Egeskov Castle () is located near Kværndrup, in the south of the island of

Funen Funen (, ), is the third-largest List of islands of Denmark, island of Denmark, after Zealand and North Jutlandic Island, Vendsyssel-Thy, with an area of . It is the List of islands by area, 165th-largest island in the world. It is located in th ...

Denmark Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...

. The castle is

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

's best preserved

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

water castle A water castle, sometimes water-castle, is a castle which incorporates a natural or artificial body of water into its defences.Forde-Johnston (1979), p. 163. It can be entirely surrounded by water-filled moats (moated castle) or natural waterbo ...

History

Egeskov was first mentioned in 1405. The castle structure was erected by Frands Brockenhuus in 1554. Due to the troubles caused by the civil war known as the ''

Count's Feud The Count's Feud (), sometimes referred to as the Count's War, was a Danish war of succession occurring from 1534 to 1536, which gave rise to the Reformation in Denmark. In the broader international context, it was a part of the European wars of ...

'' (Danish: ''Grevens fejde''), general

civil unrest Civil disorder, also known as civil disturbance, civil unrest, civil strife, or turmoil, are situations when law enforcement and security forces struggle to maintain public order or tranquility. Causes Any number of things may cause civil di ...

, and a civil war introducing the

Protestant Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the papacy and ...

, most Danish noblemen built their homes as fortifications. The castle is constructed on

oak An oak is a hardwood tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' of the beech family. They have spirally arranged leaves, often with lobed edges, and a nut called an acorn, borne within a cup. The genus is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisp ...

en piles and located in a small lake with a maximum depth of . Originally, the only access was by means of a

drawbridge A drawbridge or draw-bridge is a type of moveable bridge typically at the entrance to a castle or tower surrounded by a moat. In some forms of English, including American English, the word ''drawbridge'' commonly refers to all types of moveable b ...

. According to legend, it took an entire forest of oak trees to build the foundation, hence the name ''Egeskov'' (oak forest). The estate has belonged to the Bille-Brahe family since 1784, when they acquired it from descendants of the Brockenhuus family. In 1882 it was inherited by the counts Ahlefeldt-Laurvig-Bille, who still own it.

Castle architecture

Outside, the castle is a Late Gothic building. Inside the original elements already show

design. The castle consists of two long buildings connected by a thick double wall, allowing defenders to abandon one house and continue fighting from the other. The double wall is over one meter thick and contains secret staircases and a

well A well is an excavation or structure created on the earth by digging, driving, or drilling to access liquid resources, usually water. The oldest and most common kind of well is a water well, to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The ...

. Defenders were able to attack an enemy's flanks from the two round corner

tower A tower is a tall Nonbuilding structure, structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from guyed mast, masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting ...

s. Other medieval defences include artillery ports, scalding holes and

arrow slit An arrowslit (often also referred to as an arrow loop, loophole or loop hole, and sometimes a balistraria) is a narrow vertical aperture in a fortification through which an archer can launch arrows or a crossbowman can launch bolts. The interi ...

s. The bricks composing the castle are of an oversized medieval type sometimes called "monks bricks". The conical towers are constructed in a series of separate panels. The architecture includes depressed and round-arched windows, round-arched blank arcading within the

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

s, and a double string course between the high cellar and the ground floor. The structure contains some of the early

indoor plumbing Indoor(s) may refer to: *the interior of a building A building or edifice is an enclosed Structure#Load-bearing, structure with a roof, walls and window, windows, usually standing permanently in one place, such as a house or factory. Building ...

design first used in Europe with vertical shafts for waste. The thick double wall also contains a water well which is accessed from the servants kitchen in the east house. Several of the large rooms have massive parallel exposed beams with some end carving.

Castle contents

Contents of the castle include a massive iron chest from at least as early as the 16th century, which derived from

Hvedholm Castle Hvedholm Castle is an estate and castle located near Faaborg on the island of Funen, Denmark. It is now the site of Hvedholm Slotshotel. History Hvedholm was built in the 15th century. The main building was built in 1588, rebuilt in 1681 after a ...

, a property earlier owned by the Egeskov estate about twenty kilometers to the west. Numerous oil paintings are found within the castle including a large painting in the great hall on the first floor of

Niels Juel Niels Juel (8 May 1629 – 8 April 1697) was a Danish naval officer. He served as supreme commander of the Dano-Norwegian Navy during the late 17th century and oversaw development of the Danish-Norwegian Navy. Background Niels Juel was born ...

, who defeated the Swedish force in the Battle of Køge Bay in the year 1677.

Gardens and lands

Other buildings belonging to Egeskov include ''Ladegården'', a

thatched Thatching is the craft of building a roof with dry vegetation such as straw, water reed, sedge ('' Cladium mariscus''), rushes, heather, or palm branches, layering the vegetation so as to shed water away from the inner roof. Since the bulk of ...

half-timbered Timber framing () and "post-and-beam" construction are traditional methods of building with heavy Beam (structure), timbers, creating structures using squared-off and carefully fitted and Woodworking joints, joined timbers with joints secure ...

building which is now part of the museum. Other buildings are used by the museum and for farming. Surrounding the castle is an old park, covering 20 hectares (49 acres) of land. The park is divided into a number of gardens. The renaissance garden features

fountain A fountain, from the Latin "fons" ( genitive "fontis"), meaning source or spring, is a decorative reservoir used for discharging water. It is also a structure that jets water into the air for a decorative or dramatic effect. Fountains were o ...

s, a gravel path and

topiary Topiary is the horticultural practice of training perennial plants by clipping the foliage and twigs of trees, shrubs and subshrubs to develop and maintain clearly defined shapes, whether geometric or fanciful. The term also refers to plants w ...

figures. The

fuchsia ''Fuchsia'' ( ) is a genus of flowering plants that consists mostly of shrubs or small trees. Almost 110 species of ''Fuchsia'' are recognized; the vast majority are native to South America, but a few occur north through Central America to Mex ...

garden, one of the largest in Europe, contains 104 different species. Other gardens near the castle include an

English garden The English landscape garden, also called English landscape park or simply the English garden (, , , , ), is a style of "landscape" garden which emerged in England in the early 18th century, and spread across Europe, replacing the more formal ...

, a

water garden Water garden or aquatic garden, is a term sometimes used for gardens, or parts of gardens, where any type of water feature (particularly garden ponds) is a principal or dominant element. The primary focus is on plants, but they will sometimes ...

, an

herb garden The traditional kitchen garden, vegetable garden, also known as a potager (from the French ) or in Scotland a kailyaird, is a space separate from the rest of the residential garden – the ornamental plants and lawn areas. It is used for grow ...

, a

vegetable garden The traditional kitchen garden, vegetable garden, also known as a potager (from the French ) or in Scotland a kailyaird, is a space separate from the rest of the residential garden – the ornamental plants and lawn areas. It is used for grow ...

, and a peasant's garden (''bondehave''). The gardens also feature four hedge

maze A maze is a path or collection of paths, typically from an entrance to a goal. The word is used to refer both to branching tour puzzles through which the solver must find a route, and to simpler non-branching ("unicursal") patterns that lead ...

s. The oldest is a

beech Beech (genus ''Fagus'') is a genus of deciduous trees in the family Fagaceae, native to subtropical (accessory forest element) and temperate (as dominant element of Mesophyte, mesophytic forests) Eurasia and North America. There are 14 accepted ...

maze several hundreds of years old. This garden is trimmed every year to prevent the trees from dying. The newest maze is the world's largest

bamboo Bamboos are a diverse group of mostly evergreen perennial plant, perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily (biology), subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family, in th ...

maze. It features a Chinese tower in the centre, and a bridge from the tower provides the exit from the maze. The parks feature a three-meter-tall

sundial A sundial is a horology, horological device that tells the time of day (referred to as civil time in modern usage) when direct sunlight shines by the position of the Sun, apparent position of the Sun in the sky. In the narrowest sense of the ...

designed by Danish poet and mathematician, Piet Hein. The land surrounding the castle also includes a number of playgrounds and children's play structures. The estate includes an additional eight square kilometres; is forest, with the rest being farmland. In 1986, a full-sized replica of the castle was built in

Hokkaidō is the second-largest island of Japan and comprises the largest and northernmost prefecture, making up its own region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō from Honshu; the two islands are connected by railway via the Seikan Tunnel. The ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

, to hold an

aquarium An aquarium (: aquariums or aquaria) is a vivarium of any size having at least one transparent side in which aquatic plants or animals are kept and displayed. fishkeeping, Fishkeepers use aquaria to keep fish, invertebrates, amphibians, aquati ...

. This was constructed with the permission of the Egeskov's owners at the time, Count Claus and Countess Louisa Ahlefeldt-Laurvig-Bille.

Museums

Egeskov is home to the following

museum A museum is an institution dedicated to displaying or Preservation (library and archive), preserving culturally or scientifically significant objects. Many museums have exhibitions of these objects on public display, and some have private colle ...

s. * A vintage automobile collection * A vintage motorcycle collection * A collection describing the history of agriculture * A collection of flying vehicles * A collection of Falck and other emergency vehicles Most of the castle is open to the public, except for the areas used by

Count Count (feminine: countess) is a historical title of nobility in certain European countries, varying in relative status, generally of middling rank in the hierarchy of nobility. Pine, L. G. ''Titles: How the King Became His Majesty''. New York: ...

Michael Ahlefeldt-Laurvig-Bille. The museum of

agriculture Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created ...

and the horse wagon collection is located in the building Ladegård mentioned previously. Three large modern buildings are occupied by the vintage

automobile A car, or an automobile, is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of cars state that they run primarily on roads, Car seat, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport private transport#Personal transport, peopl ...

collection, the vintage

motorcycle A motorcycle (motorbike, bike; uni (if one-wheeled); trike (if three-wheeled); quad (if four-wheeled)) is a lightweight private 1-to-2 passenger personal motor vehicle Steering, steered by a Motorcycle handlebar, handlebar from a saddle-style ...

collection, the Falck collection, and by a collection of

airplane An airplane (American English), or aeroplane (Commonwealth English), informally plane, is a fixed-wing aircraft that is propelled forward by thrust from a jet engine, Propeller (aircraft), propeller, or rocket engine. Airplanes come in a vari ...

s and

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which Lift (force), lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning Helicopter rotor, rotors. This allows the helicopter to VTOL, take off and land vertically, to hover (helicopter), hover, and ...

s. The Falck collection is a collection of vehicles from the Danish rescue company, ''Falck'', emergency vehicles such as

fire trucks A fire engine or fire truck (also spelled firetruck) is a vehicle, usually a specially designed or modified truck, that functions as a firefighting apparatus. The primary purposes of a fire engine include transporting firefighters and water to ...

ambulance An ambulance is a medically-equipped vehicle used to transport patients to treatment facilities, such as hospitals. Typically, out-of-hospital medical care is provided to the patient during the transport. Ambulances are used to respond to ...

s, rescue boats, and other assorted

emergency vehicle An emergency vehicle is a vehicle used by emergency services. Emergency vehicles typically have specialized Emergency vehicle lighting, emergency lighting and Emergency vehicle equipment, vehicle equipment that allow emergency services to reach Ca ...

List of owners

Gallery

File:Egeskov Slot A1.jpg, Exterior view File:Egeskov Slot A2.jpg, Exterior view File:Egeskov Slot A3.jpg, Exterior view File:Egeskov Slot A4.jpg, Exterior view

References

Literature

External links

Official homepage of Egeskov Castle
*The glass building that serves as the entrance area of Egeskov Castle was constructed b
Drivadan
{{Castles in Denmark Houses completed in 1554 Castles in Denmark Listed buildings and structures in Faaborg-Midtfyn Municipality Listed castles and manor houses in Denmark Castles and manor houses on Funen Water castles Museums in the Region of Southern Denmark Historic house museums in Denmark Renaissance architecture in Denmark Tourist attractions in Faaborg-Midtfyn Municipality 1554 establishments in Denmark Buildings and structures of the Brockenhuus family Buildings and structures of the Brahe family Buildings and structures of the Ahlefeldt family Buildings and structures of the Bille family Buildings and structures of the Ulfeldt family