Lerchenborg is a manor house located 4 km south of
Kalundborg
Kalundborg () is a Danish city with a population of 16,211 (1 January 2022),Zealand, Denmark.
History
Origins
The estate was established by
Carl von Ahlefeldt
Carl von Ahlefeldt (25 April 1670 – 7 September 1722) was a German-Danish statesman. He was a stadtholder and by birth a member of the House of Ahlefeld. He was part of the inner circle around Frederick IV until 1712 and then became Governor-g ...
when he closed down the village of Østrup to establish Østrupgård in 1704 from land that used to belong to
Kalundborg Castle
Kalundborg () is a Danish city with a population of 16,211 (1 January 2022),Nicolai Eigtved, Denmark's leading architect of the time.
Lerche received the
Order of the Elephant
The Order of the Elephant ( da, Elefantordenen) is a Danish order of chivalry and is Denmark's highest-ranked honour. It has origins in the 15th century, but has officially existed since 1693, and since the establishment of constitutional ...
in 1748 and was given status of count in 1752. He renamed his estate Lerchenborg in 1754 but did not establish it as a county (''grevskab'') which, since he had no direct heirs, would fall back to the king. Instead he founded a ''stamhus'' which secured succession rights for other lines of the Lerche family.
19th century
When Christian Cornelius Lerche, who had inherited Lerchenborg in 1804, was ennobled with rank of count, on 26 May 1818, Lerchenborg was combined with Aunsøgård, Mineslund, Asnæsgård, Lerchenfeld, Birkendegård, Vesterbygård, Astrup and Davrup to form the County of Lerchenborg (''Grevskabet Lerchenborg'').
In 1862,
Hans Christian Andersen
Hans Christian Andersen ( , ; 2 April 1805 – 4 August 1875) was a Danish author. Although a prolific writer of plays, travelogues, novels, and poems, he is best remembered for his literary fairy tales.
Andersen's fairy tales, consisti ...
stayed at Lerchenborg for a week as guest of Count C.A. Lerche.
20th century
The county was dissolved in 1923 and the Lerchenborg estate passed out of the Lerche family's ownership in 1927. However, in 1952 it was reacquired by a member of the family, Christian Albrecht Frederik Lerche-Lerchenborg, and has been owned by the Lerchenborg counts ever since. Mineslund and Asnæsgården were sold off in connection with the reacquission..
Architecture
Lerchenborg is a three-winged white-washed Rococo complex, consisting of a two-storey, seventeen bay main wing and two lower, detached lateral wings. The main wing has a three-bay median risilit with a triangular pediment and corner projections of two bays with rounded pediments, all with Rococo decorations. The rear side is basically of the same pattern. There is a central entrance on each side of the building.
Interior
The house has fine Rococo style interiors. The hipped roofs on all three buildings are of
slate
Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...
, although originally they had red tiles.
Surroundings
The entire complex of main building, farm buildings and park form a strictly symmetrical unity in accordance with the aesthetic principles of the
Baroque
The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...
. On one side, the house is approached through a hierarchy of courtyards, formed by barns and stables, and on the other side the central axis of the complex continues through the park and into the countryside.
The original French-style
Baroque garden
The Baroque garden was a style of garden based upon symmetry and the principle of imposing order on nature. The style originated in the late-16th century in Italy, in the gardens of the Vatican and the Villa Borghese gardens in Rome and in the ga ...
was designed by the Belgian-Danish architect and engineering officer Jean Baptiste de Longueville but most of it was adapted into an English-style
landscape garden
The English landscape garden, also called English landscape park or simply the English garden (french: Jardin à l'anglaise, it, Giardino all'inglese, german: Englischer Landschaftsgarten, pt, Jardim inglês, es, Jardín inglés), is a sty ...
in the 19th century. Today the park has an area of 20 hectares.
Owners
*(1300-1658) The Crown
*(1658-1680) Gabriel Marselis
*(1680-1703) Frants Marselis
*(1703-1722)
Carl von Ahlefeldt
Carl von Ahlefeldt (25 April 1670 – 7 September 1722) was a German-Danish statesman. He was a stadtholder and by birth a member of the House of Ahlefeld. He was part of the inner circle around Frederick IV until 1712 and then became Governor-g ...
*(1722-1724) Ulrikke Amalie Danneskiold-Laurvig
*(1724-1726) Christoffer Watkinson
*(1726-1729) The estate of Christoffer Watkinsons
*(1729-1742) John de Thornton
*(1742-1757) Christian Lerche
*(1757-1766) Amalie Margrethe Christiane Caroline Leiningen-Westerburg née Lerche
*(1766-1798) Georg Flemming Lerche
*(1798-1852) Christian Cornelius Lerche-Lerchenborg
*(1852-1885) Christian Albrecht Lerche
*(1885-1927) Christian Cornelius Lubbi Lerche-Lerchenborg
*(1927-1928) J. Bruhn
*(1928-1950) Peter Andreas Lund
*(1950-1952) Enkefru Marie Lund
*(1952) Statens Jordlovsudvalg
*(1952-1970) Christian Albrecht Frederik Lerche-Lerchenborg
*(1970-1985) Christian Alfred Vincents Lerche-Lerchenborg
*(1985–Present) Christian Cornelius Knud Lerche-Lerchenborg