Vallen Castle is in Våxtorp in the county of

Halland Halland () is one of the traditional provinces of Sweden (''landskap''), on the western coast of Götaland, southern Sweden. It borders Västergötland, Småland, Skåne, Scania and the sea of Kattegat. Until 1645 and the Second Treaty of Br ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

. The estate was first settled in the 13th century by the knight Peder Laxmand. By 1400 the site was owned by brothers Åke and Povel Laxmand. The castle eventually built on the site was burned and looted multiple times during the wars between Sweden and

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 ...

. In 1654 the estate's last Danish owner ceded the property to Sweden. That year, it was acquired by the Swedish county governor Magnus Durell. His spouse,

Birgitta Durell Brechtgien "Birgitta" Durell, née ''von Crakow'' or ''von Cracauw'' (1619 in Hoorn, the Netherlands – 1683 in Sweden) was a Swedish (originally Dutch) industrialist. She was the daughter of Carel van Cracauw, the Dutch envoy to Copenhagen, ...

, made the estate the base of a prosperous industry, in which the peasantry in the province of Halland knitted socks her, which she sold to the Swedish army: this industry, based in the Vallen Castle and sometime known as the ''Laholm manufacture'', was kept by the family for over a century. Du Rietz, Anita, Kvinnors entreprenörskap: under 400 år, 1. uppl., Dialogos, Stockholm, 2013

References

Castles in Halland County Laholm Municipality {{Sweden-castle-stub