Silkeborg Castle

[Daniel Silk]

www.fortidsmindeguide.dk/Silkeborg-Slot.ma008.0.html

Silkeborg is a fairly young city which chiefly arose about the paper industry by Gudenåen in the middle of the 1800s, and only few people know much about the city's early history as the ruins of castle island by Gudenåens estuary in Silkeborg Langsø represent.

Slotsholmen (1) has a protruding nose that protrudes from the east into the river and the lake, and here is through archaeological surveys in 1880-82 and 1949 revealed traces of several medieval buildings. When you have to visit the site today it is only possible from Viborgvej (2), where a footbridge (3) connects the castle island with the mainland.

The settlement is believed to be a palisadebefæstet islet from 1200-century, which was just east of the currently selected ruins, where the related courtyard from the later castle later was built. South of this islet built the first brick house on 15 x 7.5 m in early 1400-century.
From mid-1414 was transferred instead to the Bishop of Aarhus. When erected a new stone building (4) the tip of the headland, and it is the excavated foundations of this building which is marked on the castle island today.
The stone house was separated from the mainland by a moat dug (5), which is still visible just east of the ruin, and east of this lay the courtyard, which was again separated by a moat from the stable yard furthest east. Both the courtyard and barn yard timbered buildings, and barn yard is supposed to have been fortified with a wall on the landward side.

Underground at Christiansborg is inherently quite soft. Therefore it was necessary to support the stone house (6) with extensive pilot calling. Along the entire foundation and under the four pillars that bore opmurede underetagens vaults were driving the oak piles in about 2 meters wide, on which was laid a heavy construction of horizontal timber that could support the building's stone plinth. The house was posterity quite large: 30 x 15 meters and a stair tower on the east side and roof.

The buildings served from 1400-century to the Reformation in 1536 as a local administrative center for Aarhus bishop and occasional residence of the king. At the Reformation the property was included as crown lands, and remained in royal possession until 1664 when Frederik III. donated the site for Christian Thomas Fischer - King vinskænk in Glückstadt - as payment for a loan. The buildings on Slotsholmen gradually fell into disrepair in the following centuries, after the grueling Swedish wars was the big stone house so dilapidated that in 1726 was demolished.
Much of the stones from the palace was reused for the construction of Silkeborg Manor approx. 600 m south of Slotsholmen where Silkeborg Museum today is housed. Besides the world famous Tollund Man from the Iron Age, the museum also includes a review of the history and findings from the castle excavations.

Slotsholmen with the marked ground plan of the stone house now lies as a public park. The nearby paper mill as 150 years has been Silkeborg largest employer, is now shut down and converted into private homes and more., But the area east of the castle island still holds many unexplored opportunities to illuminate the city's earliest history.

[Daniel Silk]

Silkeborg Castle

Slotsholmen and Silkeborg Castle has previously been an important hub in central Jutland. Excavations have shown traces of different buildings from 1300-century and 300 years. Silkeborg castle here was the main edifice, which gave the town its name. Silkeborg Castle strategically important location have been the basis for developing the entire area into a cultural environment with water as the continuous, and this awareness has meant an increasing interest in the area.

[Daniel Silk]

members.virtualtourist.com/m/185e3/27222/

Silkeborg lies between the danish hills at the river Gudenåen.

The legend of the birth of Silkeborg tells us the next story:

Once a bishop named Peder travelled here and decided to build a farm. The problem was he had no idea where he should build it.

One time he sailed on the river Gudenåen. He took his silk hat and threw it in the river and said: Wherever my hat comes a shore, ther I will build my farm.

He built the farm on the exact spot and called it Silkeborg.

Silke = danish for silk.
Borg = danish for farm.

[Daniel Silk]

www.archive.org/stream/residenceinjutla02marruoft/residenceinjutla02marruoft_djvu.txt

If you fancy, because Silkeborg is the youngest toAvn
of the Danish dominions, she has no history of her own,
no legend, you are much mistaken ; on the very gi-ound
where we now stand once proudly frowned the towers of
her castle, a stronghold of the Bishops of Aarhuus. Put
by the paper and its manufactory, and fancy youi-self
carried back to the twelfth centmy, when Bishop Peter
Bagnscn * held the diocese of Aarhuus. For reasons
best known to himself, he determined to build a chateau

* Die4 1204. His mother Ingeborg was niece to Sir Asker Eyg, and
sister t(i tlie murdered cousin whom Bishop Absalon canonized. Boo
vol. i. p. 106.

28 SILKEBORG. Chap. XXX.

fort on the veiy banks of the Lang-So ; so he journeys
forth to fix the site, accompanied by a prior and a
stalwart knight, one of his relations; and in an open
boat they sail dovm. the Guden Aa to the borders of the
Lang-Sp. " Build it here," exclaims the prior, pointing
to a promontory hard by. " Nonsense !" said the knight ;
" trust to my judgment, I am a military man ;" and they
wrangle and dispute until the bishop's patience is quite
worn out, when a sudden gust of wind catches his silken
skull-cap, and away it flies into the deep waters. " Let
it go," exclaims Bishop Peter : " where the cap stays its
course, there will we build a fortress, and call its name
Silkeborg."

[Daniel Silk]

www2.blst.dk/download/aar/aaa/www/18467710093771ccc1256ed3002d1c4f.html

Silkeborg Castle The latest excavations at Silkeborg Castle show that Silkeborg was founded in 1385. The name Silkeborg is first mentioned at the beginning of the 15th century. The legend relates, how Bishop Peder from Aarhus lost his silk hat on the lake, and that he decided to build a castle right where the hat was washed ashore. The story is hardly true, but the remains of Silkeborg Castle still exist.

[Daniel Silk]

Silkeborg Badge

[Daniel Silk]

danmarkskirker.natmus.dk/uploads/tx_tcchurchsearch/Aarhus_6343-6344.pdf

"THE CASTLE AND THE TOWN. Silkeborg has developed as a town since 1844, when the founder Michael Drewsen built a modern paper factory to exploit the water power in the river Gudenåen.
However, the history of the place is consider- ably older, going back to a vanished castle, “Sil- ckeborigh”, which was built in 1385 on a point that forms the eastern bank of the mouth of the river in the lake Langsø (cf. p. 6275 fig. 2A and p. 6336 fig. 1).
In the period c. 1420-1536 Silkeborg was an important possession of the Århus bishops, who had a †chapel in the castle.All we know of this is that its Mass furnishings – altarcloth, chalice and paten, altar candlesticks, etc., – were later pre- served at the place.
After the Reformation the castle became the residence of a Royal vassal in this wild region. In 1664 King Frederik III granted Silkeborg as a private estate to one of his creditors, the cupbear- er Christian Fischer in Glückstadt. Around 1779 a later owner, Captain Nicolai Hoff, abandoned the residence on the isolated point and moved it to a place some 600 metres farther south, where the estate farm and mill were already located. There Nicolai Hoff built a new manor house, at the same time renovating the farm in brick (cf. p. 6275 fig. 2B and p. 6339 fig. 1).
This estate, Silkeborg Hovedgård (i.e. Silkeborg Manor), was again acquired by the Crown in 1823."

[Daniel Silk]

www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Silkeborg&defid=5832745