Glorup Manor

Glorup is a manor house located between Nyborg and Svendborg in the south-east of the Danish island Funen. Rebuilt to the design of Nicolas-Henri Jardin and his pupil Christian Josef Zuber in 1763–65, it is considered one of the finest Baroque complexes in Denmark and was included in the 2006 Danish Culture Canon.

Glorup is first mentioned in 1390, but nothing is known about the building at that time and the name may refer to a village rather than a building.

The first reliable documentation of Glorup is from the Renaissance, when Christoffer Valkendorff built a four-winged house in two storeys with four towers, surrounded by a moat. It was an impressive building for its time but only the foundation with the cellar and a sandstone tablet with a horse and the Valkendorf coat of arms are left of this house. Nowadays the tablet is placed over a door in the old riding-house.

Glorup was owned by the Walkendorff family from 1400 to 1661, when they were forced to sell the estate following the destructions of the Northern Wars. Glorup was then owned by the Ahlefeldt family from 1661 to 1711 before coming into the possession of the Plessen family in 1711.

In 1723, Privy Councillor (Danish: Gehejmeråd) Christian Ludvig Scheel-Plessen inherited Glorup and, from 1743 to 1744, rebuilt the house with the assistance of architect Philip de Lange. One storey disappeared and a Mansard roof was put on all four wings. The house was plastered and whitewashed. The prevalent architectural style of the time was Baroque.

After the death of Scheel-Plessen in 1762, Glorup was purchased by Count Adam Gottlob Moltke of Bregentved, who at the same time bought Rygaard, the neighbouring manor, for 120,000 rigsdaler. The cost was partly covered by a prize of 60,000 which he had won on the lottery together with the dowry he received from his second wife. Moltke, a prominent and skillful farmer, put the manor on its feet again, helped by the rising prices of agricultural products in Europe. Count Moltke was very pleased with his new acquisition, but the house already looked old-fashioned. He therefore decided to have it modernized, commissioning Denmark's foremost architect, Nicolas-Henri Jardin, who had just assisted him at Marienlyst Palace, and his architectural designer Christian Josef Zuber.

Text adapted from “Glorup” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Glorup Manor ranks #4,225 of 8,133 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #47 of the 53 mapped in Denmark. Founded 1765, it is older than 16% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 556 atlas entries founded in the 18th century. 3 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Odense, 30 km away. See how Denmark compares in the castle statistics.

View on the interactive castle map →

Read the full history on Wikipedia ↗