Castles of Hald

At the small lake Hald Sø has a castle with the same name. The current castle is actually the fifth version of a castle or fortress which has been built at the shore of the lake.

The oldest castle apparently was a very big fortress which was probably supposed to be a royal castle. The fortress was never completed and there are only a few remains of this old construction. There are still some dirt mound surrounding the original fortification but it doesn’t look all that formidable.

The two newest versions of the castle are found on a grassy lawn leading down to the lake. The fifth version of the castle is still standing and in use and there are several other buildings around the castle. The fourth version of the castle is long gone.

The walk to the second and third version of the castle follows a trail along the lake. There are a row of large trees along the trail. The avenue of trees is old and fairly impressive.

The second and third version of the castle is built on a small island in the lake which is connected to the mainland via a little dam. This old version of the fortress is pretty impressive with very high dirt mound which were used to defend the fortress. The fortress was built by Niels Bugge who rebelled against the Danish king and had to have a well defended fortress.

Niels Bugge made peace with the king – but eventually started another revolt. To mediate in this revolt Niels Bugge with two other rebel leaders left Jutland to go to Zealand to discuss with the king. Nothing came of the negotiations and the three men travelled back towards Jutland. When they reached the city of Middelfart they were murdered. Everybody suspected the king was behind the murders but he denied this and the city of Middelfart were held liable and had to pay an annual penalty for the murders. The city paid this penalty every year from 1358 until 1874 when they finally were relieved of the obligation.

The king took over Niels Bugge’s castle and later it was donated to the bishop of Viborg. The bishop held the fortress for many years and in 1528 the fortress was modernized and equipped with canons to be used as a defensive position in case the new Lutheran rebels would arrive and try to overthrow the Catholic Church.

The Lutheran finally took over the control of the church of Denmark during the reformation in 1536 and the bishop of Viborg was captured and put in jail in the tower of his fortress here at Hald.

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It is free to go inside the fortress and study the fortress and you can go inside the tower as well and head up to the top of the tower from where you have the best view of the area.