Frederiksborg Castle is a former royal castle situated in Hillerød, in North Zealand, Denmark.
Frederiksborg Castle History
The medieval village of Hillerød can be deduced from the first mention, in 1275, of a manor house, Hillerødsholm, built on an islet in a marshy area surrounded by forests.
In 1560 King Frederick II acquired Hillerødsholm and converted it into a royal residence, renaming it Frederiksborg. The plan of the existing castle is still based on Frederick’s hunting lodge, with the buildings disposed on three islets in an artificial lake (dammed in the 1560s).
The servants’ buildings on the first islet have been preserved, with heavy corner towers at the north bearing the King’s motto and the date 1562 in iron ties.
Other surviving buildings include the pantry wing (the 1580s), on the west bank in front of the third islet, and the baths, built by Hans Floris in the park northwest of the lake.
The buildings are of red brick, with some stepped gables and details in light sandstone, following Netherlandish building traditions, which are most pronounced in the baths.
Records, excavations, and two views by Hans Knieper—one on a tapestry, which originally hung in the ballroom at Kronborg Castle, Helsingør, and the other on a panel painting, originally at Frederiksborg Castle(Mariefred, Gripsholm Slott)—show that the royal residence was on the third islet; it was a double house, probably already in existence and altered in 1575 by the King.
On the middle islet, there was a large half-timbered kitchen building with, facing west, a chapel embellished with Italianate Renaissance gables.
Christian IV, who was born at Frederiksborg, probably planned to convert the manor into a princely residence in a European manner soon after his accession. In 1599 work began on a pleasure palace known as Sparepenge (destroyed in 1720), which served as a temporary residence on the north bank of the lake from 1602 to 1611 while the main castle was being built on the third islet.
The quadrangular castle was built in phases to 1623: first the royal residence to the north, then the west wing with the chapel (interior arranged 1608–1617) beneath the ballroom, as in Kronborg Castle, and finally the princesses’ wing and the low terrace wing to the south.
At the outbreak of the Kalmar War (1611–1613), the main exterior was completed, and there followed three new buildings on the middle islet: the house of the lord of the manor, the chancellery, and a huge gate tower by the bridge to the first islet, where the buildings from Frederick II’s reign were allowed to remain to stand, contrary to the original intentions.
The first architect of Christian IV’s castle is unknown. Hans van Steenwinckel I, whose son Hans II was attached to the building program from 1614, has been suggested, but only the names of the leading craftsmen, including Jørgen Friborg ( fl 1588–1625) and Caspar Boegaert (d 1612), are mentioned in the records.
The apparent lack of a chief architect until after the Kalmar War may explain the inconsistencies in planning.
The French-inspired plan of the castle’s main building with its cour donner opening axially onto the basse-cour of the middle islet, above the low terrace wing, was only partially achieved because neither Sparepenge nor the old buildings on the first islet are on the north–south main axis.
In the main castle building the symmetrical requirements of the Renaissance style are broken by the large clock tower on the chapel wing, while the three wings are effectively independent houses superficially merged to form a whole.
There are numerous instances of improvisations and changes during building.
The Frederiksborg Castle thus combines old and new. The exterior, like its predecessor, is in Netherlandish Renaissance style, red brick buildings with sandstone details, embellished by sweeping gables and imaginative spires.
The resulting picturesque quality was evidently more important than the rigorous requirements of symmetry.
Moreover, of the greatest importance for the builder was the lavish sculptural decoration, which glorifies Christian IV as the leading Protestant prince through themes from astrology and ancient mythology (the Mint gate-house, the terrace wing and marble gallery, and the Neptune Fountain of 1615–24 by Adriaen de Vries; original now Stockholm, Drottningholms Slott) and ancient Roman and Danish history (e.g. pedestal statues of Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, and emperors and legendary kings in the window gables).
This triumphal process culminates in the chapel, the entire decoration of which can be seen as a demonstration of the King’s theocratic princely ideal.
The chapel, with its gallery system, represents a further development of the architectural traditions from the Protestant princely chapel of the 16th century (e.g. in Germany at Schloss Hartenfels, Torgau, and Schloss Wilhelmsburg, Schmalkalden) and is closely related to the recently built chapel at Koldinghus Castle, Jutland.
It is the only stateroom to be almost entirely preserved from the time of the castle’s original building.
The ballroom, with its tapestries by Karel van Mander II (c. 1579–1623) depicting Christian IV’s coronation and victories in the Kalmar War (now only partially known through copy drawings of 1858 by Heinrich Hansen (1821–90) and Frederick Christian Lund (1826–1901)), and the King’s private oratory, installed and decorated from 1615 to 1620 in the north end of the chapel, with paintings by Pieter Lastman, Adriaen van Nieulandt, and others, were destroyed by fire in 1859 and can be reconstructed only from early descriptions and representations prior to that date.
In 1659 Frederiksborg was occupied by the Swedes, who removed several art treasures, including the Neptune Fountain (replaced in 1888 by a copy).
The interior of the Mint gate-house and the secret passage, added to the west side of the main palace building from 1612, was redecorated as an audience chamber in 1681–8 in glorification of the absolute monarch Christian V by his chief architect, Lambert van Haven. In 1720 a formal garden in the French style was laid out north of the lake (where Sparepenge was formerly situated) by Johan Cornelius Krieger.
The kings now resided at Frederiksborg rarely, and it was only with the onset of 19th-century Romanticism that the building became a commemorative castle to the glorious past of Denmark–Norway, and a royal residence once again under Frederick VII (1848–1863). The fire in the main castle in 1859, however, spared only the chapel and the gatehouse. This was felt to be a national catastrophe, and a rebuilding program was soon started under the direction of Ferdinand Meldahl.
In 1875 the exterior of the main palace was essentially completed, and in 1877 the Nationalhistoriske Museum på Frederiksborg was established at the initiative of the brewer Jacob Christian Jacobsen, under whose direction the interior was reconstructed with funding from his newly established Carlsberg Foundation.
The town of Hillerød was always dependent on the castle since it was difficult to persuade people to settle in that remote, wooded region. It became a place of residence for building workers, courtiers, and foreign guests, and the castle chapel was its parish church from 1631.
Owing to the fires of 1692, 1733, and 1834 no significant historic buildings have been preserved from before the Neo-classical period of the early 19th century, the most important example of which is the former grammar school (1834) by Jørgen Hansen Koch (1787–1860).
Among more characteristic buildings from the second half of the 19th century, the most important is by Vilhelm Holck (1856–1936) in a historicist style inspired by Christian IV’s Renaissance castle(e.g. the town hall, built 1887–8, and the ‘Sparekassen’ bank, built 1898–1900).
Frederiksborg Castle Location
Frederiksborg Castle is located at the following address: Slotsgade 54, 3400 Hillerød, Denmark. Use this map to get help with directions: