 
Saint Anne Street in Elsinore | 
The Old Organ | 
Buxtehude | 
Choir Organ in the Mariakyrkan (Church of St, Mary) |
Connections over the Sound
In his time in Elsinore Buxtehude kept in close touch with Swedish as well as Danish officials. The only piece of music we know of that Buxtehude wrote in his time in Elsinore, is from 1665 and dedicated to Christoffer Schneider, a Swedish postmaster and later consul resident in Elsinore. From his time in Elsinore Buxtehude also was friendly with the Swedish court conductor and organist Gustav Büben. Perhaps it was on his request that Buxtehude composed the wedding cantata to the wedding between Carl XI Gustav and his Danish queen Hedvig Eleonora in 1680.
| |
 | | Large | Aperte mihi portas iustitiae, Elsinore 1665. (Diderik Buxtehude) |
| | Large | Aria sopra le Nozze di Sua Maesta il Re de Svecia (1680). Diderik Buxtehude |
In Lübeck
In 1668 Buxtehude moved to Lübeck, probably for career reasons, but also to get away from the meagre financial circumstances in the devastated Sound region. The three Maria Churches in Helsingborg, Elsinore and Lübeck are the main threads in his life. Even though he spent most of his active life in Lübeck and even though he achieved fame and honour there, he never forgot his roots by the Sound. That was why the periodical “Nova litteraria Maris Balthici” could claim in 1707: “He considered Denmark his native country” (Patriam agnoscit Daniam).
Diderich Buxtehude´s career as a composer and an organist culminated in Lübeck and great composers like Händel and Bach came and listened to his music. He was especially renowned for his “Lübecker Abendmusiken”, which were concerts in connection with the evensong before Christmas. He wrote new organ works for this every year.Town Walk in Elsinore
| | Via the text icon You can reach a guide to a walk in Elsinore.
In the left meny You can get more information from the historical part of Öresundstid.
You return to the guide when You click on the title "Town Walk in Elsinore" in the left meny. |
Elsinore – the Town of Sound Dues
Elsinore is, historically speaking, an international town with a dramatic history. With only approximately four kilometres to Sweden across the Sound, the town has been a ferry town since the Middle Ages, but also a castle town and from 1658 a border town too.
For several centuries Elsinore and Malmo competed for the title of second largest city in Denmark and left is, largely due to far-sighted politicians and a very active population in the 1960´s and 70´s, one of Europe’s best preserved town centres. Well-preserved and gently restored buildings lie like a string of pearls in a rectangular, chessboard-like street network from the 15th century. The architectural appearance of individual houses shows styles from the 16th century to the present time.
A stroll through the town can be done in an hour and we start this town walk at the Svea Column on the harbour square.
Elsinore 1859 |
The Harbour Square
The Svea Column
The Svea Column was erected in 1947. Its inscriptions express the gratitude of the Danes for the hospitality shown the refugees from Denmark by the Swedish state during the Second World War. Among them were many Danish Jews.
Today a number of preserved buildings on the east side of the square are missing. After a tragic hotel fire in 1938 the buildings were demolished and the place was converted into a parking lot.
The Custom House
The solid red building on the harbour square is the Custom House, built in 1891. Formerly here was a warehouse from 1781. The relief of Chr. 7., which is seen over the entrance gate originates from that warehouse. Since the 1970´s the building has functioned as a very active culture centre.
Elsinore Station
The Elsinore station building is from 1891. It is built in a style known as neo-renaissance. Many foreigners believe that this is Kronborg Castle! Ferry traffic and train traffic is effectively linked here. In an hour and a half a Scanian amuse himself in the entertainment places Bakken and Tivoli or find work opportunities in large parts of the Sound Region. The inhabitants of Elsinore can find low-priced housing in Helsingborg.
If we look towards Strandgade, which demarcates the harbour square towards the land side, two mansions from the second half of the 18th century catch the eye. It is the history of the upper classes in Elsinore, which is presented in Strandgade´s facades which face the harbour. The administrators of the Sound Dues, the shipbrokers´ and the merchants´ display of wealth after the end of the Great Nordic War in 1720
Strandgade 95:
Stephen Hansen´s Mansion. Built in 1760 in rococo style for war commisioner Stephen Hansen, an important man at The Sound´s Custom House. The mansion is designed by the well-known architect Philip de Lange.
Strandgade 93:
The Claessenske Mansion. Built in 1793 by ship owner and merchant J.J.Claessen. The building style is a peculiar form of neo-classicism.
Strandgade 91:
Rasmussen`s Yard is built in 1637 by customs examiner Christen Rasmussen. The anchors in the façade form the initials of the builder and his wife, Kirstine Olufsdatters.
The building is known today as the Shipbroker Yard, and is a museum for the time of the Sound Dues. Here is a shop, which sells ”original” goods. In the yard there is, as in the 18th century, a small brewery, which produces the house’s own beer.
Strandgade 85-87:
The English consul Fenwick´s yard is a series of houses. The front house is from 1600. Above the gate in the yard a cannon ball has been lodged in the wall. It is from the English bombardment in 1801. By the irony of fate they hit their own consul´s yard with this very cannonball
Via the narrow, almost claustrophobic, medieval Gl. Færgestræde, we are now going to the town´s main street.
Oversæt | 
The harbour square in Elsinore 2006 | 
The Custom House | 
The Svea Column | 
The Four Inscriptions on the Svea Column |
Rasmussens Yard 1780 | 
Det Claessenske Palæ 1791 | 
Stephan Hansen´s House 1760 |
Gl. Færgestræde
The street names in Elsinore tell, as in other towns, a great deal of cultural history. In the medieval street network it was Gl. Færgestræde, which led to the ferries. (Færge = Ferry)
In the lane chickens and pigs went around rummaging in the garbage the residents had thrown out. You can imagine the stench and Elsinore´s many plagues along with the presence of countless foreign sailors probably be attributed to the eldorado, which was created here for rats and other disease carriers.
Stengade
At the mouth of Gl. Færgestrædes in Stengade we are now on the main street. As implied by the name (Sten = stone), it was here that the well-to-do citizens in medieval Elsinore built the first stone houses in the town.
Stengade 66:
Oxernes´ Yard, built in 1460 by the vassal on the fortress Krogen, Johan Oxe. Later the house was inhabited by “the father of the Danish written language”, Chr. Pedersen, who in the first half of the 16th century, was the first to translate the bible into Danish. Note the comb jagged gable from the original building.
.
Stengade 64:
Dahl`s Yard. This is an exquisite example of the baroque. The yard was constructed by the merchant Nicolai Dahl in 1739 and appears on the whole as when it was constructed.
Stengade 59:
Elsinore Town Hall
Diagonally opposite Dahl´s Yard is the Elsinore Town Hall. It was built in 1855 and monastic bricks form the old town hall, have been used. It was situated in the same place and was built in the 1560`s. Above the entrance you notice two sandstone rosettes from the old town hall featuring the coat of arms of Frederik II and Queen Sofie.
The grandiose building is in neo-gothic style. It was built a few years before the abolition of the Sound Dues, at a time, when the town could not foresee the financial torpid state it would sink into.
Via another small lane, Brostræde, we now move down to Strandgade.
Oxerne´s House end | 
Baroque House in Elsinore | 
Oversæt |
Brostræde
The name of this lane (bro= bridge or landing stage) has the same maritime origin as Færgestræde. It led down to the landing stages, which made up the original harbour of the town.
Today the small lane is internationally known, especially among children, for here we find the ice cream shop, where you can buy Elsinore’s famous Brostræde ice cream.
Brostræde |
Strandgade- from North East to South West
Strandgade is several centuries younger than Stengade (Strand = beach or seashore). The seashore line was earlier much closer to Stengade and it was not until the town wall was built in 1620 that the area began to look like a street.
On the corner of Brostræde and Strandgade is:
Strandgade 77-79:
The old Swan Pharmacy. The original house is from around 1500 and built in late-gothic style. From 1578 it was the town´s pharmacy. On the facade you see swans and a sundial. The anchors form the year 1634 and the builder´s initials, alderman, Johan Kruse and his wife. The house stopped functioning as a pharmacy around 1970.
We continue right by Strandgade with the harbour to our left.
Strandgade 71:
Marstrand´s Marine Stores from 1847 is a fine example of a shop dating back to the Sound Dues.
Strandgade 55:
Barber Jacob Willumsen´s yard is a renaissance house built in 1592 shortly after Kronborg was built. It is said that one af Frederik II´s Flemish artisans did this…
The house is probably one of Elsinore’s most beautiful renaissance houses and has been listed. Over the neighbour house, Strandgade 53, you can see a wing pole with three crowns on top of each other. They testify to the 100 years after 1750, when the building housed the Swedish consul general.
Strandgade 39:
Nowadays a modern house. An earlier house on this lot was from the 18th century and was owned for long periods of time by Elsinore’s Jews. Around 1800 it was the Jewish school and synagogue.
Strandgade 27:
The oldest dated half timbering building in Elsinore and one of the most interesting houses in town. As the year on the entrance says, the house is from 1577 and housed for many years the public house, ”Ankeret.” (The Anchor). Notice the leaves and the keel arches, which have been carved in the woodwork.
Notice the sharp bend, which breaks off Strandgade here.
Strandgade 19-21:
Once housed the hostelry and the public house "Norske Løve." (Norwegian Lion). The house was built in 1770 by a ferryman and has through the 19th and 20th century been subjected to a number of rebuilding, including 1980, where number 19 was markedly separated from number 21 and got back its original half timbered facade back. The process is an example of how the old houses in Elsinore are restored. The residents photographed the 3 phases of the work. See the pictures below:
Strandgade 1:
The house was built in the 1760´s and has, until the abolition of the Sound Dues in 1857, always been inhabited by ferrymen. From 1801-1807, for instance, by the bold and infamous pirate, privateer and adventurer Jens Lind, who was particularly known for his fearless effort during the war against England 1807-14 and for a voyage to Russia in a snowstorm in a small open dinghy.
We leave the house of ”the bold ferryman” and takes a few steps back. Here we find Gyldentræde, which is the last of the transverse lanes, which lead from Strandgade to Stengade. We walk up Gyldenstræde and left by Anna Queenstraæde.
The Swan Pharmacy | 
Marstrand´s provisioning shop | 
Strandgade | 
The Anchor | 
Strandgade 19 restauration 1 |
Strandgade 19 restauration 2 | 
Strandgade 19 restauration 3 | 
Privateer Jens Lind´s house |
Gyldenstræde, Anna Queenstræde og Skyttenstræde
Gyldenstræde has been named after the merchant Knud Gylden, who owned the house Gyldenstræde 2 in the period 1736 - 1771.
Between Gyldenstræde and Skyttenstræde we have the small picturesque lane, Anna Queenstræde, which has been named after the merchant Hans Quies widow. The merchant owned most of the houses in the lane.
Anna Queenstræde 2 is most likely built in the 17th century and in the 18th century it housed a brewery and a distillery.
At the end of Anna Queenstræde we turn left by Skyttenstræde.
The lane is named after the generation Skyts, who inhabited the corner house facing Stengade in the beginning of the 18th century. The small houses in the lane was rented flats in the 17th century, but was later bought by ferrymen and fishermen.
We walk through this snug lane and turn right by Stengade.
The Middle of Stengade
Stengade 20:
Mayor Iver Pedersen´s yard on the corner of Skyttenstræde is from the 17th century. The building is one of the few of the many half timbered houses, which are left from the Renaissance in Elsinore. Notice the carved keel arches, flowers and acanthus leaves in the woodwork.
Stengade 40:
”Jochm Langens House” The inscription in Low German over the door reads translated: ”The honest man Jochm Langen let this house build in the year 1604, February 3. Where God does not give his blessing on the house, everybody works in vain” Notice here also the carvings in the woodwork.
Stengade 46:
"The Swedish Consulate”. Built in classicistic style approx. 1784 for the the Swedish general consul. The building is crowned at the top with a shield carrying the Swedish King Gustaf´s initials. In a room on the first floor the French army commander Bernadotte abjured his Catholic faith in 1810 and converted to Protestantism in order to become king of Sweden. The building was taken over by the Royally Privileged Shooting Society in Elsinore, hence the initials over the gateway.
Stengade 53:
"Hotel Øresund". Originally this house was medieval, but it has been rebuilt several times, latest in 1904. Above the corner window is a text tablet with a Low German inscription in memory of the plague in 1654. Translated into English it says: "Many are annoyed by what he sees, but must nevertheless tolerate that it happens in 1654". In 1771 the building was converted into a hostelry, the finest in town. The hotel enterprise continued all the way to the 1960´s.
Now we turn left by Bjergegade.
Stengade-Skyttenstraede | 
The Swedish consulate in Elsinore |
Bjergegade
The name stems from a rise in the street.
Axeltorv
The Square was established after a fire in 1864. Formerly vegetables, meat and fish were bought other places in town.
Now market days are Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays.
And so we turn left by Sudergade.
Sudergade
Suder is from Low German and means ”cobbler.” The cobblers stayed here, which formerly was the outskirts of town, because of the stench from the tanning of the leather.
Sct. Annagade – The Monastery Complex
Sct. Annagade 38:
The Karmeliter Monastery is from the latter half of the 15th century and the best preserved medieval monastery in Northern Europe. After the Reformation in 1536 it has, among other things, served as a hospital and grammar school. Now it houses the administration for the diocese authorities in Elsinore.
Sct. Annagade 38:
The Church of Saint Mary, which is part of the monastery complex, was administratively separated from this and converted into Elsinore´s “German church” for the many Germans and Dutchmen, who lived and worked in town. The church organ is a big attraction. It is from 1663, where the organist was the famous composer Diederich Buxtehude. The church gives many organ concerts for a large audience.
Sct. Annagade 36:
The Karmeliter House was converted into a hospital by the Karmeliter monks in 1516 an had room for 8-10 beds intended for foreign seamen. In 1630 Elsinore town bought the building and converted it into a workhouse for up to a hundred poor wretches, who were occupied with spinning, repairing ropes and the like in wretched conditions.
The house had this function until 1902. Today the building houses the Elsinore Town Museum.
Now we walk down Hestemøllestræde with the monastery on our left.
Oversæt | 
The Karmelite Monastery |
Hestemøllestræde – Wibroe´s Brewery
In Elsinore, like in most Danish towns the distance from the church to the public houses, has never been far. On the corner of Hestemøllestræde and Sophie Brahesgade there is a building, which is the last remnant of Wiibroe´s Brewery´s plant here. The building is from 1862 and built by the founder of the brewery, Carl Wiibroe.
In the 19th century the beer production went from home brew to large scale industrial production. In Elsinore this development led to the making of one of the largest workplaces in the town: Wiibroe Brewery. It became a part of the industry, which became the lifeline in Elsinore after the abolition of the Sound Dues.
The corner of Hestemøllestræde and Sophie Brahes Gade earlier housed an estate inhabited by Tycho Brahe´s sister and research assistant, Sophie, who the street has been named after. We take this street and turn left in to the church square.
Wiibroe Beer |
Sct. Annagade - Sct. Olai Kirke – Buxtehude´s House
Sct. Annagade 12:
St. Olai Church, Elsinore´s Cathedral, is originally a one-nave, Roman brick church built in the period 1200-1250. In the North wing you can see 20 meters of wall from the original building. Around 1560 the church had the appearance it has today, but for a period from 1615 the church had an impressive 50 meters tall spire, called “Elsinore´s Virgin”. Unfortunately the wind blew it down in 1737.
Sct. Annagade 6:
The composer Buxtehude´s house.
The front building is from 1682; but parts of it are from the Middle Ages. The house functioned as an organist home for St. Olai Church, where Buxtehude´s father was the organist. Buxtehude himself lived in the original house, while he was the organist at the Church of St. Mary from 1660-1668. Later the house became a public house and a butcher´s shop, and today it is living quarters.
From the church square a small passage leads back to Stengade, where we shall see a couple of noteworthy houses from the Renaissance.
Saint Anne Street in Elsinore | 
Buxtehude in Lübeck |
Stengade – Renaissance Houses
Stengade 72 - 74:
In everyday language: The Judge´s Estate, is built in late Gothic style and is also called The Lejele+s Estate. It is built in the 16th century by the Scottish family The Lejele. Two members of this family, father and son, both became mayors in Elsinore.
The Latin inscription on the facade means translated:”My saviour lives and on the Last Day I shall rise from the earth and in my flesh see God, my saviour”
Stengade 76:
Customs officer David Hansen’s estate, built in 1579 is a well-preserved, commoner’s Renaissance house. The customs officer never lived here himself, but rented it to Chr.IV’s financial advisor, Jonas Charisius.
We continue to the end of Stengade, which ends in Wiibroe´s Square.
Dommergården | 
Tolder David Hansens Gård |
Wiibroe´s Square
Here was The Sound´s Custom House, designed by N. Basse in 1740. It was demolished in 1860, after the abolition of the Sound Dues. The lion in the middle of the square was part of a fountain, which was placed in front of the customs house. This square is dominated by two mansion-like buildings, which both were built by officials at the customs house.
Stengade 81:
Trentwedel´s Estate, also built in 1770 in rococo style for passport scribe J.F. Trentwedel, who was mostly known for his poor discharge of his office. Today the building is called: ”Færgegården” and houses several restaurants.
Stengade 83:
Customs Commissioner Frantz von der Osten´s mansion, built 1770 in rococo style.
We will now proceed to the harbour, to the right and are back at the harbour square. Here we end the town walk.
Wibroe´s Square | 
The Custom House 1742 | 
The Harbour |
Map and link
| | Via the linkicon you can reach homepages, where you can get informations about prizes, booking etc.
If You click on "Townwalk in Elsinore" in the left meny, You will return to the guide. |
Den florissante by
| | In the end of the 18th century it was the eagerness to build, which came from the top civil servants and the merchants. |
The Florissant Period
Elsinore was markedly debilitated by the war and the plague in the beginning of the 18th century and in 1735 there were only around 3400 inhabitants. But henceforth it entered, like the country as a whole, a time of prosperity, which lasted the rest of the century. The time is known as the Florissant Period and refers to a flowering in connection with a rise in the foreign trade and to a lesser extent a development of the economic life.
In the case of Elsinore it was primarily a question of increased earnings and trade as a consequence of an increase of the thoroughfare in the Sound. This may be illustrated with a number of key numbers. In the 16th century no more than 300 ships passed through, in the 17th century the number was 1500, and in 1750 the number is approximately 5000 ships yearly, in the 1790´s approximately 10.000. During the Napoleonic Wars the number drops catastrophically, but in the 1840´s the number is 20.000 ships yearly. The income from the Sound duty, which until 1771 went directly into the king´s private chest was in the 1730´s around 200.000 rix dollars, in 1780-1790´s around 500-600.000 rix dollars.
Elsinore | 
Profile of Elsinore, 1754 | 
Prospectus from 1763 | 
Map From 1778 |
The Supply Situation
In a regulation of June 25th 1735 all prefects were instructed to send in surveys of the economical situation in the provinces and the towns. The interest was concentrated around “Wherein any town and district´s trade and business consist”. In a general report, written by the aldermen Andreas Becker and G. Hvid, the state of the town was briefly described, for instance that the surrounding agricultural areas produced corn to the extent of approximately 500 barrels of seed, that meat was imported from Scania and foods in general from other provinces. Thus the town was not able to live on the valleys of the surrounding areas.
Only a few larger companies were mentioned, a tannery and a tobacco spinning mill. The guild organized trades were enumerated and a big problem was evidently “...the intervention from moonlighters and soldiers and the garrison, which easier can give their work for sale, than taxes, which are prescribed and commanded”.
Six merchants in the town complained that brewers, workmen and ferrymen, besides doing their job also traded uncontrollably and they suggested a tightening of the regulations for business practices in the town. Perhaps that was also contributory to the fact that the establishing of a merchants´ guild. At first only with Danish members
The Commercial Thinking
Another report is interesting because it held improvement suggestions in harmony with the commercial thinking of the age, where they tried to achieve a positive trade balance through aiming at private production and self-sufficiency, most often in the form of monopolies on foreign trade and production enterprises. This view point is expressed in the paragraph 12 of the report:
“All over we should try not only to preserve the money in the country, but channel them, so we can earn something of the foreigners, which is the gains and the advantage, of which there is no doubt the country will prosper the most”.
Self-sufficiency was thus the leading theme, but in paragraph 6 the significant coupling of business and social politics is evident:
“The poor, which are found in great numbers in the streets, could be provided for in this manner, when they were employed for the work, which they do best, where manufacturers are established and continued, here the old and the disabled earn their support and earn their bread, by spinning, by carding wool and other work, which is to be found, and perhaps at first it will seem difficult and unaccustomed, it will be best in time, when the poor provide for themselves by working instead of finding their living by begging.”
Such a policy had been practised since the time of Christian IV in the state businesses, which produced luxury textiles. One single attempt was done, when a number of orphans were referred to the rifle factory in Hellebæk. Moreover the mayor Tevis Wilde suggested in 1770 to establish a cotton-spinning mill with the poor as labour, but it did not come off.
The English Merchants
A reference to foreign inhabitants in paragraph 8 is relevant, because the town mistrusted the growing number of foreigners, primarily English merchants, who profited from the increasing thoroughfare and trade of the time. The took over most of the trade with English ships, refused under the cover of consular status to pay taxes and had problems with the established merchants´ guild of 1744.
One interesting example was the sea captain John Daniel Belfour, who wanted to establish himself as a merchant in the town in 1786 and seeks membership in the merchants´ guild. He was refused, but then he applied the chancellery for the right to run a business outside the guild. He was refused, but the central power ordered that he be admitted in the guild after he had taken a trade licence.
Belfour was an interesting figure because he did not only stick to the trade, but also invested productively in a Dutch gin Brewery and a tannery. Brewery was a freebooter area, because many, who were organized in other guilds, performed this function. Belfour was thorough, called in Dutch specialists and obtained a loan from the state. The business was good, in one single month he was able to sell 21.536 quarts and the success continued, in spite the fact that the spirit brewers in Elsinore complained about him in 1799.
Belfour was an active gentleman, who did not let himself be stopped by the resistance of the guilds in this and other areas.
Jean Jacob Claessen
Another figure deserves mentioning. The merchant Jean Jacob Claessen came from a rich family, his father was mentioned in 1756 as the only one in town, who owned ships for foreign trade, and like him he married into another prominent family in town, the van Deurs family. In 1784 he applied for the laying out of a shipyard with a matching anchor smithy and ropewalk.
The shipyard did not come off, but it is interesting that Claessen attains a special position in relation to the smithy and ropewalker guilds, which at the time did not exist in Elsinore. Claessen also had plans for a bigger harbour, which could promote the foreign trade, but the state did not wish to support this activity. In 1764-67 the first real harbour was built, the existing ships´ bridge was extended, added an arm and in addition built a northern arm. An extension did not take place until 1824.
The Harbour |
Other Industrial Businesses
Other early industrial businesses in the century were lacquer factories, a hard cloth and cotton wool factory, a starch and powder factory (1785), a soap factory, a vinegar factory and a tobacco factory. None of these had a lasting importance in contrast to a couple of sugar refineries, which were built form 1760-70, and Adam Späth´s beautiful rococo building at Svingelport still exists, as an example of early trade building.
Sugar Refinery |
New Buildings
The rising activity and trade towards the middle of the 18th century marked the town in different ways. In the years 1740-42 the customs building was built, designed by the architect N. Basse in a baroque-rokoko style, which also marks other contemporary buildings in town. The increased wealth can also be seen in the extensive building of new, large private houses around the town.
Rasmussens Yard 1780 |
Det Claessenske Palæ 1791 |
Stephan Hansen´s Palæ 1760 | 
Oversæt |
The Custom House 1742 |
Painting of the Custom House |
Ferrymen and Public Houses
The Flourishing period made the many ferrymen and pub landlords in Elsinore prosper. In Elsinore´s ”new” street south part you can still see a number of these solid built half-timbering houses. In the 1970´s there was an interest in keeping and restoring these historical houses. For example the public house "Ankeret" i Strandgade 27 and the public house "Norske Løve" in Strandgade 19-21.
The Anchor |
Strandgade 19 restoration 1 |
Strandgade 19 restauration 2 |
Strandgade 19 restauretaion 3 |
The Monastery
| | Our Lady Monastery in Elsinore was built during the second half of the 15th century. It is very well preserved and is thus unique in Europe. It is a fine example of the Baltic Gothic. |
The Karmelite Monastery
The first monasteries were placed in the country and it was not until the emergence of the mendicant orders that monasteries were placed in towns. This development continued in the 15th century, when Karmelite monasteries were founded in the Sound region. The Karmelites had their origin among hermits in the mountain Karmel in the holy land and in 1226 the pope approved the Karmelite order. The Karmelite order was one of the strictest in the Catholic Church and they started early with monastery schools. Gradually the severe monastery rules were lessened, but in the 16th century they were tightened again.
The Karmelite monks were well educated and their monasteries were to contribute to increased knowledge and education in the town. Karmelite monasteries were founded in Landskrona in 1410 and in Elsinore in 1430.
Monasteries in the Towns | 
Karmelite Monk |
The Elsinore Monastery
The late medieval monastery building in Elsinore is the best preserved and worth a closer study.
It was Erik of Pommern, who donated the land to the monastery and the pole approved of the plans in 1431. After a fire in 1450 they had to rebuild the monastery, which was a time-consuming and expensive undertaking. A large monastery building like that was expensive to run, but the royal power supported the activities and it was also a common with soul gifts.
Poul Laxmand
The vassal in Krogen in Elsinore, Poul Laxmand, donated 100 Lübeck mark to the monastery.
Poul Laxmand was at the time the richest landowner in the country and he made several donations. 10 year after the first donation you could read in a letter that Lawmand had donated nine hundred Lubeck mark Danish money, ”for which a monastery’s church and cloister was built with the help of many good people”.
The Chancellor
He also possessed the most prominent position in the kingdom. He was chancellor, which meant that he functioned as liaison between the king and the parliament. He was murdered in the street in Copenhagen in 1497. The king, Hans, felt that Laxmand in fact had been a traitor and confiscated all his property.
Poul Laxmand was buried in the Our Lady Church in Elsinore and you can see his family’s coat of arms in the monastery. The chapter hall has been named after him; it is simply called ”The Laxmand Hall”.
Poul Laxmand |
Poul Helgesen
Poul Helgesen was born in Varberg in Halland and in time became one of the most important persons in the Karmelite monastery. He was attached to the monastery in 1517 and in 1519 became the principal of the college in Copenhagen. He taught at the university and form 1522-44 he was the leader of the Karmelites in the North. Poul Helgesen was a defender of the Catholic Church until the Reformation in 1536. But he also fought for the internal reformation and development.
After the Reformation
After the Reformation in 1536 the Karmelite monastery stopped functioning as a monastery and became a hospital for the old and sick. It is said that the monks had to get tithe and handouts to run the hospital. The old monks were allowed to stay on and adapt to the new situation.
The Skibby Chronicle |
Architecture
The Our Lady Monastery in Elsinore is unusually well preserved. It was built and rebuilt in the latter half of the 15th century.
Oversæt |
The Ground Plan
The ground plan was typical for the monastery buildings of southern Europe. The different wings in the almost square building had different functions. The economy department with cooking facilities was in the north wing and the monastery church (The Mary Church) in the south. Inside is a roofed cloister, which goes all the way round the square inner yard.
Ground Plan | 
Administration |
The Karmelite Monastery | 
The Cloisters | 
The Frater Hall |
Baltic Gothic
The building material is brick, which is typical of the north European or Baltic Gothic. The three naves in the church are also typical of the north European style, where the middle nave does not let in the light. This half basilica style testifies to the influence of the Wend Hanseatic towns and is also present in the Mary Church in Helsingborg, which was built at the same time as the Our Lady Monastery.
Gothic pointed arches can be seen everywhere in doors, windows, house ends and in the cloister. The ends of the church are a display of brick Gothic’s architecture. The east and west end have stair formed edges with four vertical dims on each side of the 11 metres tall middle window. Above this window and above the side windows there are broader dimmers with varying patterns (circular, pear shaped and pointed arches).
Inside the monastery the gothic vaults and columns are richly varied. Most common are the simple cross vaults, which are in the church and in the cloister, but in the chapter hall (Laxmand hall) there are sophisticated net vaults with inlaid symbols and coat of arms. Some ornaments, done by the sculptor Adam van Düren, are in the chapter hall. He built Glimmingehus and he also restored Lund´s Cathedral. With this artist we are brought nearer a new age and in the monastery there are many things, which testifies to the dawning age of the Renaissance. One example is the stone building opposite the entrance of the monastery church, and which was attached to the monastery from the start. The building is interesteing as it contains elements from the Gothic as well as the Renaissance. On the house end there are horizontal profile bands and vaulted sides, which are typical of the renaissance style.
The west house | 
The West House End | 
The West House End | 
The East House End | 
The Monastery from the west |
The Chapter Hall
In the inner rooms of the monastery there is an abundant variation in Gothic vaults and pillars. The simple cross vault is predominant in the church and corridors, while the chapter hall or the Laxmand hall has sophisticated net vaults with engraved symbols and coats of arms.
Ornamental figures in the corners remind the noble karmelite monks of the temptations of earthly life. The originator of these figures and the other sandstone work is probably the sculptor and architect Adam van Düren, who also is in charge of the building of the late medieval castle Glimmingehus in Østerlen in Scania and later the restoration of Lund Cathedral.
The Laxmand Hall | 
Memento Mori | 
Madonna Figure |
Dawning Renaissance
Adam van Düren portends another age. The Karmelite monastery is a traditional medieval building, but many traits in the ornamentation point towards the dawning Renaissance.
Not only the monastery points toward a new age. Diagonally opposite the monastery church there is a stone building, which originally is associated with the activities of the monastery. When you walk around in the building you enter the Renaissance from the Middle Ages. On the western gable end, which faces St. Annægade, and represents a later addition you will see the horizontal profile bands, which is typical of the Renaissance. The northern gable facing the monastery complex is ornamented with the fluctuating gable ends typical of the Renaissance. These can also be found in mansions and royal castles later in time.
The Carmelite House | 
The Carmelite House, the north end |
The Mary-motif
There are not many Mary motifs in the murals in the monastery. The apocalyptic Madonna is portrayed in a medallion in the vault in the chapter hall, the Annunciation can be seen close to the entrance to the church and Mary with the halo is portrayed in a mural in the dining hall.
Annunciation | 
Reading Mary | 
Mary in Refulgence |
The Lazarus Hall
In the dining hall (The Lazarus Hall) you can see a picture of Jesus and the Samaritan woman. In a text band it says in Latin: ”Give me something to drink”. Another picture depicts how Jesus is tempted by the devil in the desert. Satan tries to lure Jesus into using his divinity to make bread out of stones.
? |
The Lazarus Frieze
The dining hall is situated in the north wing of the monastery and is also called the Lazarus hall. This is due to the frieze, which dominates the room and represents the parable of the rich man and Lazarus.
The Rich Man and Lazarus | 
The Rich Man | 
Lazarus | 
The Rich Man Goes to Hell | 
Lazarus Goes to Heaven |
The Table Scene
The picture shows the rich man in the place of honour and presents as unusual insight into the customs around the year 1500. The shoes are the latest fashion at the time and the cut of the dress points toward Italian fashion in the period 1450-70. It has also been suggested that the artist may be Italian, perhaps a monastery friar, who has been summoned to carry out this job?
You also notice the details around the table manners of the time: The flat wooden plates, or perhaps slices of bread used as plates and the smaller loaves, which was used to spoon up the food. A knife could be used, but the fork hasn´t been invented yet.
The scene with the rich man has been interpreted differently. He is without a doubt a fashion devotee, but who is at his side? Two women, but is one of them his wife? That should be the one on the left and why is he holding the other one´s hand? There is no final answer to this, but there is a hint of carnal lust here. The somewhat primitive and perspective reproduction points toward the Renaissance.
Rich and Poor
The perspective reproduction can also be seen in the second picture in the frieze, where Lazarus is in agony outside the rich man´s door. A servant throws him crumbs from the rich man´s table, while another with his hand over his facet ries to hold off the stench from the open wounds.
In picture three the rich man´s death is depicted. The picture illustrates how difficult it is for him to get into heaven. He lies in his bed surrounded by friends, but also devils, who try to take possession of his soul.
The poor Lazarus in picture four on the other hand, is almost automatically granted access to Heaven.
The fifth and sixth picture in the series are like pictures three and four placed over each other, but are badly preserved. The probably depict the poor man resting in Abraham´s lap and below the rich man in Hell.
Interpretation
The frieze has also been interpreted as an eternal reminder to the Karmelite monks to be moderate, but also as a reminder of how difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God. Perhaps it is only God´s absolution, which can save you. The Lazarus motif was well liked around the 16th century, when they stressed the inadequacy of deeds for salvation. The vault in the south nave of the church are decorated with an extensive collection of murals, which show scenes from the life of Jesus and they have probably been painted in connection with the rebuilding in the end of the 15th century.
In the Church
The vault in the south nave of the church are decorated with an extensive collection of murals, which show scenes from the life of Jesus and they have probably been painted in connection with the rebuilding in the end of the 15th century.
Hans Pothorst | 
Delff; a painter |
The Music Hall
The Garden of Eden is depicted in the so-called music hall, which is more like an emergency church, from where you could attend the service through a hole in the wall. The room is decorated from the floor to the ceiling like a paradisiacal bower with angels making music and grotesque figures around the leaves.
Harp Sound | 
Music Motif | 
Music Motif |
Grotesques
The nave also holds a number of characteristic masks as a part of the ornamentation of the church. These can be interpreted as profane everyday comments, which contrast the deeds of the pious Karmelites.
Grotesque Figures |
Buxtehude
| | Buxtehude ended his career as an organist in Lübeck in northern Germany. This picture is from there. Before Buxtehude was a good example of a Sound citizen, who worked on both sides of the Sound, in spite of war and trouble in the area. |
Buxtehude – A Sound Citizen
It is difficult to say how the man in the street experienced Scania´s abrupt transition to Sweden at the peace treaties in 1658 and 1660. In paragraph 9 in the Roskilde peace treaty it was stated that all estates in Scania had the right to maintain their distinctive cultural characteristics and inherited rights, so nothing prevented them from living as they had done before. Furthermore it was difficult to say how much nationality meant for the individual. Sweden as well as Denmark was at this time complex – in reality multinational states, which to some extent demanded some loyalty from their citizens, but hardly a national disposition in the modern sense. That came with Romanticism’s worship of the nation and the people at the end of the 18th century.
The example of the composer Diderich Buxtehude may illuminate this connection. Posterity has not succeeded in establishing where he was born – in Holstein, Elsinore or Helsingborg – in any case he was born in an area, which belonged to the Danish state around 1637. His father, Johannes Buxtehude came from Oldesloe in Holstein – to where he probably had emigrated originally. In 1638 he became an organist at the Maria Church in Helsingborg. In the years 1638-41 the father worked in Helsingborg and here Diderich had some childhood years. In 1642 the father was the organist at the St. Olai Church in Elsinore, where he was active until around 1670. Diderich Buxtehude thus spent his childhood and youth in Helsingborg and Elsinore.
Music with Class
During the first half of the 17th century the musical scene at the Danish court and in the major churches was of a very high standard. (It is to be remembered that the court and the churches at that time were the most important customers, when it came to music and thus the music scene evolved around these institutions). Names like Heinrich Schütz and John Dowland are still remembered. Schütz was a church musician in Copenhagen and there he established the court orchestra. Dowland, a famous lutanist and composer, was a court musician. He lived in Elsinore. Johann Lorentz worked during the first half of the 17th century as a royal organ builder and he built or rebuilt all the important organs in the Sound region in a quite conservative renaissance style, a style, which then were represented by Schütz and Dowland. One of the most important remnants of Lorentz´s activity is in the organ facade in the Holy Trinity Church in Kristianstad.
New Organs
Diderich Buxtehude followed his father’s footsteps and became the organist in the Maria Church in Helsingborg. In 1660 he applied for and got the organist post in Elsinore´s Maria Church. Probably because this post was better paid and by taking it he came closer to the rest of his family. In the time up to 1668, where he went to Lübeck to apply for a post there, he lived in the same house as his mother and father. The house still stands.
Simultaneously the old Lorenz organs were modernized in a modern Baroque style, a style, which was represented musically by Diderich Buxtehude. The German organ builder did the modernization and he was the man behind the building and rebuilding of organs in Copenhagen, Elsinore, Halmstad, Helsingborg, Landskrona and Malmo.
Diderich Buxtehude experienced and participated in a very active renewal of the music scene through the new building, which was made. Two years after he had moved to Elsinore he came back to Helsingborg to supervise the rebuilding of the organ in the Maria Church. This indicates that the Swedish takeover in Scania in 1658 did not affect the music scene right away.
The Maria Church in Helsingborg |
Saint Anne Street in Elsinore |
The Old Organ |
Buxtehude |
Choir Organ in the Mariakyrkan (Church of St, Mary) |
Connections over the Sound
In his time in Elsinore Buxtehude kept in close touch with Swedish as well as Danish officials. The only piece of music we know of that Buxtehude wrote in his time in Elsinore, is from 1665 and dedicated to Christoffer Schneider, a Swedish postmaster and later consul resident in Elsinore. From his time in Elsinore Buxtehude also was friendly with the Swedish court conductor and organist Gustav Büben. Perhaps it was on his request that Buxtehude composed the wedding cantata to the wedding between Carl XI Gustav and his Danish queen Hedvig Eleonora in 1680.
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| | Large | Aperte mihi portas iustitiae, Elsinore 1665. (Diderik Buxtehude) |
| | Large | Aria sopra le Nozze di Sua Maesta il Re de Svecia (1680). Diderik Buxtehude |
In Lübeck
In 1668 Buxtehude moved to Lübeck, probably for career reasons, but also to get away from the meagre financial circumstances in the devastated Sound region. The three Maria Churches in Helsingborg, Elsinore and Lübeck are the main threads in his life. Even though he spent most of his active life in Lübeck and even though he achieved fame and honour there, he never forgot his roots by the Sound. That was why the periodical “Nova litteraria Maris Balthici” could claim in 1707: “He considered Denmark his native country” (Patriam agnoscit Daniam).
Diderich Buxtehude´s career as a composer and an organist culminated in Lübeck and great composers like Händel and Bach came and listened to his music. He was especially renowned for his “Lübecker Abendmusiken”, which were concerts in connection with the evensong before Christmas. He wrote new organ works for this every year.The Judge´s Estate
| | Elsinore can show examples of distinguished commoner´s houses from the end of the 16th century and the beginning of the 17th century, where the town flourishes and is considerably enlarged. Here is the row of houses in Stengade 70-76, where a late Gothic stone house, the present magistrate´s office, is succeeded by af gable house with typical style traits from the Renaissance.
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Renaissance Houses
The building of Kronborg was founded on a practical cooperation between the royal power, the town and many hired craftsmen, who lived in Elsinore. The activities surrounding the building, but even the increasing trade and the business brought in by the Sound duty, led to the increase of the population. This also led to a clear element of foreign inhabitants, for instance Germans, Dutchmen and Englishmen. This meant that new houses had to be built. Some of the houses had a direct connection to the work in Kronborg. This was the case with for instance the customs officer David Hansen’s house in Stengade 76, built in 1579.
Jörgen Kock built a stone house in Malmo around 1525 – an early example of the affluent resources of the upper classes. The house still has the staircase house ends of the Gothic, but the horizontal bands of sand stone and the decorations of the house end front anticipates the entry of the renaissance style.
Stengade 70 - 76 |
Stengade 76 | 
Hansen´s Epitaph |
Strandgade | 
Malmo |
Kock´s House, Malmø |
From Duty to Industri
| | It wasn´t until 1882, when Elsinore Iron Shipyard was opened that development picked up speed and from here on you could really talk of an industrial breakthrough.
The shipyard with Mads Holm leading it involved extensive investments, an increased mechanization and a great need for labour. Around 700 workers were employed in the beginning and of them 300 from abroad. |
Elsinore
“Take a town like Hillerød... No, leave it; but take Elsinore! A small, strange nest, isn’t it? Pressed together under tall hills along the sea, which lifts Kronborg imposingly on a shield, Kronborg, which seems to crush both church and town hall and the new railway station.
A jolly town, with a “salty “ mark on its inhabitants and buildings. Everything smells of the sea – the town has serves a small area and has to trust itself. It has done so in spite of the ups and downs of fate. What Marsk Stig and the Hanseatic towns and the Swedes, the plague and fires has been able to do, has been done; the town has endured – until the year 1857, where the Sound Duty was banned. That was a blow – and that in the time of my romantic s boyhood and holiday. Then the cheerful town suddenly changed its look – the old houses crumbled down – the large families split up – the upstarts gloated in secret; and often I stopped in the narrow street, to where the eastern wing of Hotel d´Øresund faces, and philosophically read the old inscription on the stones in the wall:
Manchem verdrueht, es, was er sieht,
Und muss doch leiden, das geschieht.
Now the town has pulled itself together, or is on its way. The position is excellent, the harbour is superb, the energy lifts its head – the future belongs to the big iron ship- and machine shipyard, which gives work to many hands, feeds the many mouths. There is keen competition with the capital, and something “edgy” has taken its place alongside the salt. You can feel it politically, socially, commercially; there is movement in the old nest, and no matter how conservative the town is, the breeze from the sea sweeps in and puts the mind and thoughts in motion. Nowhere in the world the flags are flown so often as in Elsinore. Stengade smartens itself up at any opportunity – the garrison remembers any little feat – but these waving flags are also the expression of the decorative traditions of the population. But the great days of the custom-house are never forgotten, when the money rolled and champagne corks popped loudly. They have their saga to live on – and it gives them an appetite to show off. The melancholy is washed down with Wiibroe ale – they lick their lips and think: The champagne will come again!”
With this description Holger Drachmann characterizes the development, which took place in Elsinore in the course of the 19th century, the transformation from Sound Duty town to modern industrial town.
Elsinore 1859 | 
The Old Pharmacy |
Elsinore new Town Hall
Elsinore new Town Hall was finished in 1855. Previously it had been the object of a heated debate, which wasn´t or isn´t unusual, when major changes were on the agenda. The reason for the new building was that the old town hall from the 16th century was in need of a renovation of the jail. On the way they realized that a rebuildig like that required that the old town hall had to be demolished.
The debate was whether the new Town Hall should be built in Axeltorv.
Finally the new Town Hall was built where the old one had been, but they didn´t avoid the budget excesses, known from the the present time.
Had they known in 1854/55 that the Sound Duty would disappear just two years later, the town probably wouldn´t have had such an impressive building.
Elsinore Town Hall 1830 | 
Elsinore Town Hall 1855 |
Elsinore Town Hall 2007 |
For more than 400 years the town’s life and development had been closely linked to the trade and the administration, which was brought on by the Sound Duty. With the abolition of the Sound Duty in 1857 a new epoch in the history of the town was ushered in.
In spite of the sudden transition, which was marked by the banishment of the Sound Duty, it was a change, which had been underway for a long time. As early as the end of the 18th century people tried to start larger enterprises on private initiative, often in conflict with the influential interests of the guilds. Individuals like the Englishman J.D. Balfour and J.J. Claessen were pioneers, who also invented new production methods, but the big plans of starting the shipyard did not come off, and an enlargement of the harbour paid by the state did not start before the 1820´s and was mostly to the benefit of the activities, which was attached to the custom-house.
The First Industries
The first real industrial enterprise with a high degree of mechanisation and division of labour was a gasworks, built in 1853 by the Danish Gas Company, backed by English capital and technology. Second to Odense it was the first gas works in the country, originally intended to renew the street lighting, but in the course of time it also supplied the private and business sector. The gas works was placed in the Grønnehave neighbourhood, which together with the town centre developed into an industrial centre. Here the town’s new waterworks was built and it replaced a plant, which dated all the way back to Frederik 2. In the present Højstrup Godthåb glassworks was situated from 1848 to 1895. Godthåb glassworks and other industries later came to the area. In general this was the first phase of the industrial process, from the end of the 1840´s to the middle of the 1850´s. The development is characterized by some new plants (glassworks, gasworks, tileworks and breweries, and an industry count from the year 1855 showed businesses with 354 employees, of these 20 businesses with more than 6 employees.
In the town middle a number of new industrial plants were started. Among other things Carl Wiibroe started as early as 1851 to brew Bavarian beer, which he stored in the casemates in Kronborg castle. In 1862 he bought the site by the harbour, where the remains of the brewery now lay opposite Hestemøllestræde, and where he in 1878 built storerooms and installed engine power. Carl Wiibroe was also very active in the public life, as early as 1842 he was elected to the municipal council, where he became chairman several times around.
Another entrepreneur in the town centre was Jens Levin Tvede, who transformed a small distillery in Sudergade to a manufacturing business in Stjernegade, where he made spirits, snaps, yeast and household beer. He was also contributory to the fact that the telephone came into use in Elsinore around 1880. J.L. Tvede was elected town council man in 1857.
Glass Hut |
Wiibroe Beer | 
Tvede´s Factories |
The End of the Duty 1857
In order to lighten the transition from the banishment of the Sound Duty Elsinore got a special appropriation, all in all a sum of 60.000 rix-dollars, which was partly used to the support of the laying out of Marienlyst Seaside Hotel. More important was the enlargement of the harbour in 1862, at which the custom house almost symbolically disappears. With the freedom of trade law the guilds disappeared and gradually also the market town zone, which contributed to the protection of production and trade in a circumference of approximately 15 kilometres. In 1864 the north railway opened with 60.000 passengers a year and a direct link to Copenhagen via Hillerød.
The Railway Station |
The North Railway |
The North Railway |
Stagnation
In spite of these enterprises there was a decline in industry and the increase in the industry census until 1975 was very modest. At this time there were 37 businesses with a total of 478 employees, corresponding to approximately 5% of the labour force. The increase happened in the provision business (spirits, beer, margarine). In the town centre the predominant business were smaller trade businesses.
Even though Elsinore, apart from Copenhagen was the most important industrial town in Zealand, it was still very modest and towards the end of the 1870´s the development stagnated.
This could be linked to the dominant trade life of the town concentrated its efforts on increasing its trade by sea and therefore invested large sums in trade ships, mostly sailing ships. When the steamships gained ground it turned out to be a bad investment, moreover, the development also resulted in fewer ships berthed at Elsinore, and that caused an important basis of the town’s trade life disappeared.
The harbour enlargement in 1862 was not comprehensive enough and plans to make Elsinore an emporium for the Baltic Sea trade did not come off. Around 1889 the town with its 8.978 (1906: 14.534) inhabitants was in fact declining.
The Skipbuilding Yard 1882
Not until 1882, when the Elsinore Iron Ship and Machine Yard was built, the development started to turn and from then on a real industrial breakthrough was happening. The laying out with Mads Holm in the front brought with it large investments, increased mechanization and a large need for manpower. Around 700 workers were employed in the enterprise, of these approximately 300 from abroad.
The harbour was enlarged once again and in 1883 the first new ship was launched, the propeller steamship S/S Elsinore and with it approximately 1000 employees and many subcontractors the shipyard became the dominant factor in the economical development of the town towards the 1880´s.
The Harbour | 
Elsinore Shipyard | 
Workers from the Shipyard’s Forge | 
Kierulf´s Iron Foundry | 
Elsinore Weaving Mill |
Oversæt |
Infrastructure
Another important factor concerning the industrial revolution was the establishment of infrastructure, which connected North Zealand to the metropolitan area. The sea route was there, of course, but in 1864 the north railway was opened with connection to Copenhagen via Hillerød. The transportation of goods from the terminus to the town centre was done via a horse drawn line and from this the name “Trækbanen”.
Out of fear of competition from the capital there was local resistance against the establishment of the North railway and the Coast railway, which was opened in 1897. With the opening of the Hornbæk railway in 1906 a substantial improvement of the area’s infrastructure was the result with better connections to the surrounding area, among other things cloth is transported from Hellebæk, tile from Ålsgårde and paper from Havreholm. The transport development was to some extent also a result of the transformation of the area to a recreational area for the metropolitan region. And to some extent, this is still the case.
The sea trade´s fear that the new communications would certain parts of the trade transport was well-founded and with the final lifting of protection zones around the market town in 1920, the time where obstacles were put in the way of the free trade, was finally over.
Around the turn of the century the most important factors for the industrial development was provided: First of all with the establishment of the shipyard, the necessary capital and investments and labour, which also came to the town, an extension of the infrastructure and the lifting of earlier days´ restrictions on production and trade. With the establishment of Elsinore Technical School in 1885, a modern education of the work force was also begun.
The New Station for the Coast Railway | 
Oversæt | 
Oversæt | 
The Railway Terrain |
The Development of the Trade Union Movement
With the beginning industrialization and the removal of the guilds the first attempt to establish a trade union was made in Elsinore. The first attempts took place inside the earlier guild-organized skilled trades in the beginning of the 1870´s, but the economic decline around 1876 stopped further developments. The first lasting unionisation took place among the printers in 1881 and in connection with the establishment of the shipyard there were other efforts. An economic crisis in the middle of the 1880´s brought about another setback, but the establishment of the Social Democratic Society in the summer of 1885, the Union of Smiths and Mechanics in 1887 and the Common Union and Workers´ Society in Elsinore of 1888, became the basis of a more lasting and united organisation.
It is evident that the changing market conditions, especially for the shipbuilding business, had a great impact on the development. This was also evident into the 1890´s and not until the middle of the 1890´s the cooperative union carried through agreements for several of the trades in the shipyard.
In 1892 the gardener Christian Hansen was elected to the town council as the first Social Democratic council member in the country and in 1894 the Social Democrats had three members elected to the town council through a joint electoral list with the Venstre-party.
Agreements and Conflicts
A final arrangement about the entering of agreements was not reached until 1896, after a comprehensive union conflict in the shipyard. It started with the lockout of the riveters and involved 900 employees. It was a major conflict according to the times, and it took a fortnight of negotiations to reach an agreement about a wage increase and a three-year agreement and the establishment of a fixed negations system, where the cooperative union negotiated on the behalf of the trades.
The negotiation results of the shipyard and their wage rates became pacesetting, but in 1899 an extensive and 3 months long conflict broke out in Elsinore, but it did not include the shipyard. The Cooperative Union had effortlessly negotiated an agreement, which involved the reduction of the working hours from 60 to 58 hours and abolished the hated fine system, which was in the shipyard’s working regulations. In 1888 the town only had 7 trade unions with less than 300 members. Around the turn of the century there were 32 unions with approximately 1800 members.
The Conditions of Life
Around the turn of the century a worker made around 15-20 kroner a week. In itself that does not say much, but unfortunately there are no surveys from Elsinore concerning the budgets and conditions of life of working families. If you compare to other places in the country, it is plausible that 25% of the income went to house rent and the rest went to food, fuel and clothes in that order.
Money was scarce and in addition they had to pay for insurance against illness, death and burial. Apart from the poor-law authorities and a pension reform in 1891 the public security system did not exist and it became an important task for the labour movement to deal with these things – also locally. In that connection they established a sick-benefit association in 1892 for the members of the
Cooperative Union.
The Cooperation
A method to reduce expenses in the daily necessities and deprive the capitalists of their dominant influence on production lies in the cooperative idea. The farmer’s cooperatives from the 1889´s, which were inspired by the English workers´ cooperative wholesale societies, could have been the inspiration, but the cooperative idea has deep roots in the labour movement. In short, the idea was by producing jointly, buying and distributing different goods and services, they were able to do it as cheaply as possible, without the expensive intermediaries and to the good of all.
The first example of cooperative wholesale in Elsinore was the establishment of “the Workers´ Coal Supplies” in 1892, but later many initiatives came along for cooperative operations and social security.Town walk in Helsingborg
| | Via the text icon You will get a guide to a walk in the central parts of Helsingborg.
You can go to the left menu and find more information in the historic part of Øresundstid.
You return to the guide when You click on the title "Town Walk i Helsingborg" in the left meny. |
Town Walk in the Centre of Helsingborg
By Nordic standards Helsingborg is a very old town. A document from 1085 signed by king Knud the Holy shows that Helsingborg was a town even then. The position at the narrowest part of the Sound was important militarily as well as commercially. Early on Helsingborg became an important residence for the Danish king and from the castle with the tower, Kærnan, both sea and land could be monitored. The early buildings were up around Kærnan; but in the 15th century the area below the castle became more important.
The town has had two heydays, on in the Middle Ages and the other in connection with industrialization in the 19th century, when Helsingborg had an upturn like no other town in Sweden.
In this period Helsingborg once again became a ”royal” town, with he building of the king´s summer residence, Sofiero on the northern edge of town
During the Second World War Helsingborg came closer to the occupied Denmark and the town became a place of transit for soldiers and refugees.
The passage to Elsinore had left its mark on the town and this traffic was intensified after the Second World War. It is hard not to notice the heavy ferry traffic.
On our walk we will see traces of the medieval times, the upturn in the 19th century and the modernism of the 20th century.
Stortorget
Stortorget is an open square, which was not originally meant to be an open square. In the 1670s a large number of houses were demolished in connection with the Scanian War. The empty area between Kærnan and the beach was then used as a road for transportation and was turned into a square in the 1690s.
Around 1900 the town wanted to honour Magnus Stenbock in the name of nationalism with an equestrian statue. He was the man who definitively conquered the Danes in the battle of Helsingborg in 1710
The war and its consequences brought with it a profound decline for Helsingborg. The fact that Stenbock has become one of the town’s symbols is perhaps somewhat undeserved.
Around the year 1900 the square had the grandiose framing, which it still has today with magnificent buildings in different styles, often imitations of old architecture. We find examples of neo-Romanticism, neo-Baroque and neo-Classicism, but also Art Nouveau.
We walk along the old coast line before we turn towards Saint Mary’s Church, a stately memory of medieval architecture.
The Great Square (Stortorget) in Helsingborg | 
Magnus Stenbock |
Saint Mary´s Church
From the 12th century a Roman sandstone church was situated here, but in the 14th century it was replaced by a church in Gothic style.
The new Mary Church was finished in 1410 and dominated the town. The medieval architecture and the art treasures from the Middle Ages are striking, but new gems have surfaced in the course of time. In the 1650´s the Mary Church employed the famous organist Diderik Buxtehude.
We walk east towards Billeplatsen.
The Western Front of the Church of Saint Mary |
The Vault of the Church of Saint Mary |
The Altarpiece of the Church of Saint Mary |
Billeplatsen
Formerly Billegården was here. It was owned by State Counsellor Anders Bille. He was the vassal of Helsingborg Castle in the 17th century, but he was killed in the war against the Swedes in 1657. Billegården was destroyed in 1670.
Here was also the town´s old square and along here was one of the old medieval connecting roads between the lower and the upper part of the town. The upper part of town above the castle was the oldest part of Helsingborg. It was not until the 15th century that the lower part became significant, probably because of the rich herring fishery. Along the road between the upper and lower part of town a Dominican monastery was founded. There were a great number of monasteries in the Sound Region, but most of them were devastated in connection with the Reformation, which was implemented in Denmark in 1536.
We follow Storgatan to the upper part of Stortorget.
The Bille Yard |
The Medieval Town
In the 15th century Helsingborg’s powers increased as it was given municipal charter. The town was relatively wealthy, especially because of the rich herring fishery. The landing stage was placed on the beach, the “harbour” of the town. The castle with Kærnan was an important basis for the Danish royal power. The terraced steps to Kærnan were built in 1903 in a style, which can be characterized as “medieval imitation”
The model on the upper part of Stortorget shows, apart from the houses and the street network, Kærnan, the monastery, the churches and the ships´ bridge.
Kærnan was framed by churches. Closest in the wall around Kærnan was the round church St. Mikaels Chapel, to the North was the St. Clemens Church, to the East St. Petri Church, to the south St. Olof´s Church and in the lower part of town Church of St. Mary. Including the monastery’s church, St. Nicolai, there were consequently 6 churches.
To the North along Storgaten we leave Helsingborg’s first great period. In other places the Baroque period and the Age of Enlightenment were viewed as prominent periods, but in Helsingborg a decline set in, which culminated in the 18th century.
Along Storgatan we find Gamlegård (from 1711), the Henckel Estate (from 1681) and Jacob Hansen’s house (from 1641). They are examples of distinguished commoner houses, but clearly from a time, when Helsingborg more or less turned into a small town, which in part coincided with the Swedification of Scania in 1658. The Scanian War (1676-79) and the Battle of Helsingborg (1710) together with the raging of the plague was disastrous for Helsingborg.
Helsingborg in the Year 1400 | 
The Interior of Kärnan |
Monasteries in the Towns |
Henckelska gården | 
Jacob Hansen´s House |
The Tycho Brahe Monument
Before the decline of Helsingborg Tycho Brahe was active in the region. His father was a vassal on Helsingborg Castle and squire at Knutstorp in Kågerød. Tycho´s daughter is buried in the Mary Church.
On our way to Konsul Olsson´s square we can ponder the slumber Helsingborg had fallen into, when the town around year 1800 only had 1700 inhabitants. In the course of the 19th a growth of exceptional extent took place.
The Tycho Brahe Monument in Helsingborg |
Konsul Olsson´s Square
Helsingborg was once called the Town of the Consuls, mostly due of the initiative and enterprise of a few gentlemen. Consul Olsson ran his business to the North in Kullagatan in”Konsul Ohlssons Magasin”, which is now housing. He had his own house in one end of the warehouse building. The industrialization entailed a revolution for the town with a large number of new arrivals.
In the beginning of the 20th century the newspaper, Aftonbladet, described the development of the town like this: ”It is like a fairy tale that Helsingborg in less than a generation have gone from being ”a hole”, which made is living off a bit of overland trade and shipping, a bit of skilled trade and a lot of trickery, to become one of the largest and most beautiful cities in the realm blossoming as the fruit of the initiative and far-sightedness of a few men.”
And now we walk north to the concert house and the theatre.
Consul Olsson´s Granary |
Concert House and Theatre
Helsingborg’s rise brought with it the building of new public institutions. In the second half of the 19th century schools, theatre and sports centres (Olympia), church (Gustav Adolf´s Church) and a new town hall were built.
The new theatre just south of the Maria Church was a classic theatre building, where among others, Ingmar Bergman was theatre manager in the 40´s. This old theatre was demolished in the 1970´s (under protest) and was replaced by a new one close to the Concert House, which was built in the 1930´s.
The concert house, which is designed by Sven Markelius, is a monumental functionalistic gem.
The concert house and the theatre now form a spectacular cultural centre in the northern part of the inner city. Behind it the modern residential area North harbour with an esplanade and restaurants.
On our way back southwards we reach the newest cultural institution in Helsingborg.
The Concert House in Helsingborg | |
Dunker´s Arts Centre
The industrialist, Henry Dunker, made a very large fortune en the 20th century. He willed it to Helsingborg for cultural purposes. The Arts Centre is the latest example of the fruits of his fortune. It is designed by the Danish architect, Kim Utzon, and the position by the sea, the almost square ground plan, a small patio house and the varied roofing, almost makes it a modern counterpart to Kronborg.
Dunker´s Arts Centre contains among other things an art museum and other exhibition rooms, historical exhibitions about Helsingborg, a music school, a concert hall and a theatre hall.
Another short walk and we are at the Stortorget´s extension towards the West.
Dunkers Kulturhus |
The Harbour Square with the Bernadotte Monument
A new dynasty on the Swedish throne came into existence and Jean Baptiste Bernadotte (later Karl XIV) first set foot on Swedish soil in Helsingborg in 1810.
Later on more royalty acquired a taste for Helsingborg and visited the town for shorter or longer periods of time.
Karl Johan lived in Ramløsa for several periods of time and his wife, Desideria, had a house named after her there.
Oscar II had a summer residence, Sofiero, built just north of town and King Gustav VI Adolf spent most of his summers at Sofiero with his family.
The Bernadotte Monument in Helsingborg | 
Bernadotte disembarks in Helsingborg |
The Ferry Station
Helsingborg-Elsinore is an ancient passage, but regular traffic in the form of a shipping route did not emerge until the mid 19th century. After the Second World War the ferry traffic became extremely intense. The old ferry station is now an entertainment centre and south of the harbour is a more modern junction. This junction is called “Knutpunkten”, which makes you think of Knud the Holy, who, almost a thousand years ago, declared that Helsingborg at that time was a town in the Danish realm.
Helsingborg´s Old Ferry Station |
Map and link
| | Via the linkicon you can reach homepages, where you can get informations about prizes, booking etc.
If You click on "Townwalk in Helsingborg" in the left meny, You will return to the guide. |
Stortorget (Grand Square)
| | Via the text icon You will get a guide to a walk in the central parts of Helsingborg.
You can go to the left menu and find more information in the historic part of Øresundstid.
You return to the guide when You click on the title "Town Walk i Helsingborg" in the left meny. |
Magnus Stenbock in Helsingborg
The Swedish king was far away, so Magnus Stenbock, who was Scania´s general governor, organized the Swedish defence. He gathered a large army in Småland, as the Danes had entered Sweden all the way up to Karlshamn in Blekinge. Stenbock succeeded in gathering 16.000 men, who went into Scania in the end of January 1710. The Danes retreated towards Helsingborg and took up position north of town under the command of major general Rantzau.
February 28th 1710 the two armies clashed in the battle of Ringstorp outside Helsingborg, and it ended in a crushing Danish defeat, which Stenbock´s courier, Henrik Hammarberg reported to Stockholm.
Stenbock, Magnus |
Message of the Victory of Magnus Stenbock |
Memorial Stone for the Battle of Helsingborg |
Fortification of the Swedish Coast |
Helsingborg 2010 |
Helsingborg as Example
If you want to follow the development from historicism´s style imitation at the end of the century via jugend and art nouveau to the ideal of modernism, Helsingborg is a fine example. Helsingborg expanded heavily in the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century and a great need for new buildings was the result. The architectural styles, which marked this period were therefore richly represented in the town. Classic style imitation can be found to a great extent. At Stortorget´s (the great square) upper part is the medieval inspired terrace and around the square there are many style imitations, for instance the Scania Bank building (opposite the post office) with baroque imitations and the Trade Bank from 1904 with antique touches. The city architect Alfred Hellerström designed the Trade Bank and he also designed Helsingborg´s town hall and the university library in Lund, both in neo-gothic monumental style.
Alfred Hellerström was then inspired to design buildings in the jugend style, which immediately after the turn of the century had a short, but important influence on especially the upper-class milieu. Immediately before 1910 an entire villa neighbourhood in this style was built in the Olympia district. Besides Hellerström several other architects participated in the designing of these jugend style neighbourhoods, among them Carl Rosenius and Ola Anderson. The houses had round towers and round corners, arched frontons, varied window styles and many ornaments, altogether a clear break from the 19th century´s strict building styles.
A strange building, in the transition period between classicism and modernism is the crematorium from 1929. It was designed by Ragnar Östberg, who is mostly known as the architect behind the town hall in Stockholm. The dome of the crematorium, which inside is carried by classic columns, has a historicist element, but the smooth surface points towards a pure modernism.
The Terrace in Helsingborg | 
Scania Bank | 
The Art Nouveau District in Helsingborg | 
The Art Nouveau District in Helsingborg | 
The Art Nouveau District in Helsingborg |
The Art Nouveau District in Helsingborg | 
The Crematorium in Helsingborg | 
The Crematorium in Helsingborg |
The Age of the Exhibitions
The optimism for the future was clearly shown in the many world exhibitions, which were arranged and they were meant to show all that man now was able to make. These large, spectacular events went hand in hand with the fast industrial expansion in Europe. After the first world exhibition in London in 1851, Vienna followed in 1873 and Paris was next in 1889.
The display of goods, buildings and inventions were a kind of directory of the future, and some times unusual edifices left as monuments for the exhibitions, like for instance the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
Also the North was seized with exhibition ardour and in the Sound region you could experience the so-called Industry and Art Exhibition in Copenhagen in 1872 and 1888. In Helsingborg Oscar II opened an Industry and Art Exhibition in June 1903 and at the same time opened the terrace stairs under Kärnan. Lund invited to an exhibition in 1907, where most of the town park was laid out.
The Industrial Exhibition in Helsingborg |
S:t Mary
| | The Church of St. Mary in Helsingborg has a long history. In its foundation it was finished in 1410. The church is, like its counterpart in Elsinore, built in Gothic style and contains a number of art treasures – many from the Middle Ages. |
The Church of St. Mary
The late medieval church is situated right in the centre of the old Helsingborg. In the Helsingborg of the 21th century it is not a dominating part of the town picture and can hardly be seen from the sea. It is actually a little difficult to see, but when you are standing in front of it, you have to admire the beauty of the thorough Gothic gilding style. If you go inside a great deal of Helsingborg´s late medieval church culture´s interior is preserved.
The Eastern Facade of the Church of St. Mary |
Gothic
The St. Mary Church was finished in 1410 after a long building period of about 100 years. It is built as a basilica and is almost a cathedral. The mid aisle is, like the great Gothic cathedrals in Europe, low and has no windows under the vault. The building style is often called half basilica or ”pseudo basilica”. The same characteristics can be seen on the other side of the Sound, where the Mary Church in Elsinore has the same architectural traits.
The Gothic characteristics are prominent, the pointed arched windows and the pointed vaults. This also can be seen in the gable doorsteps of the exterior and the external buttresses, which support the church.
The church replaced an earlier Roman sandstone church from the 12th century. And in comparison to the small houses of the time, it became a striking and dominant building in Helsingborg. There were other churches in town, but only Kärnan and the Nicolai Monastery were able to compete with the dominant St. Mary Church.
The Western Front of the Church of Saint Mary |
The Buttresses of the St. Mary Church |
The Vault of the Church of Saint Mary |
Helsingborg in the Year 1400 |
The Art Treasures of the Middle Ages
The font is from the 14th century and cut from Gotland limestone. Originally it was painted and scientific examinations point towards fragments of red and blue oil paint.
The altarpiece is in remarkable good condition. It is painted around the time of the church´s inauguration in the period 1449-1452. Probably by a master from Stralsund. In the centre of the piece the scene with Mary and the newborn Jesus dominates. The motifs around are from the life of Christ as it is described in the New Testament.
The altarpiece, which is designed as some sort of cupboard can be closed at certain periods in the church year. During Lent, for example. Here the viewer must do without the sculptures and contents himself with looking on the motifs from Christ´s last days. One of these scenes shows how Jesus drives the merchants from the temple. An interesting detail here is that the appearance of some of the coins in this motif can be located in Stralsund. One detail which makes it probable that the altarpiece have been made n this town.
The triumph crucifix in Gothic style is from the latest Middle Ages. It is interesting that the foot of the cross says 1753. But it only states the time when the crucifix was repainted/restored. This is further complicated by the fact that the cross itself is of a later date that the crucifix. The originator of the crucifix is unknown, but experts assume that it is made in the southern part of Scandinavia.
The original plaster, which covered the church walls has later been removed. The walls now appear as brick walls. However, there are still remnants of the old plaster behind the altar, where there are still fragments of the old murals. Among them the saints: S:t Magnus and Brandanus. The murals are from the 15th century and are done by the so-called: Helsingborgmester, (Helsingborgmaster), whose somewhat better preserved murals can be seen in Brunnby Church in the Kulla peninsula.
From the Middle Ages are also the so-called piscinan at the bottom in the choir wall.
The Altarpiece of the Church of Saint Mary |
The closed altar cabinet |
The merchants are driven from the temple |
St. Mary´s Church´s Crucifix |
The Font of the Church of St. Mary |
The Mural of the Church of St. Mary |
The Picscina of the Church of St. Mary |
A New Day Dawning
The tower was not finished before 1500. I.e. by the beginning of the century which was not only to change the church organisation and dogmatism in the North, but also the Middle Ages as it was later called.
However, the medieval origin of St. Mary Church is still very pronounced. Despite the later modernizations with pulpit, organ and rows of benches. The church is, rightfully so, characterized as an example of what the Middle Ages can display when it comes to stylish architecture, capable constructions and amazing craftsmanship.
Good Deeds
The altarpiece has a double portrait and three pictures above each other on the left side. The portrait shows a noble couple, perhaps the vassal of Helsingborg´s castle, Arild Urup and his wife Thale Thott. Their gold chains can identify them, which symbolize noble wealth and power.
The motif is, like in the dining hall in the Our Lady monastery in Elsinore, the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. The poor beggar Lazarus will get his reward in Heaven, while the rich man is tormented in Hell.The subtext says:
You Christians, whom God have given enough, consider the poor, who suffer grief, sickness, misery and distress, poverty and hunger for bread, with something in this collection box. Show your faith with good deeds and God in his Heaven will look agreeably upon you.
The old notion that God looks agreeably on good deeds seems to have outlived the reformation.
Nobel couple |
Sickness and Health
Epidemics were well-known since the black death in the middle of the 14th century, but in the latter half of the 16th century Elsinore was struck 13 times. It has been established that more or less local epidemics took place every other year. It was different forms of the plague, but also typhoid fever, cholera and children´s diseases took many lives. The priest and writer in Elsinore, Hans Christensen Sthen, wrote a comfort script after having lost eight children in one of the epidemics.
Tycho Brahe lost in 1576 a two-year-old daughter, after which he put up this plaque in the Mary Church in Helsingborg with this inscription:
Kirstine led, when she went away, her tender dust here.
She, who was once Tycho Brahe´s daughter.
She was just an insignificant inhabitant of this world.
But in that short time, she grew considerably. In spiritual goodness, she exceeded her gender, in good deeds her young age, in eloquence her contemporaries.
This is why nature has taken her back
So that she would not exceed the boundaries of the standards.
But still she lives; she has defeated the resistance of nature.
Instead of the short time, she now owns the period of eternity.
And improved by the Heavenly Good she rejects the Mortal,
as she through Christ have been admitted to Heaven.
Died in the Plague on September 24th
in 1576, lived for 2 years and 11 months, 11 days and 11 hours.
Death
The sooner the more dear
The later the bitterer
To Kirstine my beloved daughter
Lively and well-bred for her age,
Have I, the father, written this.
Tycho Brahe’s Daughter’s Epitaph |
Preaching at the Centre
With the Lutheran teaching as a point of departure far greater attention was directed at the interpretation of the texts in the bible, i.e. the preaching. The sermon of the priest was not unknown in the Catholic Church, but in the Lutheran church the sermon became the main attraction. It can be said that the service space was moved from the altar to the pulpit.
A visible sign of this was that new and expensive pulpits were installed. There are a number of these still in existence and they can bee seen in the churches from the 16th and 17th centuries in the Sound region.
The Preaching | 
Lund´s Pulpit | 
Petri Pulpit | 
St. Mary Pulpit in Helsingborg |
New Organs
Diderich Buxtehude followed his father’s footsteps and became the organist in the Maria Church in Helsingborg. In 1660 he applied for and got the organist post in Elsinore´s Maria Church. Probably because this post was better paid and by taking it he came closer to the rest of his family. In the time up to 1668, where he went to Lübeck to apply for a post there, he lived in the same house as his mother and father. The house still stands.
Simultaneously the old Lorenz organs were modernized in a modern Baroque style, a style, which was represented musically by Diderich Buxtehude. The German organ builder did the modernization and he was the man behind the building and rebuilding of organs in Copenhagen, Elsinore, Halmstad, Helsingborg, Landskrona and Malmo.
Diderich Buxtehude experienced and participated in a very active renewal of the music scene through the new building, which was made. Two years after he had moved to Elsinore he came back to Helsingborg to supervise the rebuilding of the organ in the Maria Church. This indicates that the Swedish takeover in Scania in 1658 did not affect the music scene right away.
The Maria Church in Helsingborg |
Saint Anne Street in Elsinore |
The Old Organ |
Buxtehude |
Choir Organ in the Mariakyrkan (Church of St, Mary) |
Diderik Buxtehude
| | Buxtehude ended his career as an organist in Lübeck in northern Germany. This picture is from there. Before Buxtehude was a good example of a Sound citizen, who worked on both sides of the Sound, in spite of war and trouble in the area. |
Buxtehude – A Sound Citizen
It is difficult to say how the man in the street experienced Scania´s abrupt transition to Sweden at the peace treaties in 1658 and 1660. In paragraph 9 in the Roskilde peace treaty it was stated that all estates in Scania had the right to maintain their distinctive cultural characteristics and inherited rights, so nothing prevented them from living as they had done before. Furthermore it was difficult to say how much nationality meant for the individual. Sweden as well as Denmark was at this time complex – in reality multinational states, which to some extent demanded some loyalty from their citizens, but hardly a national disposition in the modern sense. That came with Romanticism’s worship of the nation and the people at the end of the 18th century.
The example of the composer Diderich Buxtehude may illuminate this connection. Posterity has not succeeded in establishing where he was born – in Holstein, Elsinore or Helsingborg – in any case he was born in an area, which belonged to the Danish state around 1637. His father, Johannes Buxtehude came from Oldesloe in Holstein – to where he probably had emigrated originally. In 1638 he became an organist at the Maria Church in Helsingborg. In the years 1638-41 the father worked in Helsingborg and here Diderich had some childhood years. In 1642 the father was the organist at the St. Olai Church in Elsinore, where he was active until around 1670. Diderich Buxtehude thus spent his childhood and youth in Helsingborg and Elsinore.
Music with Class
During the first half of the 17th century the musical scene at the Danish court and in the major churches was of a very high standard. (It is to be remembered that the court and the churches at that time were the most important customers, when it came to music and thus the music scene evolved around these institutions). Names like Heinrich Schütz and John Dowland are still remembered. Schütz was a church musician in Copenhagen and there he established the court orchestra. Dowland, a famous lutanist and composer, was a court musician. He lived in Elsinore. Johann Lorentz worked during the first half of the 17th century as a royal organ builder and he built or rebuilt all the important organs in the Sound region in a quite conservative renaissance style, a style, which then were represented by Schütz and Dowland. One of the most important remnants of Lorentz´s activity is in the organ facade in the Holy Trinity Church in Kristianstad.
New Organs
Diderich Buxtehude followed his father’s footsteps and became the organist in the Maria Church in Helsingborg. In 1660 he applied for and got the organist post in Elsinore´s Maria Church. Probably because this post was better paid and by taking it he came closer to the rest of his family. In the time up to 1668, where he went to Lübeck to apply for a post there, he lived in the same house as his mother and father. The house still stands.
Simultaneously the old Lorenz organs were modernized in a modern Baroque style, a style, which was represented musically by Diderich Buxtehude. The German organ builder did the modernization and he was the man behind the building and rebuilding of organs in Copenhagen, Elsinore, Halmstad, Helsingborg, Landskrona and Malmo.
Diderich Buxtehude experienced and participated in a very active renewal of the music scene through the new building, which was made. Two years after he had moved to Elsinore he came back to Helsingborg to supervise the rebuilding of the organ in the Maria Church. This indicates that the Swedish takeover in Scania in 1658 did not affect the music scene right away.
The Maria Church in Helsingborg |
Saint Anne Street in Elsinore |
The Old Organ |
Buxtehude |
Choir Organ in the Mariakyrkan (Church of St, Mary) |
Connections over the Sound
In his time in Elsinore Buxtehude kept in close touch with Swedish as well as Danish officials. The only piece of music we know of that Buxtehude wrote in his time in Elsinore, is from 1665 and dedicated to Christoffer Schneider, a Swedish postmaster and later consul resident in Elsinore. From his time in Elsinore Buxtehude also was friendly with the Swedish court conductor and organist Gustav Büben. Perhaps it was on his request that Buxtehude composed the wedding cantata to the wedding between Carl XI Gustav and his Danish queen Hedvig Eleonora in 1680.
| |
| | Large | Aperte mihi portas iustitiae, Elsinore 1665. (Diderik Buxtehude) |
| | Large | Aria sopra le Nozze di Sua Maesta il Re de Svecia (1680). Diderik Buxtehude |
In Lübeck
In 1668 Buxtehude moved to Lübeck, probably for career reasons, but also to get away from the meagre financial circumstances in the devastated Sound region. The three Maria Churches in Helsingborg, Elsinore and Lübeck are the main threads in his life. Even though he spent most of his active life in Lübeck and even though he achieved fame and honour there, he never forgot his roots by the Sound. That was why the periodical “Nova litteraria Maris Balthici” could claim in 1707: “He considered Denmark his native country” (Patriam agnoscit Daniam).
Diderich Buxtehude´s career as a composer and an organist culminated in Lübeck and great composers like Händel and Bach came and listened to his music. He was especially renowned for his “Lübecker Abendmusiken”, which were concerts in connection with the evensong before Christmas. He wrote new organ works for this every year.Monastery
| | Town monasteries in the Sound region before the Reformation.
|
The Monasteries Importence to Produktion
The monasteries had important tasks, when it came to the spreading of the Christian doctrine, but they also had great importance when it came to the introduction of new agricultural methods and cultural plants. Christianity was thus deeply rooted in the medieval agricultural society. Gradually many monasteries in Europe developed into real companies, where the main occupation was production. They produced and sold wine, animals, corn and even iron goods. This is why there were monastery reformers, who wanted to take the monasteries back to their original tasks.
The Cistercian Order
The Cistercian order from around the 12th century was such an order. It started in Citeaux (in Latin Cistercium) in France and its founder was Bernhard of Clairvaux. The archbishop Eskil in Lund was his personal friend and that could be the reason that Cistercian monasteries were founded very early on both sides of the Sound, in Herrevar in Scania in 1145 and in Esrum in Zealand in 1151. Sorø monastery, which was founded by the Benedictines in 1151, took on the Cistercians´ rules in 1161.
The immigrating monks, who founded the early Cistercian monasteries, took with them building traditions and this in connection with the order´s regulations on the appearance of the monastery, makes it plausible to talk of a Cistercian building style.
According to the rules the Cistercian monasteries had to be located in the villages and the monastery should participate in the work of clearing the forest and create new cultivations. The commitment to new cultivations also made these monasteries knowledge centres for modern agriculture methods.
Esrum Monastery | 
Bernard of Clairvaux | 
Cistercian monk |
New Piety
These reform monasteries aimed at a more heartfelt piety. The worshipping took on a more intimate character and was close to the ideas of the mysticism. The abbot in Äbelholt Monastery gave examples of this perception in his letters.
The Maria Cult
Another sign of the transition to a more heartfelt and intimate piety was the upturn of the Maria Cult in the monasteries in the 12th century. In the monasteries the monks saw life as a struggle against evil and the fear of the just God made them seek help from the motherly Mary, who prayed for the sinners. Archbishop Anders Sunesen wrote one of the many Mary hymns, which were performed with music. His paean to May was called Missus Gabriel de Coelis and the theme of the hymn is the Annunciation. It is about Mary´s intimate relationship with God, a relationship that is typical of the Mysticism.
The Monasteries´ Land
In the course of the Middle Ages churches and monasteries become large landowners like the king and the squires. The archbishopric in Lund, for instance, had more than 300 properties and all of Bornholm at its disposal. In the course of the Middle Ages the monasteries in Scania came to own more than 2000 properties. A large number of the estates were acquired as gifts, donated to the monasteries.
After Peter Bogorm (Pierre Le Mangueur) around the end of the 12th century invented Purgatory (Purgatore) they now operated with a state between heaven and hell, an hour of reckoning, whose length could be shortened by your own and purchased prayers and masses.
This increased the power of the church over the souls and added to the land and wealth of the churches and monasteries.
Originally there were strict rules about the right of inheritance of the church, but it was circumvented by the donation of soul gifts. Even though it was prohibited for the monks to buy land until 1216, it was circumvented, when landowners mortgaged an estate to the monastery, which then took over the land, if the mortgage wasn´t paid.
The Dominicans and the Franciscans
Another group, which also reacted against the rich monasteries, were the mendicant order. But these had a quite different working method. Instead of withdrawing to contemplative and heartfelt piety the mendicant friars wanted to work for the public in an outgoing way. They preached, helped the poor and nursed the sick. In order to finance their activities the monks begged for money. This is why their monasteries were placed in the cities, where there were trade.
The most prominent mendicant orders were the Dominicans (the black monks) and the Franciscans (the grey monks). These orders had been founded by Domenicus (1170-1221) and Franciscus (1182-1226). A Dominican monastery was founded in Lund in 1222 – the first in the North and a Franciscan was founded in 1232. A Franciscan monastery was founded in Ystad and in 1270 a Dominican monastery was founded in Helsingborg, which was dedicated to St. Nicolaus.
Franciscan Monastery in Ystad |
The Mediaval Town
| | Kärnan in Helsingborg. The first castle complx was circular and is marked next to the tower.
In 1310 Erik Menved let build a new tower for the castle. This was square with very thick walls. The tower is more than 30 metres high. |
Castles
At the same time Erik Menved led a very aggressive policy and he strengthened the fortifications in the kingdom. This was evident in the Sound region, where a number of castles were renovated or built.
The old circular defence tower in Helsingborg was exchanged for the square Kärnan. This tower construction became a massive and impenetrable castle. The walls were more than 4 metres thick and the tower´s height was 30 metres. It had to be able to withstand the art of war of the times. Falsterbohus was also rebuilt and this castle also had a square tower. The rebuilding of these two castles started around 1310. Falsterbohus took over the tasks of the Skanør Castle and Helsingborg and Kärnan developed into the crown’s most important fortification in Scania. Erik Menved also expanded the Lindhold Castle in Southern Scania. This castle also had a square tower.
In Bornholm Hammershus is gradually developed into the largest castle in the North. In Vordingborg a castle complex is built to the defence of the country´s south border and in Kalundborg in in West Zealand the old fortification of Esbern Snare is enlarged. Finally in Valdemar Atterdag´s time (1340-1375) an administrative centre with a central castle is built in Gurre in North Zealand.
Castles | 
Kärnan, Helsingborg | 
Kärnan in Sections |
The Interior of Kärnan | 
Hammershus |
The Goose Tower | 
Vordinborg Castle | 
The Castle Hill | 
Gurre Castle | 
Gurre |
Gurre Complex | 
Gurre Castle |
The Expansion of Market Towns
The Scanian market lost more and more importance and the centre of gravity of the trade was moved from Skanør and Falsterbo to Malmo and Copenhagen. One idea behind of the Kalmar Union was that a united North would better withstand The Hanseates and king Erik of Pommern (1412-39) thus led a policy, which would strengthen the market towns of the Sound region. Several towns were given market towns rights, Helsingborg in 1414 and Elsinore in 1426. In addition Landskrona was founded in 1413, first of all to trade with Holland and England.
The Kalmar Union | 
The coronation of Erik of Pomerania |
Erik of Pommern and the Sound Duty
One idea behind of the Kalmar Union was that a united North would better withstand The Hanseates and king Erik of Pommern (1412-39) thus led a policy, which would strengthen the market towns of the Sound region. Several towns were given market towns rights, Helsingborg in 1414 and Elsinore in 1426. In addition Landskrona was founded in 1414, first of all to trade with Holland and England.
In 1429 the Sound duty was introduced, which was to compensate for the lost income form the Scanian market. It was natural that the charging of the duty was placed in the narrowest part of the Sound and therefore the fortification Krogen was built in Elsinore.
Helsingborg and Malmø
Helsingborg receives market town rights in 1414. Special provisions deal with the sale of herring in the autumn and the ferry passage between Helsingborg and Zealand. Helsingborg was, with its good situation and strong fortification, which was one of the royal fortifications along the coast, originally much larger than Elsinore, but in time Elsinore becomes, mainly because of its affiliation with the Sound Duty and the foreign trade, the third largest town in the realm after Copenhagen and Malmo. Malmo is a relatively new town and its original name, Elbogen, testifies to the hanseatic influence in the area.
Helsingborg | 
Landskrona | 
Malmo |
Helsingborg in the Year 1400 |
Helsingborg-Elsinore
Helsingborg and Elsinore had most in common of all the towns in the Sound region as the two towns had a joint market trade. Traders from Helsingborg were allowed to sell goods in Elsinore and vice versa. This was impossible in other towns. Traders from Lund, Landskrona and Helsingborg were not allowed to trade in each other´s towns.
That this was allowed in Helsingborg and Elsinore was due to the fact that they were dependant on each other. The accession of meat, butter and milk was larger in northwestern Scania than in North Zealand and thus the Helsingborg citizens needed customers and the Elsinore citizens needed these goods.Tycho Brahe
| | Tycho Brahe lived worked in Ven for 21 years (1576-97). He performed astronomical and meteorological experiments there, which he carefully noted, he performed chemical experiments, grew plants, made astronomical tools, drew maps, wrote poems and much more. With his versatility Tycho Brahe was a typical example of a renaissance man. |
Tycho Brahe - a Renaissance Man
In the year 1634, when a French messenger, Charles Ogier, after having visited Elsinore, left the town and travelled south towards Copenhagen, he saw the island Ven and this made him think of the world famous astronomer Tycho Brahe.
It is doubtful if you can perceive the almost square shape of Ven from the coast of Zealand, but it is no coincidence that Ogier noticed this. The symmetrical, well ordered and continuous appeals to the renaissance man, the scientist Tycho Brahe, who Danish standards is the best example of a universal genius in the spirit of the renaissance.
Map of Ven |
Childhood
Tycho Brahe was born a nobleman and it was therefore expected of him that he would make a career for himself as a landowner, warrior and perhaps member of parliament, as so many other in his family. Tycho had, however, a somewhat ambivalent relationship to his noble colleagues.
Tycho Brahe was born December 14th 1546 in the estate Knutstorp in Scania, but was literally abducted and raised with his childless uncle Jörgen Brahe in Tosterup in southeastern Scania. This was not uncommon within the aristocracy, as kin was more important that your own family. The Brahe family is portrayed in Kågeröd church, which was the patronage church of Knutstorp. The plaque is from 1613, after the death of Tycho Brahe. Tycho (the scholar) sits next to his father and after him you see the brothers, Sten, Axel, Jörgen and Knut. Next to the mother sit the sisters Lisbeth, Margareta, Kristina and finally Sophie Brahe, who was very close to Tycho.
Tycho Brahe |
Knutstorp |
Tosterup |
Brahefamiljens epitafium |
Studies
At the age of six Tycho started school, which was not uncommon among the aristocracy. Uncommon was however the interests, which he developed. At the age of twelve he entered the University of Copenhagen, which at the same was open and marked by the renaissance humanist currents of the time.
We know, form his book collection, that he in this period was interested in astronomy. In his study travels in the beginning of the 1560´s he started, under cover of law studies, to practise this science. As travel companion Tycho had the commoner Anders Sørensen Vedel, who also was an important renaissance figure. He collected and published old Danish folksongs.
Anders Sørensen Vedel |
Astronomi
Nova Stella and the New Picture of the Universe
Tycho studied abroad and did not return to Denmark until the end of 1570. He spent his time with his uncle Sten Bille, who was very much interested in chemical and mechanical experiments.
In November 1572 Tycho Brahe observed in Herrevadskloster what he thought was a new star in the constellation Cassiopeia. Strongly encouraged, but against his will, he published a book on the new star in 1573. It was controversial for a nobleman to engage in such matters and the book is prefaced with a number of arguments pro and against a publication.
The book, which was printed in a few copies in Copenhagen was written in Latin and contained apart from the thesis on the new star, an astrological and meteorological almanac for the year 1573, a thesis on a future lunar eclipse and finally a poem dedicated to the god Urania.
This may seem as a strange concoction, but in Tycho Brahe´s mind there was a connection between the different parts.
Nova Stella |
Tycho Brahe´s picture of the world |
Picture of the world |
The Importance of the Empirical Knowledge
Perhaps Tycho Brahe did not realize the importance of his observations. The leading astronomic perception was that the universe had been created by chance and that there had been no changes without God´s direct participation. Thus they perceived the universe af static. Therefore it was sensational that Tycho Brahe had discovered a change in the firmament and this discovery led to the conception of a dynamic universe. Via later publications he contributed to such a conception. The great importance of Tycho Brahe was his exact empirical observations. Experience had greater importance and the sense of a static cosmos retired.
Tycho Brahe showed that the universe is much greater than hitherto assumed and that it developed and changed continuously. However, he could not accept Kopernikus´ new picture of the universe with the sun and not the earth as the centre of the universe.
Tycho Brahe´s picture of the world |
Obeservationsscene |
Sextant |
Notes |
The Comet
When Tycho Brahe a few years later in Ven in 1577, had studied a comet, he wrote down his observations in the small publication ”Om kometen”, which became another example that you could draw empirical conclusions.
The Astrologer
Tycho Brahe mixed empirical observations with astrological predictions. His astrological predictions he commented thus:
”... even if it is hidden for everybody to know the right reasons for future things, you can however, from the old experienced astrologers´ observations and knowledge, get some indications of things that these miracles in the sky and do and this can be done without any superstition at all.
Tycho Brahe demonstrated his dissociation of superstition knowing well that the reputation and position of astrology was much debated, not least in the church and among the thinkers of the renaissance. But astrology still had a certain official status. The royal power demanded that Tycho Brahe make predictions and he drew up the horoscope of the crown prince.
The starting point in astrology was the fundamental observations about the influence of the planets, for instance that the sun provided heat and light and that the moon changed the level of the sea. Furthermore they saw that the alternation between summer and winter was dependant on the position of the planets. It is not strange that they attributed importance to the position of the planets. Although Tycho Brahe had doubts about superstition he attributed astrology an certain importance, an importance he later south to limit.
Horoscope |
The Creator
He even attributed the belief in God importance, but approached the idea that God was the initiator of the system, but he did not intervene in the course of history and could not be influenced by prayers or rites, i.e. a deistic perception.
Recognition
Tycho Brahe in time won great recognition and from 1574 he lectured at the University in Copenhagen, which was notable for an aristocrat. He was even offered the position as rector of the university, but refused. The offer still testified to the recognition, which was offered him, also on the part of the royal power.
Uraniborg in Ven
The renaissance prince Frederik II saw Tycho´s greatness and offered his support. February 18th 1567 he was awarded a yearly sum of 500 daler, a very large governmental support. The king had, during his inspections in the building site of Kronborg, come to think of the island Ven as a suitable place for Tychos activities. Tycho was offered the island on favourable terms, if it could prevent him from leaving Denmark. Tycho Brahe accepted.
A Symbolic Castle
The central part of the ground plan was made up of a square, which measured 60 feet, approximately 15,5 metres on every side. This square was divided by perpendicular corridors, which formed four smaller square rooms. The corridors also tied the central part with symmetrical extensions in the north and south and with symmetrical entrance portals in east and west.
The building consisted of two storeys, attic and basement. On the outside there were balconies, which were used for astronomical observations. The basement functioned as a chemical laboratory.
Astronomy and chemistry/medicine was the sciences he was to engage in and two statuette niches marked this over the entrance portals. Two short Latin inscriptions connected these allegorical works of art: Despiciendo suspicio och Suspiciendo despicio, which roughly means, ”When I look down, I look up” and ”When I look up, I look down”. The first maxim refers to the chemical experiments and the other undoubtedly on the astronomical observations. The deeper meaning is that chemistry and astronomy are connected.
Uranienborg |
Ground plan |
Uraniborg - a View of Life
Uranienborg was not only Tycho Brahe´s home and workplace, but it also expressed architecturally and in other ways, the philosophy and the view of life, which characterized Tycho Brahe. A belief in research and the mapping of reality was to make us understand the cosmological connections.
A Renaissance Garden
The garden was, just like the castle, very symmetrical lay out. They also considered the practical use of a garden and planted fruit trees and sowed vegetables and herbs, which could be used in medical recipes.
We know that Tycho as well as his learned sister Sophie Brahe, who lived with him for long periods of time, devoted themselves to the manufacturing of medicinal preparations, in fact to such an extent, that the pharmacies in Copenhagen complained about the competition. It is very likely that Sophie Brahe participated in the lay out and the care taking of the garden, although there are no evidence of this.
The Garden |
Ground plan |
Tycho Brahe leaves Ven
Tycho Brahe stayed in Ven for 21 years until 1597, when felt forced to leave Denmark. It is said that he had fallen out with the inhabitants in Ven, that he neglected his duties and that the new king Christian IV did not support him like Frederik II had done.
The circumstances surrounding Tycho Brahe´s fall are still unclear and much debated. Form Rostock Tycho Brhae wrote the kin in 1597 that he had not gone into exile and emphasized his loyalty. The king reproached him for having left without permission and pointed out several unsolved problems. He wrote of the peasants in Ven: ”There have been complaints about you from our poor subjects in Ven”. And of Tycho´s negligence of the church in Ven: ”...as the word of the baptism have been neglected with your knowledge for a long time against the use of the realm that is notorious for anybody”.
That Tycho Brahe did not take care of his estate obligations is probably correct, but one may wonder why the controversy with the peasants was brought up in a time, where it was the right of any lord of the manor to exploit his subjects and when the plight of the peasants was increased significantly.
The Exorcism
If it is true that they had omitted certain parts of the baptismal rite in Tycho Brahe´s time in Ven that could be a serious matter. The baptismal rites and especially the devil incantation, which was part of it, was one of the theological disputes of the time. Exorcism, a Catholic ritual, was still present in the Lutheranian church, but many did not like it and wanted to get rid of it. This was the view of the supporters of the Calvinistic reformation.
The conflict about the exorcism broke out seriously, when the priest Iver Bertelsen in Møn took out the incantation from the rite and was put on trial in 1567. Iver Bertelsen spent 3 year in prison, before Frederik II pardoned him. In 1588, during the regency of Christian IV a new case cropped up, when the priest at the Holy Spirit Church in Copenhagen, Jon Jacob Venusin, at a christening omitted the Devil incantation. Three weeks after this they issued in the king´s name and with threats of punishment a ban on ”resuscitating undue disputes”. Venusin, who came from Ven, where his father had been the vicar, was the brother-in-law of Tycho Brahe´s son-in-law.
Complaints
It was around this time that the king began to attack Tycho Brahe. Firstly the accusations were directed against the vicar in Ven for not having punished Tycho Brahe of his lack of Communion and his immoral behaviour. The allusion was Tycho Brahe´s life together with a non-aristocrat, something which was not illegal in itself. Last, but not least the priest was accused of having omitted the Devil incantation on the request of Tycho Brahe. The priest lost his job and the next time around the accusations were directed against Tycho Brahe himself.
Another complaint against Tycho Brahe was that he had produced medicine without the permission of the church.
Several Reasons
It was not only the dissatisfaction of the peasants and the dissatisfaction with the neglecting of his duties, which caused him to move. The suspicion of the church about his astrology, his medicine and not least his liberal religious views in a time of strict Lutheranian orthodoxy, may have been decisive.
Tycho Brahe´s correspondence with the king was not published until the king´s death in 1648. In 1597 Tycho wrote a poem of his break with Denmark. Here is a section of the poem:
”Denmark, what have I have for you to cast me off so cruelly?
How can you, my native land, treat me as an enemy?
I have lifted your name, it is mentioned far and wide with honour
how can you be angry that my work has encircled you with roses?
Tell me, which of your children have given you better things to own?
Are you angry that high in the vaulted arch, native country?
Your name I wrote in twinkling stars
Why thrust me aside? Sometime you will remember me.
In days to come my worth, my work will be understood,
By children of a later generation, everything that I gave for you to build”
Tycho Brahe died in Prague in 1601.The Consuls
| | In the course of the 19th century Helsingborg developed from a coastal situated city to an important – according to Swedish conditions – industrial and trade city. |
Helsingborg – swiftly
„For my part I am inclined to follow those, who put Helsingborg before all else. Not because it is not possible to find landscapes more grand, just as scenic and striking at first view, but because this one interests me more in the long run. The other Swedish landscapes have grandeur, are pleasant and what not; But they have no life, they have this primeval silence, this sacrosanct solemnity, which seems pathetic in the moment, but becomes suppressive at length; here you have a painting with figures, a moving, constant varied and renewed scene; it is a nature, which is not tiresome, but you can associate with it instead of just admiring it. Get up early one spring morning, when the sun is upon the Danish coast, in these gardens, boldly situated here and there in the changeable cut cliffs, under whose shadows Helsingborg is laid out; get up, if you will, and view the Sound! This ocean, which is but a river here! But a river with hundreds of ships, East- and West Indian Sea faring ships, Americans, Britons, line ships from Archangel, fruit ships from the Mediterranean! View this blackboard, so alone in kind, so full of colour and emotion, and so dramatic.”
Thus Patrik Sturzen-Becker depicted the small town of Helsingborg in 1851, a town, which then had around 4000 inhabitants.
Consul Olsson
At this time a young man from Fleninge worked as a shop assistant in town. This young, deeply religious man’s name was Petter Olsson and he once asked the vicar, Peter Wieselgren, if he could become a priest. Since this was an expensive education and Petter Olsson was poor, Wieselgren advised him to become a teacher instead. But Petter Olsson went another way. In 1853, the year the Crimean War broke out, he dared to start his own business in corn.
England, who was in the war on the side of the Turks against the Russians, did not get enough corn during the war and a great deal of Olsson’s corn stock went to London, where the horses needed power in order to pull trams, among other things. The profit was good, of course, and with the optimism of the future, which was a mark of the 19th century, Olsson began to build an empire. He also realized the need for good communications in order to transport corn to the storehouse in Kullagatan, where he also lived and he also realized that a good harbour in order to carry the oats to the horses in London. (He did not only have his home in the storehouse, but it was also used as church service hall for the revivalist meetings he held.)
Petter Olsson | 
Workers | 
he Harbour 1893-94 |
Consul Olsson´s Granary |
The Infrastructure
Through his municipal activities Consul Olsson could press the questions concerning improved communications. In the period 1865-85 he contributed to making it possible for Helsingborg to have railway lines in every direction. At first to Billeberga-Esløv, then to Hässleholm and to Åstorp and Värnamo. Thus the city was connected with the big railways and had railway lines to Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmo. At the same time the harbour was enlarged and made deeper with more new basins and Sweden´s first train ferry connection to abroad was opened on the H-H- fairway in 1892.
The enlargement of the harbour had en effect on the Helsingborg shipping business and at the end of the century the city had the third largest merchant navy. Petter Olsson started more industries, among them tileworks, the steam mill and the rubber factory, where Henry Dunker later would start the rubber shoe fabrication. He was enthusiastic about the development of the city, but also about Evangelical religion. The mission building on Kullagatan was built thanks to Petter Olsson. He was throughout his life faithful to his religious beliefs and said that he would make Helsingborg to “a city, which honoured God”. His large family spent the summers in the leisure villa “Öresundslyst” on the Danish side of the Sound.
Consul Persson
Another young man came from Allerum into town and also started to work in a shop. His name was Nils Persson and he was outgoing and sociable man. Even he dared to open his own business and started to import fertilizer, which he sold to the farmers. He started to speculate about the opportunities to manufacture on his own and soon founded “Fosfaten”, a fertilizer factory on the south side of town.
The profits were of course good and he expanded his empire, adding the copper works, where he used and processed by-products from the phosphate factory. He also started the team tile works, which was a lucky venture, since Helsingborg and Copenhagen were to build heavily in the latter part of the 19th century. (He manufactured red tile unlike Olsson´s yellow and in town they often discussed which areas the two gentlemen occupied, and yes, they could see it on the tile.) Persson donated an area on Södergatan next to the churchyard to the city, and this was to be used as graveyard, and the profits were to go to “pauvre honteux”, the needy in Helsingborg.
Nils Persson | 
The Phosphate Factory | 
The Industrial Area |
The Town of the Consuls
Olsson and Persson ruled the city. They had large industries, participated in the management of the city and also sat in the parliament. Important persons were often given consul titles and this title was given to Olsson as well as Persson. At the turn of the century Helsingborg was called “the city of consuls”. These two men were very similar, when it came to initiative and business, but privately they were opposites. While Olsson lived a simple life in his apartment next to his storehouse on Kullagatan, Persson led a dissipated life in the luxurious villa near the hospital. Olsson spent his leisure time studying the bible, while Persson visited Ramlösa. Olsson was a teetotaller, Persson was not.
Moving to Helsingborg
The two consuls´ businesses speeded up Helsingborg. Between 1860 and 1900 the population was increased five times and no other city in Sweden could show a population increase like that. In the years 1850-1920 the population of Helsingborg increased with 1149%, while the neighbouring city, Landskrona had an 493% increase and Lund a 346% increase. Malmo was close by with an increase of 867%. (The banishment of the Sound duty in 1857 also benefited Helsingborg on the expense of the nearest neighbouring city, Elsinore.)
It is said that the flow of people to Helsingborg at times was so heavy that the city´s registration office could not keep up. The vicar sometimes was so exhausted that he had to leave the pen. It is evident that the appearance of the city changed because of the active building activity. The trend of architecture at the end of the 19th century was richly represented in the city. The neo-classicism and the neo-renaissance are evident along Järnvägsgatan, Trädgårdsgatan and Drottninggatan, and the neo-Gothic style is exemplified in the Town Hall, the GA Church and the Nicolai School. The large influx of workers resulted in the building of a great deal of workmen’s houses, especially in the south part of town, where the industry was located.
A Clash of Style | 
The Town Hall in Helsingborg | 
The Gustav Adolf Church. |
Consul Trapp
Another man with a consul’s title deserves mention as he was engaged in preserving the old Helsingborg in the transformation process, which was taking place. Oscar Trapp, who lived in Frederiksdal, was interested in history and this interest combined with a municipal involvement resulted in the renovation and restoration of Kärnan, the Maria Church was renovated and excavations at some of the old middle age churches were carried out. He was also instrumental in the preservation of Jakob Hansen´s house from the 17th century. He was also the man behind Sweden´s flag. As a member of parliament he proposed that the flag should have certain nuances and not nuances of yellow and blue varying from flag to flag. His motion was carried and thus the Swedish flag in the 1906 law on the flag of the realm, got the colours it has today.
Oscar Trapp 1847-1916 | 
Fredriksdal | 
Oversæt |
The Consert House
| | Helsingborg´s concert house was opened in 1932. Sven Markelius´ building has several similarities to the students´ house he designed for the technical college in Stockholm. Helsingborg´s concert house is perhaps the best example of a monumental building in early functionalism in Sweden. |
Modernism and Functionalism
The Stockholm exhibition in 1930 marked the entry of the modern, functionalist style in Scandinavia. The exhibition had buildings by Gunnar Asplund, among others, done in white, with supporting concrete constructions and large windows in glass and steel. The focus of the exhibition was everyday needs and it showed many examples of different housing and modern interiors. The inspiration is clear in the Blidah Park in Copenhagen and Arne Jacobsen´s famous Bellavista neighbourhood at Bellevue at Strandvejen north of Copenhagen.
The perhaps most interesting example of early modernism in Sweden, is the concert house in Helsingborg, which was finished in 1932. It was designed by Sven Markelius and is very similar to the students´ house he designed for the technical college in Stockholm in 1930.
The project of the concert house itself is very interesting inasmuch as Markelius´ first proposal was clearly classicist, but eventually the proposal was reworked and ended finally with its present functionalist style with smooth, white plastered walls, large glass fronts to let in the light in the vestibule and semi circled wings with cloakroom and restaurant.
In Hornbæk on the North Zealand Coast you find the first examples of summer cottages in the late-romantic Viking style, but also the fashionable, functionalist seaside hotel from 1935.
Early Functionalism | 
Early Functionalist-inspired Architecture |
The Concert House in Helsingborg | 
Arne Jacobsen´s Bellavista | 
Arne Jacobsen´s Bellavista |
Oversæt | 
Kronborg Open Air Bath | 
Hornbæk Seaside Hotel |
Dunkers
| | Dunker´s Arts Centre in Helsingborg is a willed present form one of Sweden´s richest families. The fortune was made via the rubber cartel Tretorn, which had plants in Helsingborg as well as Elsinore.
The arts centre is designed by the Danish architect, Kim Utzon. |
The Galosh King
Dunker, the family that founded and developed the Tretorn-empire, came to Helsingborg from Denmark.
A new method to process raw rubber into a material, which was soft, waterproof and durable, gave opportunities for exploiting rubber industrially, for instance to produce galoshes, rubber shoes and other kinds of modern goods of quality.
“The rubber age” had arrived to the Sound. It turned out to be a fortune for the Dunker family, but later on also for the cultural life of the region.
The Rubber Age
Rubber had been used for a long time and it worked very well – as india rubber. The American Charles Goodyear discovered a method, which opened up for completely different possibilities for the utilization of rubber in 1839. He had succeeded in processing raw rubber into a material, which was soft, waterproof and durable. The method was called retreading , and was, technically the heating of a mixture of caoutchouc and sulphur.
This method gave completely new opportunities for exploiting rubber industrially.
One idea, among many others, was to produce a protecting shoe, which was to worn on elegant shoes when it rained. The galosh, the French name for overshoes, was born. The winters by the Sound would now be bearable with the new wind- and waterproof shoes. Galoshes became extremely popular and were manufactured all over the world. Sweden imported the new idea from Russia.
Johan Dunker – the Beginning
In Helsingborg there was a harbour master called Johan Dunker. He was originally from Schlesvig-Holstein. The Dunker family lived in Esbjerg, when the son, Henry, was born in 1870. Johan, who was active in the Helsingborg economic life, understood that the demand for rubber would increase. With the optimism for the future of the age in mind, he built a rubber factory in the expanding Helsingborg. With the support of Petter Olsson, among others, he founded Helsingborgs Rubber Factory Inc. in 1891.
Johan Dunker |
Henry Dunker – a Man for Development
Johan Dunker´s son, Henry, went to Russia to find know how for his new factory. In St. Petersborg he did not have much luck, but in Riga, which belonged to Russia at the time, he came into contact with a chemist, who was interested in developing the factory in Helsingborg. His name was Julius von Gerkan and he was instrumental, when it came to the quality of the Helsingborg galoshes.
Henry Dunker became a sub-manager in 1984 and after some troubles in the beginning the factory expanded. He worked for his position in relation to other rubber factories. Thus he took over the rubber factory, Velox, in Trelleborg of founded Trelleborg´s rubber factory in 1905, which became a part of Dunker´s expanding empire. One of his ideas was to start his own sales offices, and thus avoid selling via wholesale dealers. In that way he could gain control over a bigger part of the chain from producer to consumer.
Sales offices opened between 1910-20 in all parts of Sweden, but also abroad, for instance in Copenhagen in 1909, Berlin in 913 and Vienna in 1913. Not only the company expanded but also the range of goods. What began with galoshes and other kinds of rubber shoes, now continued with balls, bathing caps and tyres. Henry Dunker realized the value of specialisation and moved the production of tyres to Trelleborg.
Henry Dunker |
Cartel and Group
In order to obtain a better competition situation abroad and avoid competition in the home market, he established a cartel in 1912. The result was that the prices could be raised in Sweden and lowered abroad, which resulted in a higher profit.
During the depression of the 30´s many states wanted to protect their own production by way of customs duties and import prohibition. Henry Dunker built factories in Hamburg and Elsinore and could maintain production and sale in Germany and Denmark. The factory in Elsinore, which was founded in 1935, grew steadily and at the end of the 50´s it was the second largest place of work in the town with more than one thousand employees. The old “Helsingborg Rubber Factory Inc.” had grown into a multinational group and the company had changed its name into Tretorn Inc., in order to get rid of the provincial ring of the old name.
Tretorn Factory in Elsinore |
Tretorn poster from 1939 |
The Richest Man in Sweden
The demand for rubber products was enormous. From being used only as india rubber, the range of goods grew via rubber shoes to tyres, bicycle tyres, rain clothes, balls, gym shoes, rubber bands, weather strips - the list was almost endless, and the 30´s and 40´s were rightly called “the rubber age”. The fruits of this success made “the galosh king”, Henry Dunker to the richest man in Sweden.
Henry Dunker´s villa, ”Hevea”, which was built in the 20´s in northern Helsingborg, gives an insight to the environment of the well-to-do.
Villa Hevea |
The Working Class District |
Shower Room |
Dunker, the Employer
The management skills of Henry Dunker can be described as tough on the tough, but somewhat softer on the weak. The higher the position in the company, the more Dunker demanded. He was no friend of unions and strikes either, and naturally he did not engage himself in big business in order to play the part of the benefactor.
When he established a private kindergarten in 1911, it was in order to employ more women. In the 1930´s most of the employees in the company in Helsingborg were women.
The Unions |
The Nursery |
The Municipality as Heir
From time to time Dunker displayed good will and released somebody from debt, but that was only his own workers. The staff in his villa, Hevea, liked him.
Dunker´s fortune was, at his death, willed to the Helsingborg municipality and his villa was made into a nursing home. In that way his money was given back to the people in town. Without these means it would not have been possible for Helsingborg to offer its citizens the theatre and arts centre, which now adorns the town. However, one should not forget the thousands of people who worked and slaved in dirty and evil-smelling factories.
Dunker´s Arts Centre |
Bernadotte
| | Even royalty had summer residences. This is Sofiero by the Sound coast north of Helsingborg, which the Swedish royal family bought privately. The Swedish crown prince Oscar, Karl XV´s brother, decided in the 1860´s to build a summer residence to himself and his family just north of Helsingborg. |
The Napoleon War
In spite of the federation of neutrality Sweden and Denmark took different sides during the Napoleonic war and it came to minor incidents between the two parties in 1808-09 and later in 1813. After the dethroning of the Swedish King Gustav IV Adolf a Danish Prince Christian August was elected heir to the throne, but after his sudden death a former French general Bernadotte took the throne. Bernadotte converted to the Protestantism on the Swedish consulate in Elsinore and then travelled across the Sound.
The outcome of the Napoleonic wars meant that Sweden lost Finland in 1809 and Denmark lost Norway, which instead was united with Sweden in 1814. Norway’s transition to Sweden entailed that the mutual relationship was cooled down, but in the course of a few decades the contact was increased considerably among other things because of the improvement of the means of communication.
Monument in memory of Christian August | 
The Swedish consulate in Elsinore |
The Swedish consulate in Elsinore |
Bernadotte disembarks in Helsingborg |
The Bernadotte Monument in Helsingborg |
Sofiero
In the 1860´s the Swedish crown prince, Oscar, Karl XV´s brother, decided to build a summer residence for himself and his family just north of Helsingborg. One may wonder why he chose Helsingborg. Certainly, the Bernadottes had always had a certain affection for this town ever since Karl Johan went ashore there in 1810. The royal family often visited Helsingborg and Ramlösa and perhaps they felt at home here. Furthermore it is possible that being close to Denmark was tempting during the time of Scandinavism and the idea of a union between the countries could be an opportunity to have a summer castle near Denmark. Or maybe his grandson Gustav VI Adolf was right, when he said that the boat interested Oscar simply was drawn to the sea and boats and that the intensive boat traffic on the Sound was particularly tempting. After some efforts he succeeded in getting the estate, “Skabelycke”, which was named Sofiero after Oscar´s wife, Sofia. One building was constructed, designed by and engineer by the name of Forsell and who had previously designed railway stations. Many feel that this is the reason that Sofiero more looks like a railway station than a royal castle.
When Karl died in 1872, Sofiero became a place fit for royalty and king Oscar II extended the castle, an extension, which was finished in 1876. But it still could not match the Danish counterpart, Fredensborg, but it is to be remembered that it was not a state castle, but en entirely private building. In any case the area was revived until the death of Gustav VI Adolf almost 100 years later, when Sofiero stopped being a royal summer castle.
Among the leisure activities that Oscar II liked the most was the yearly hare hunting on Hven and many inhabitants on Hven still talk about these hunts. But even though Sofiero was a private summer residence, it was also used for official duties. Tsars, royalty, presidents and prime ministers from higher politics visited here. In addition to these state visits they had government meetings here in the summer and Sofiero thus had a more official status than the present royal summer residence in Borgholm on Öland.
Sofiero Castle |
Oscar and Sofia with the children |
Gustav Adolf and Margaretha |
Interior from Sofiero |
Hare hunting in Hven |
Old Ferry Station in Helsingborg
| | The old ferry station in Helsingborg was built in the same Viking style, which can be seen in some of the stations of the coastal railway in North Zealand. A tangible influence from the national Romanticism of the 19th century. |
A Common Cultural Area
You could say that Zealand had two cultural areas; a southwestern area, which consisted of cultivated plains and a northeastern with forests.
Scania similarly had three cultural areas; one southern with plains, which had been cultivated early, one northern with forest areas and forest settlements and small woods, which have been named “national settlements”. In this area and in North Zealand new cultivation areas were created through the clearing of forest and in these areas the place name ending –röd/ryd is common. The cultivation pattern in northwestern Scania and in North Zealand was similar. It must be added that the contacts between Scania and Zealand was most intense between Helsingborg and Elsinore.
The place names can be traced to “the throat” (hals), by which they meant the narrowest part of the Sound. The people around the North Sound was called “halsinger” and both towns were called “halsingarnas borg” and “halsingarnas öre” (beach). The importance the area around “halsen” had for the contacts between Zealand and Scania was early attested by Adam of Bremen in his work “De hamburgska ärkebiskoparnas historia” (1070). He noted that you could “sail to Scania from many places in Zealand. The shortest distance is from Helsingborg, where the narrowest part of the Sound is called Halsen and where the population is called halsingar”.
One may establish from this that North Zealand and north western Scania very early were quite homogeneous
Three Cultural Areas | 
New Settlements in Zealand | 
Settlements in Scania |
The New Infrastructure
An important factor in this was the gradually improved infrastructure, especially the steam ships and railways. Elsinore was the first provincial town, which was visited by Denmark’s first steam ferry, “Caledonia” as early as 1819. Throughout the 1920´s and 30´s there was irregular traffic along the coast. At the end of 1842 there was a permanent steam ship connection via the ferry “Hamlet” between Elsinore and Copenhagen. In 1945 the service also included Helsingborg. Moreover, from 1856 there was a permanent connection between Elsinore and Helsingborg.
This meant that it was possible to transport family members and luggage over greater distances. The steam ships landed at various places along the way from where people were rowed ashore to the desired summer residences. With the steam ships and the railway connection between Copenhagen and Elsinore via Hillerød it was possible for the head of the family to travel to the city and take care of business in the summertime too.
Caledonia |
Hamlet |
Ophelia |
Vedbæk´s Harbour |
The North Railway |
The North Railway |
Train Timetable |
The Hornbæk Railway |
Klampenborg |
Historicisme og nationalromantik
The predominant architectural direction in the 19th century is the so-called Historicism, where architecture and building restoration borrow style elements from different earlier periods in an attempt to find a modern idiom. In the second half of the 19th century a direction with affiliation to the Scandinavian and national romantic currents are developed. This style refers to the shared past, the Viking Age, but is also has a tight connection to the skønvirke style of the time.
The new building of Marienlyst Seaside Hotel from 1897 was, especially with the characteristic tower, which disappeared in the 1930´s, built in the characteristic building style of the time with extensive use of wood for house end constructions and eaves and ornamental traits from the Viking Age. The style is also known as “Skønvirke”(“Liberty” or “Modern Style”) and is connected with late-romanticism with a Scandinavian stamp. It is found in Aalgaarde Seaside Hotel, Dragør Seaside Hotel and the first real summer house building activities in Ålsgårde and Hornbæk from around the beginning of the century.
If you go to Falsterbo in Scania the style can be found and even in Ramlösa there are examples of the Viking Age style and late-romantic wooden constructions. Furthermore the style can be found in a number of official buildings. The old ferry station in Helsingborg is a good example and Østerport Railway Station and other stations along the coast is a pure exhibition of this style.
Marienlyst Seaside Hotel | 
Summer House in Hornbæk |
Helsingborg´s Old Ferry Station | 
Villa Svea | 
Villa Dana |
Klampenborg Station |
Ålsgårde Seaside Hotel |
Viking Style Arild | 
Viking House | 
Log house |
Østerport Station | 
Roof and Spire |
No Passports
At midnight in July 12th 1952 the passport free conditions were introduced between the Nordic countries and the following day there was a lot a activity in the Sound, when 55.000 passengers and almost 4000 cars crossed the Sound on the ferries. The passport free conditions and the increasing motoring resulted in a further need of ferries. Gradually the ferry traffic developed into pleasure traffic parallel to the business traffic.
Routes | 
Helsingborg´s Dagblad, July 13th 1952 |
Pleasure Boats
In the 50´s the Copenhagen boats became a clear element in the Scanian harbours. The little white boat ”Saint Ibb” had taken ”moonlight trips” from Copenhagen to Ven, Helsingborg and Mölle. ”Stadt Kiel sailed Helsingborg/Landskrona and Copenhagen for many years, but the shipping company, who really picked up speed was the Viking Boats. Their boats sailed the Sound from 1955 to 1968. They mainly sailed from Copenhagen to Landskrona and Helsingborg, but sometimes also to Malmo and Ven. Above all they were used for pleasure traffic. The ferry ticket wasn’t always that important and they gave out free tickets everywhere. Many had so many free tickets that they were impossible to use. It was evident that that it was the food and the drink, which provided income for the shipping company.
Saint Ibb | 
Knut Viking |
The Scarlett-Boats
At this time the so-called Scarlett-boats sailed between Landskrona and Copenhagen. Their history is special. In Denmark after the war there was a lack of American dollars, which made i impossible to get American goods and American films. Thus the Danes missed the Hollywood film ”Gone With the Wind”, which was shown in Swedish cinemas in 1939. A Danish ship owner, Jørgen Jensen, had the brilliant idea of starting a cinema line. Ships were provided in 1949 for this cinema transport, which sometimes was combined with a Bakken (Danish amusement park) transport. They sailed the Swedes to Bellevue, so they could go to Bakken. And then they sailed to Copenhagen to collect Danes to cinemas in Sweden.
To begin with they went to Palladium in Malmo, where ”Gone With the Wind” was shown, but form the summer of 1949 the cinema trips went to Landskrona. While the films were showed the Swedes were taken home from Bellevue and when the Swedes were taken home the film had ended and the Danes was sailed to Copenhagen. On the way food and drink were served at low costs and there was life music and dancing.
This traffic was the background for the so-called Scarlett boats, which trafficked Landskrona and Tuborg until 1980. Scarlett O´Hara in the film ”Gone with the Wind” gave names to the boats, for instance Hanne Scarlett, Lilli Scarlett and Dana Scarlett.
The Sound Law
Many boats were floating restaurants and there was a lot of drinking. The restaurant owners in the Sound towns protested against the unfair competition as the boats could serve tax-free alcohol. In addition it was known to be quite lively onboard and the Danish and Swedish governments decided in 1961 to lessen the attraction of these pleasure trips. The Sound law, limitations in the alcohol sale were introduced and in the performing of live music. The amount of alcohol and the amount of cigarettes had to be in proportion with the number of passengers. After that the customs authorities often thought that the number of passengers did not correspond to the amount of alcohol that was sold and the number of Copenhagen boats diminished considerably.
Form Monopoly to Competition in the H-H-Line
Even Adam of Bremen established that the shortest distance between Scania and Zealand is at Helsingborg and it was not strange that the most intensive traffic landed there.
The traffic on the H-H-Line in the beginning of the 50´s was run entirely by the DSB (Danish State Railways), but in 1955 there was competition. It was the Swedish company Linjebuss (LB), who with its first ferry, Betula, began its epoch on the Sound. Betula was owned by the Swedish Sugar Factories Ltd. and sailed sugar beet cargoes between Mörbylånga in Öland and Begkvara at the Småland coast. This transport was seasonally adjusted to say the least and at other times the boat could be sued at the H-H- Line as a car ferry. Primula, Carola, Betula II, Regula and Ursula followed up Betula. The LB boats became popular and the concept of ”touring” was introduced as the name for a passage with the serving of food.
The LB-ferries was for a long time considered more cosy with their high salons, who had a nice view of the Sound, in comparison to DSB´s ”basement ferries”, where you had to sit below the car deck. On the LB you glided, but on the DSB you glided. In Helsingborg the basement ferries were called ”the U-boats”. DSB did not build a boat with salons above the car deck until 1967. It was ”Najaden”, and later the sister-ferry ”Kärnan”, ”Kronborg” and ”Holger Danske”. With this the DSB had seriously entered the competition. Another company would enter the H-H-traffic, and that was the so-called Sundbusserne”, which started traffic in March 1958. They solely aimed at the passenger traffic.
Elsinore Harbour 1955 | 
Primula | 
Najaden | 
Sundbusserne |
Enormous Traffic all Over the Sound
The Sound traffic increased and the harbours in the Sound had really become lively by the end of the 1950´s.
In the 1960´s the DSB ferries Dan, Helsingør, Helsingborg, Svea, Kronborg and Kärnan sailed the Sound. The LB ferries were at that time Betula and Primula and the Sundbusserne Henrik I, Jeppe, Pendula and Pernille. In addition the route to Snekkersten was trafficked by Freia and Mols. Helsingborg-Copenhagen was trafficked by Gay Viking, Rolf Viking, Laboe, Lucullus, Stadt Kiel and Sankt Ibb.
At this time 20 ships sailed between Helsingborg and harbours on the other side of the Sound. The number of boats, lines and travellers were impressing at the end of the 50´s and the beginning of the 60´s. In the H-H-line approximately 8 millions passenger were transported in 1961. In 1962 after the introduction of the Sound law, the passenger number in the H-H-line increased to 8,5 millions, but the traffic in Copenhagen diminished, i.e. the traffic that was entirely pleasure trips.
Between Malmø and Copenhagen the train ferry Malmøhus sailed, the most elegant boat in the Sound, and the Sound company´s Absalon, Gripen and Ørnen. These three were called ”the big boats”. From 1957 the Centrum Line or, as it was called initially, the New Copenhagen Line, sailed between Malmø and Copenhagen with more boats, among them the old Kalmarsund I, which had renamed Kirsten Piil and had been used on the line Helsingborg-Copenhagen, Sundpilen and MS Alte Liebe, renamed Ørestad. That same year ”Limhamn” and ”Dragør” trafficked the line Limhamn-Dragør and the route Landskrona-Tuborg was trafficked by the Scarlett-lines. This description of the traffic around 1960 does not cover all the facts, but the question is if the 1955-60 was not the most intensive, when it comes to the number of boats on the Sound.
Snekkersten Harbour | 
The Train Ferry Malmøhus | 
Absalon |
Concentration in the H-H-line
Gradually as the motoring gained more importance the ferry traffic was concentrated more and more to the north Sound, where the distance across the water was the shortest. As the great Europe roads from Gothenburg and Stockholm met in Helsingborg, it became natural to take the closest way to Denmark. When the train ferry Malmøhus was closed down in the middle of the 80´s, there were only ferries left between Limhamn and Dragør in the south Sound parallel to the hydrofoil boats between Malmø and Copenhagen.
In 1972 more than 11 millions passenger sailed between Helsingborg and Elsinore and in 1998 more than 13 millions passengers sailed the H-H-line. It was like transporting the whole Danish and Swedish population in just one year!
The following conversation between a man from Helsingborg and a man from Elsinore took place in the middle of the 70´s.
- I think that Helsingborg is the largest passenger harbour in the world.
- I see!
- Do you know which is the second largest?
- Could that be New York?
- No!
- Could it be London?
- No!
- Could it be Dover or Calais?
- No!
- I give up, which is it?
-Elsinore!
- But then Elsinore is as big as Helsingborg!
- No... We have boats for Snekkersten!
The Future
Today (2003) the H-H-Line is trafficked by three companies. The number of boats is small in comparison with the golden days around 1960, but the number of passengers is still impressive, in spite of the emergence of the Sound Bridge. In 2002 12 millions persons travelled with the ferries between Elsinore and Helsingborg and these cities are the only ones that still have boat traffic across the Sound. The large ferries Tycho Brahe, Aurora and Hamlet have a whole different capacity than the boats in the 50´s and 60´s.
But there are those, who plan for a tunnel between Helsingborg and Elsinore.
Tycho Brahe |
How Far Has the Integration Across the Sound Reached?
Even though the commuting across the Sound, from Scania to Zealand, is growing, it is from a low level in comparison to the commutation you see between the municipalities on both sides of the Sound.
One sign of the attraction power of the region is that both the Copenhagen region and Scania from the middle of the 1990´s have experienced a population growth of approximately 3-4% per year. Such growth figures are perhaps not to the credit of the Sound integration, but the fact remains, no matter the cause, that the Sound region have become more attractive to live and work in.
This conclusion is further strengthened if you study the regional BNP (the so-called BRP) for the Copenhagen region, Scania and the whole Sound region. BRP for the regions shows from the year 2001, a larger growth than the average for BNP i Denmark and Sweden as a whole.
At the time of the bridge opening, July 1st, 200o, there was a lot of optimism with regards to the integrated Sound region. Today most people realize that the integrations process will take longer than expected. The economic recess after the crash of the IT-sector form the year 2000 is of course a part of the explanation. But there are also explanations, which more Sound related and they point to concrete obstacles for a quick integration. 1. The price to cross the Sound. 2. Different laws and regulations for taxation in the labour market areas. 3. Differences in culture and mentality between Danish and Swedish.
It is not possible to decide which of these factors hinder the integration the most. It depends on which areas you look at.
One positive conclusion can be drawn: The Sound integration and every other aspects of living and working at the Sound have during the last ten years become a theme, which always emerges in the discussion, when the development in the Copenhagen region and Scania are discussed.
The H-H-Line |
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