The Cathedral

The cathedral is Haderslev’s landmark; it towers high above the low houses on the town hill. There was a church on the cathedral site already in the 1100s - built with granite. The building of the church now to be found here began in the mid-1200s; however, the chancel did not look like it does now until after the year 1400.

The chapels for old Haderslev families are from the 1600s. The cathedral has been consecrated to St Mary or Our Madam, and it is known as one of the most perfect Gothic cathedrals in Denmark.

If you look at old engravings, you can see that the cathedral once had a western tower. Unfortunately, the tower was lost under the great fire in 1627, that destroyed also great parts of the town. The cathedral was then given a ridge turret which has since then provided the building with its distinctiveness.

The cathedral has been restored several times; the most recent restoration was in 1940-51 when it was given its light interior. One of the chapels is now a memorial chapel for the fallen members of the Slesvig Foot Soldier Regiment during the German occupation 1940-45. The cathedral’s main organ is the third largest in Denmark, and in the cathedral you will find also the famous Sieseby organ.

Each Friday at noon you can watch the only guard parade outside Copenhagen. The soldiers parade through Haderslev to the cathedral, where a memorial page is turned for the fallen soldiers from the Slesvig Foot Soldier Regiment. Please contact the tourist office if you need further information about which days the guard takes place.

Duke Hans

The red-tiled building just north of the cathedral originally housed the town’s latin school. The school was founded by Duke Hans the Older in 1567 as a replacement of a learned school from the Middle Ages. However, today the school looks like it did in 1735.

The Old Middle Age Town

If you cross Nørregade and continue into Slotsgade, you enter the part of town with the oldest houses that are still preserved. Several of the houses were built by Duke Hans’ castle clerks at Hansborg on sites that became available when the old Haderslevhus was torn down.

Slotsgade

Slotsgade 20 was restored a few years ago, and several valuable finds were made – for instance some wall paintings from the 1600s. Today the house is the home of the Ehlers Collection, which is northern Europe’s largest collection of pottery.

At Slotsgade 22 you will find Haderslev Town Museum. The house was built by Hansborg’s architect Hercules von Oberberg.

Slotsgade 23 and 31 are worth visiting, and you will find newly restored old houses in the side streets Højgade, Katsund, St. and Ll. Klinkbjerg as well. In 1994 Slotsgade 31 was awarded the prestigious international award ‘Europa Nostra’ for preservation of buildings in recognition of the careful restoration.

Slotsgade 33 houses the civic association; this is where the German-minded people meet.

You can then continue to the Slotsgrunden where the old Haderslevhus used to lie, and where the house in number 2 is the former fire station. If you walk down the Naffet, you will find a memorial for the old vicarage above the door at number 12.

From the Naffet you can walk down the street called Sejlstensgyde and pass a stately timber framing building, the Holsten Lansener’s Regiment’s riding school, that was built in 1792 when the regiment had its garrison in Haderslev.

The exciting Duke Hans period

If you continue across the Duke Hans Bridge along the Møllestrømmen, you will find the Duke Hans Hospital. The hospital was established in 1569 as a residence for poor, ill and old people. The hospital has been expanded and rebuilt several times, but the hospital church remains relatively unchanged and is now used as an ordinary church. On the southern side you will see a glass window with the arms of Duke Hans the Older. On one of the gables you will find Frederik IV’s monogram.

April 9

In the hospital’s yard there is an obelisk in memory of four Danish soldiers who fell during the battle at Sønderbro on April 9, 1940, when the German occupational forces moved into town.

At the point where the Møllestrømmen has been changed in order to establish a sufficiently high gradient lies the Castel Water Mill. It was built around the year 1400, but the building that is now there was erected during the reign of Frederik VI, whose name can be seen on the wall. Two cannonballs above a boarded up door facing Sønderbro/Lavgade commemorates a battle at Haderslev in 1849. The mill is no longer in operation; it is now used by the regional theatre ‘The Mill”.

At Møllepladsen 2 you will see the Hiort Lorenzen memorial plate. Peter Hiort Lorenzen was the Haderslev merchant who shocked the Slesvig assembly of the Estates of the Realm by speaking Danish. His merchant’s house was this building.

The square

If you continue along Lavgade, with the old town hall on your right hand side, you will come to Søndertorv, which is full of beautiful gable houses – partly from the time shortly after the great fire in 1627.

From the square you can go to the street Klosteret. The name reveals that, in the Middle Ages, it led to the Dominican monastery (Blackfriars). The red building housed one of South Jutland’s oldest daily newspapers, Dannevirke. The newspaper was founded in 1838 as a mouthpiece for the Danish-minded people and remained independent until it was merged with Jydske Tidende in 1972.

The Monastery District

Walk along Klosteret and pass Jomfrugangen with the old pump on the corner. If you continue along Hægersgade, that crosses the old Dominican graveyard, you will come to Præstegade. You can then turn left through the lattice gate into the monastery’s graveyard, that has an appealing view of Haderslev Pond.

In the graveyard you will find the graves of Peter Hiort Lorenzen and Niels Chr. Nissen; the latter was Dannevirke’s first publisher. In addition, there are two common graves for the fallen of the war in 1848-50, a German memorial for 210 soldiers who fell in World War One, and close to Damparken you will see the great memorial for 112 Danish-minded people who fell in the same war.

Haderslev Pond Park

In the Pond Park you will find a memorial stone that commemorates the victims of the fight for freedom 1940-45, and there are both old and new sculptures.
If you continue to the right through the Pond Park, you will notice the statue of Peter Hiort Lorenzen close to Hotel Norden.

Close to the pond lies also the town’s new cultural centre Bispen, that houses a library, an activity centre, a town history archive and the concert venue Månen.

You can choose to go back along Præstegade to Apotekergade, where you will see the white building that used to house the Hjorteapoteket (pharmacy), that was founded in 1557 by Duke Hans. Under Apotekergade 11 you will find the cellar of the school for clergymen that was affiliated with the cathedral in the Middle Ages.

If you go from Præstegade and turn left into Bispegade, you will pass the place (at Papas Pizza) where the location of the Bispeporten is marked in the street-paving. Bispeporten was where the road began that would take you to the town Ribe.

If you continue along Storegade to the bridge across the bypass, you will see the Old Haderslev Church to the left. Old Haderslev is an independent parish that used to surround the whole town. The church is consecrated to St Severin or St Søren and was already mentioned in 1309. However, the high tower was not built until 1912.

In the graveyard, towards the Pond Park, you will find Laurid Skau’s grave. He was a young farmer who attracted a great deal of attention at the first meeting on the Skamlingsbanken in 1843 because of his Danish language. Until his death in 1864 he belonged to the most Danish-minded eminent people in South Jutland.
He lived at the Mariagården on the northern fringe of town.

If you walk back along Storegade, then you can turn into Gåskærgade at Bredgade. Here you will find the Harmonien that has been the gathering place for the town’s and its surroundings’ Danish-minded population since the middle of the 20th century. The “white hall” inside the Harmonien has been visited by both Frederik VII and Christian X.

Almost right across the Harmonien lies the former cathedral school, that was built in 1853. This was where the poet Edvard Lembcke was a teacher and where he, inspired by especially Haderslev Pond’s surroundings, wrote the song “Du skønne land med dal og bakker fagre” (“Beautiful Land of Fruitful Valleys and Hills”). The building now houses part of the town administration.
You pass the town’s new town hall and end up in Nørregade.

If you turn left along Gammelting, you will come to the large barracks that were built for the German garrison in 1885-88. The barracks now house the Third Jutland Brigade. Each year on May 4 at 9 pm there is a celebration in front of the barracks that commemorates the liberation of Denmark in 1945.

At Gammelting you will also find the town’s reunion stones.

If you pass the junction at Gammelting and head east along Aastrupvej, you will come to the Museum South Jutland Haderslev. This is the region’s main archaeological museum and holds an abundant exhibition about South Jutland’s antiquity. Here you will find, for instance, a copy of the Skrydstrup Girl’s clothes from the Bronze Age and the great weapon offering find from the Iron Age that was made in Ejsbøl Bog right outside town. There is also a comprehensive exhibition about the recent history of Haderslev and its surroundings.

The museum also has a outdoor section with a series of buildings from the eastern region’s village.

Haderslev is a typical town in the sense that it is a trade centre and attracts people from a great area. It is rather a business town than an industrial town. However, there is now a great deal of companies in various industrial areas north and south of town. Haderslev was the main city in the now abolished Haderslev County, and Haderslev is still the diocese town in Haderslev Diocese, that includes the eastern part of South Jutland and Vejle County.