Story
The story of Egeskov Castle
Legend says it took an entire forest of oak trees to build the foundations of this castle, and that is how it got its name: Egeskov means oak forest. Standing on oaken piles in a small lake up to 5 metres deep, Egeskov is Denmark's best preserved Renaissance water castle. It was first mentioned in 1405, and the castle you see was built by Frands Brockenhuus in 1554, in unsettled times when Danish noblemen built their homes as fortifications.
At first the only way in was a drawbridge. Two long houses are joined by a double wall more than a metre thick, hiding secret staircases and a well, so defenders could abandon one house and keep fighting from the other. Since 1882 the counts Ahlefeldt-Laurvig-Bille have owned the estate.
Around the castle lies an old park of 20 hectares, with a fuchsia garden of 104 species, four hedge mazes, including the world's largest bamboo maze, and a tall sundial designed by Piet Hein.
This story is compiled from Wikipedia and other open sources; dates and numbers are checked against the source. The text is shared under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence. Source ↗
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