Heleneborg is an estate on

Södermalm Södermalm, often shortened to just Söder, is a district and island in central Stockholm. Overview The district covers the large island of the same name (formerly called ''Åsön''). Although Södermalm usually is considered an island, wat ...

, a part of the city of

Stockholm Stockholm () is the capital and largest city of Sweden as well as the largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people live in the municipality, with 1.6 million in the urban area, and 2.4 million in the metropo ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic countries, Nordic c ...

. It is opposite Långholmen island (home to

Långholmen prison Långholmen Prison, officially Långholmen Central Prison ( sv, Långholmens centralfängelse), was historically one of the largest prison facilities in Sweden with more than 500 cells, located on the island of Långholmen in Stockholm. It was bui ...

until 1975). The property was bought in 1669 by Jonas Österling and was used by the Swedish tobacco manufacturing company (''Tobakskompaniet'') for tobacco production. However, after a conflict with both the company and the royal court, Österling went bankrupt and died in poverty in 1691. His estate was burnt down in 1701. From 1739 to 1759 the estate was owned by Olof Forsberg, who produced white clay pipes on the premises. Adolph Christiernin bought the property in 1759 and continued clay pipe production until 1766. He was a very wealthy man who spent his entire fortune on a fixed idea that he could find gold in the Swedish silver mines. He named the property Heleneborg after his wife Helena Catharina Malmin. Miserably poor, he had to abandon Heleneborg in 1767. In the 1860s Heleneborg was owned by W.N. Burmester, who housed the manufacturer and inventor Immanuel Nobel on the premises. There his son

Alfred Nobel Alfred Bernhard Nobel ( , ; 21 October 1833 – 10 December 1896) was a Swedish chemist, engineer, inventor, businessman, and philanthropist. He is best known for having bequeathed his fortune to establish the Nobel Prize, though he al ...

and Alfred's brothers experimented with the safe handling of the explosive

nitroglycerin Nitroglycerin (NG), (alternative spelling of nitroglycerine) also known as trinitroglycerin (TNG), nitro, glyceryl trinitrate (GTN), or 1,2,3-trinitroxypropane, is a dense, colorless, oily, explosive liquid most commonly produced by nitrating g ...

. After a big explosion in this plant on September 3, 1864, which killed the youngest brother, Emil Oskar Nobel, Alfred Nobel created the

Alfred Nobel & Company Dynamit Nobel AG is a German chemical and weapons company whose headquarters is in Troisdorf, Germany. It was founded in 1865 by Alfred Nobel. Creation After the death of his younger brother Emil in an 1864 nitroglycerin explosion at the famil ...

in Germany to continue his work in more isolated circumstances.
In 1874 captain Johan Adolf Berg bought the estate and renovated it to its present appearance. After his death, his widow sold Heleneborg in 1906 and the grounds were divided into lots for construction of apartment houses. Only the main building of Heleneborg was left, and today it can still be seen next to Söder Mälarstrand, close to Västerbron. Heleneborg has given its name to the close by street Heleneborgsgatan.

References

;Bibliography * Arne Munthe: ''Västra Södermalm intill mitten av 1800-talet'' (1959) * Birgit Lindberg: ''Malmgårdarna i Stockholm'' (1985, andra upplagan 2002) ;Notes {{coord, 59, 19, 10, N, 18, 02, 03, E, region:SE_type:landmark_source:kolossus-svwiki, display=title Geography of Stockholm