This guide takes you on a tour through Northern Europe’s largest castle ruin, Hammershuus. The sketch drawings at the top of each page show the part of the monument, as it looks today. Below this the text and images show how the building originally looked and worked. If you follow the route on the map, the text is a translation of the Danish signs at the castle.
The fact that Hammershus castle ruins are so well preserved today is a bit of a miracle. In 1743 it was determined that the whole castle would be demolished so the building materials could be used for the fortification of Ronne. The following year 50,000 wallstones and 6,000 bricks were removed from the castle, which soon became a sort of public quarry. It was only in 1822 that Hammershus became a protected, monument but there was still some time before the much-needed maintenance of the ruin got started.
From 1885 until his death in 1928, R.C.Hauberg was in charge of the extensive restoration work, which included major repairs to Manteltårnet and storehouse. In the late 1930s took the National Museum once again addressed the excavations and restorations to preserve Hammershus for posterity. Although the ruins today gives only a faint impression of Hammershus in it’s heyday, with a little imagination you can easily visualize this impressive castle.
Publisher Information
Published in 1986 by Fredningsstyretsen Unchanged edition in 1997
Environment and Energy, Danish Forest and Nature Agency
Illustration Boards and organization Catharina Ox
Prospectus Drawings: Henrik Jørgensen North
ISBN: 87-503-6015-9
Printers : Stougaard Jensen / Scan Press, Copenhagen
Skov og Naturstyrelsen, Haraldsgade 53 2100 København Ø,
Phone : 0045 39472000
http://naturstyrelsen.dk/publikationer/alle-publikationer/2009/mar/hammershus-i-tekst-og-tegninger/
Acknowledgements
The following webpages were created from the book Hammershus in text & drawings. It’s available to download from the link above. The original version has limited English & German descriptions which is why I wanted to make the full information accessible to a wider audience and in a more user friendly format than a PDF.All copyrights rest with the original publisher.