Bangsbo Museum, Fort and Bunker Museum

Bangsbo Museum, Fort and Bunker Museum
Not far from Frederikshavn you will find the beautiful Bangsbo Hovedgaard. The old building is surrounded by medieval moats and forms the framework of Bangsbo Museum and Bangsbo Botanical Garden, as well as the Bangsbo Fortress and Bunker Museum.

Enjoy a walk around the beautiful old manor house, which now houses a large collection of furniture and clothes. Here you will also find a permanent exhibition about the history of the Port of Frederikshavn, and in theBanquet hall, special exhibitions are held with events throughout the year.

Every year, you can visit the Bangsbo Flower Festival, which attracts guests from near and far.

And if you come to Bangsbo Hovedgaard, the garden is definitely worth a visit. It’s magical. When you step into Bangsbo Botanical Garden’s and its abundance of scents and colors, it is not difficult to dream oneself back to Bangsbo’s heyday when the gardener performed his work wearing suits and high hat.

In the old English-inspired gardens, poetry and history still live between rhododendrons, roses and primula. Since Bangsbo’s heyday in the 15th century, the area has been laid out as a garden plant, whether it has been a herb garden, or departments with fruit trees and decorative flowers.

The gardens around Bangsbo have always been there and reflected the interest of the time in the garden, and in the 19th century Bangsbo was the idyllic place that future poets navigated to experience peace and quiet.

The gardens have undergone major changes depending on which owner sat in the hall and what style was now up in the time. Like Hovedgaarden. Bangsbo Hovedgaard has lived a very changeable life, both in terms of architecture and its many owners. Since 1364, when Bangsbo was first mentioned in a letter of April 13, the building has been demolished and rebuilt many times, and a whole 49 times a new owner’s letter has been drawn up.

The buildings today house cozy museums, with extensions where, among other things, a permanent exhibitions on eg. Frederikshavn’s role in World War II and the Local History Museum.

Just 2 kilometers from Bangsbo Hovedgaard you will find Bangsbo Fort and Bunkermuseet. Bangsbo Fort is located at Pikkerbakken in 82 meters high, which gives a fantastic view over Frederikshavn and the Kattegat. In clear weather you can see both Skagen and Læsø. The plant was built during World War II by the German occupying power and expanded by the Danish navy during the Cold War. The fort is thus used for two historical periods, which distinguishes it from other fortified areas in Denmark.The fort is a fortification facility consisting of 80 concrete plants, of which 70 were built during World War II. The last 10 bunkers were built in 1950 by the Navy, who still owns and uses a smaller part of the fort.

Bangsbo Fort, which is a partly open military area, is located on a hill plateau in the southern edge of Frederiks-havn harbor. Right on Pikkerbakken which is one of the many hills that were formed when the seabed was pushed up at the end of the last ice age. The ground consists mainly of clay and stone. The height of the hill is up to 84 meters. The steep slopes facing the sea and the extraordinary nature make the place unique.

The strategic importance of the hill as an observation site dates back hundreds of years. At Denmark’s occupation on April 9, 1940, the German navy immediately declared the area of ​​a coastal battery and an air defense battery.Both batteries with the task of protecting Frederikshavn Harbor from enemy attacks. The port was important for the Germans in connection with the transports to and from Norway as well as the base for the war marine’s activities in the Kattegat and Skagerrak.

During the occupation, the navy extended its installations several times on site. A massive expansion of the area came at the end of 1942, when the construction of the Germans’  Atlantvold accelerated. The task of the wall was to prevent the Allies from making landing on this coast. In Denmark, Atlantvolden started on the Pikkerbakken and then crossed Skagen to the Danish-German border.

Today, the Navy still has the 35 acres area. Kattegat Marine District - which monitors the northern Danish waters - located in a closed area. The rest of the area, which is 27 acres, has been deserted since the 1960s and has only been used for training purposes to a limited extent. In the early 1990s, guided tours of the area were opened.

It was especially the three preserved 15 centimeter guns in the firing piles that were displayed - also referred to as Niels Juels guns. In 2004, the Navy began a larger and more permanent opening of the area to the public, including in the form of the Queen’s path. In 2005, Bangsbo Museum moved into the fort and took over the dissemination and the museum activities.

In June 2005, the museum bunker opened in the middle of the area of ​​what was once the German Commander’s Command Bunker. In the following years, additional bunkers have been involved in the museum’s communication on the spot, and a wide range of activities have been realized.