Holmen Cemetery ( Danish: Holmens Kirkegård) is the oldest cemetery still in use in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan a ...

Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of Denmark , establish ...

. It was first located next to the

naval A navy, naval force, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations and related functions. It inclu ...

Church of Holmen The Holmen Church ( da, Holmens Kirke) is a Parish church in central Copenhagen in Denmark, on the street called Holmens Kanal. First built as an anchor forge in 1563, it was converted into a naval church by Christian IV. It is famous for having ...

in the city centre but relocated to its current site on Dag Hammarskjölds Allé in the

Østerbro Østerbro () (literally, "Eastern Bridge") is one of the 10 official districts of Copenhagen, Denmark. It is located just north of the city centre, outside the old city gate Østerport which, after it was moved around 1700, used to be located clos ...

district in 1666. The cemetery originally served as a burial site for indigent sailors in royal service and their families, complementing the military

Garnisons Cemetery Garrison Cemetery (Danish: Garnisons Kirkegård) is a cemetery in Copenhagen, Denmark. It was inaugurated in 1671 on a site just outside the Eastern City Gate, as a military cemetery complementing the naval Holmens Cemetery which had been inaugu ...

, from 1711 located on a neighbouring site.

History

When the anchor forge at

Bremerholm Gammelholm ( lit. "Old Islet") is a predominantly residential neighbourhood in the city centre of Copenhagen, Denmark. It is bounded by the Nyhavn canal, Kongens Nytorv, Holmens Kanal, Niels Juels Gade and the waterfront along Havnegade. For cen ...

was converted into a naval church by

Christian IV Christian IV (12 April 1577 – 28 February 1648) was King of Denmark and Norway and Duke of Holstein and Schleswig from 1588 until his death in 1648. His reign of 59 years, 330 days is the longest of Danish monarchs and Scandinavian monar ...

in 1619, a churchyard was laid out next to it. It remained in use until 1651 but was then, following an extension of the church between 1641 and 1649, relocated to a site outside the Bastioned Fortifications, next to the main road leading in and out of the

Eastern City Gate Eastern City Gate of Belgrade оr Istočna Kapija Beograda ( sr, Источна Капија Београда) is a complex of three large residential buildings situated near the E-75 motorway in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, and is among the m ...

. The grounds had already been in use as a cemetery since 1662 but was inaugurated as the new Holmen Cemetery in 1666. The existing layout of the cemetery was created by sær F. C. Schmidt in 1798.

Chapel

The chapel at Holmen Cemetery was built in 1902 to the design of architect and professor

Ludvig Fenger Ludvig Peter Fenger (7 July 1833 – 9 March 1905) was a Danish architect. He was a proponent of the Historicist style, and from 1886 to 1904 he held the title of City Architect in Copenhagen. Among his works are several churches, the Centr ...

. He favoured the Historicist styles and in Copenhagen he had already designed St. James' Church (1876–1878) in a

Gothic Revival style Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

and St. Mathew's Church (1878–1880) in a

Romanesque Revival style Romanesque Revival (or Neo-Romanesque) is a style of building employed beginning in the mid-19th century inspired by the 11th- and 12th-century Romanesque architecture. Unlike the historic Romanesque style, Romanesque Revival buildings tended to ...

. In his design of the chapel at Holmen Cemetery he relied on traditional Nordic

stave church A stave church is a medieval wooden Christian church building once common in north-western Europe. The name derives from the building's structure of post and lintel construction, a type of timber framing where the load-bearing ore-pine posts ar ...

es for inspiration. The chapel is an adapted stave church design, lacking the tall, tower-like appearance which is normally seen in such buildings, but the shingled

slate roof 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. ...

, the

tar Tar is a dark brown or black viscous liquid of hydrocarbons and free carbon, obtained from a wide variety of organic materials through destructive distillation. Tar can be produced from coal, wood, petroleum, or peat. "a dark brown or black bi ...

red timber and the carved animal heads are characteristic features.

Battle of Copenhagen memorial

There is a memorial for naval personnel killed in the Battle of Copenhagen from 1802. It consists of a

tumulus A tumulus (plural tumuli) is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds or '' kurgans'', and may be found throughout much of the world. A cairn, which is a mound of stones ...

topped by an

obelisk An obelisk (; from grc, ὀβελίσκος ; diminutive of ''obelos'', " spit, nail, pointed pillar") is a tall, four-sided, narrow tapering monument which ends in a pyramid-like shape or pyramidion at the top. Originally constructed by An ...

Johannes Wiedewelt Johannes Wiedewelt (1 July 1731 – 17 December 1802), Danish neoclassical sculptor. He became a court sculptor, introducing neoclassical ideals to Denmark in the form of palace decorations, garden sculptures and artifacts and, especially, m ...

Interments

References

External links