During winter time, one has to constantly monitor the weather in order to find a suitable chance to get airborne.
When I was driving to my flying club in Holbæk, I wasn’t sure it would be possible to have even a local flight. But the desire to go flying was so strong that I was willing to drive 75 km each way in hope of a short flight.
The weather was quite unstable, and it looked like it was going to be fine around Holbæk – but maybe not all the time. I thought I could have a look at the nearby castles/manor housers, I hadn’t photographed yet. I chose 5 manors between the Skærresø and Tissø lakes, and created a route:
Before reaching to the first manor on my list, I did a couple of rounds over the gravel pits west of Skærresø. It is always fun to see those places from air:
My first “stop” was Astrupgaard. Located by the side of Skærresø lake, it was easy to find. In respect of people’s privacy, I never fly low over the houses I take pictures of, nor do I ever overfly their estates with the purpose of taking pictures. It is more about what you can experience from air, and interesting stories behind some historic places.
The manor Astrupgaard was established by merging several farms in the village of Astrup. Those farms were part of the estate that the Danish King Frederik III (1609-1670) gave to the merchant Gabriel Marselis, who had granted loans to the king. I thought, Gabriel Marselis wasn’t a Danish name – and how come a foreigner would get estate in Denmark from a King? I asked Google, and found a number of interesting articles.
Gabriel Marselis (1609 – 1673) was born in Hamburg to Dutch parents, with his farther beeing a wealthy international merchant. During 1625 – 1629, Denmark was suffering from its involvement in European war together with foreign troops destroying the country, and food was badly needed. Gabriel Marselis’ bond to Denmark was first established in 1628, when he made a contract with the Danish King Christian IV for supply of grain from Russia to Denmark. In 1630s, The King appointed Marselis to become a Royal Danish resident and a counsil.
Gabriel Marselis was also the King’s banker, and when – from time to time – the debt became too large, Christian IV had to pledge. It went so far that the crown regalia, like the royal crown, the scepter and the apple, which are symbols of the king’s power and dignity used at coronations and anointing ceremonies, ended up in the Marselis hands. Denmark later succeeded in raising money for the redemption of the royal crown, which is today kept at Rosenborg Castle, but scepter and royal apple never came back.
Gabriel Marselis continued to be the banker for the next Danisk King – Frederik III, and to provide money for more wars. One of the king’s orders was for the delivery of an army of 10,000 men for 6 months with weapons, ammunition, shoes, clothes, provisions, which Marselis of course delivered.
Eventually, the debt to Marselis and other foreign creditors had grown so large that a repayment would be impossible. To resolve the country’s hopeless economic situation, the state’s creditors were forced to take over the crown property, which the king had confiscated from the church well over 100 years earlier – at the Reformation in 1536.
Gabriel Marselis did not settle on his newly acquired possessions, but he made sure his two youngest sons could take over the estates after his death. They did well in Denmark, and the name Marselis still well-known. In Århus, we have Marselisborg Castle which is the summer residence of our Queen Margrethe II. A boulevard in Århus (and a number of other places) named after Marselis family.
In 1665, Gabriel Marselis was knighted and admitted to the Danish nobility. Although living in the Netherlands, he joined the Danish Ministry of Trade, where he sat until his death in 1673. What an exciting life!
I continued my flying in the area. Just south of Astrupgaard, light clouds were passing by. They looked very innocent, but the air around them was quite turbulent:
I began to doubt my planned flight could be fulfilled… Close by, there was another manor I wanted to see – Avnsøgaard:
Avnsøgaard was first mentioned in 1231, where the farm appeared in the King’s Valdemar II land taxation register. There is evidence, that the estate was used as a royal hunting ground at that time and for more than 400 years onwards.
Avnsøgaard is located by the Avnsø Old Church, the oldest part of which is estimated to have been built in the 13th century. The church was used as a private chapel for the then royally owned estate.
I couldn’t fly south of Astrupgaard and Avnsøgaard, to my next 3 manors for that day – there were low clouds that looked like something called “street” of clouds, but a closer investigation revealed it was rather a large field of clouds. Flying below them would be too turbulent and flying above them (they were scattered) wouldn’t make much sense, because it would be too high for taking pictures.
I also wanted to stay alert in that unstable weather – not to be cut off Holbæk – so I turned back to my way home. I had one last waypoint from my plan, I could experience from air – Jyderup women’s prison:
Jyderup prison has 143 places, and it receives women from all over the country. In Denmark, there are around 170 female prisoners in prisons and detention centers, which corresponds to approx. 5 pct. of the inmates.
Around 700,000 women and girls are being held in correctional institutions throughout the world. Hong Kong had the largest share of female prisoners as of 2021, with about 20 percent of its detainees being women. Sad statistics…
There were the same kind of clouds gathering closer to Holbæk, and after flying for a little more, I decided to land. This is how the trip looked like, with the 3 other manors left for another time:
It was good to be airborne, but difficult to take pictures due to turbulence and gusts.
It was my intention to practice landings, but the wind got stronger, and I decided to leave it for another day, too.
*****
Sources of information used in this blogpost (in Danish):
https://www.visitaarhus.dk/aarhus/se-og-oplev/sightseeing/historien-om-marselisborg-slot
https://www.kongehuset.dk/nyheder/kronregalier
http://marselis.net/historie/3-marselis-slaegten.html
https://biografiskleksikon.lex.dk/Gabriel_Marselis
https://www.viskingekirke.dk/om-kirkerne/aunsoe-gamle-kirke
wikipedia articles