Guldager Station

Facts

Cannon's last resting place

Guldager Station is on the Esbjerg-Skjern Railway Line. It opened in 1874 as part of the Lunderskov-Esbjerg-Varde. The railway station was designed by Thomas Arboe in red brick with a slate roof. It is strictly symmetrical both seen from the road and from the track. A goods warehouse and privy, or public convenience, stand beside the station. The signal house, which was built later, still has an original mechanical signalling device visible through the windows. The trains on this line are now run by Arriva, and the station was listed in 1992.

Public place

Selected entry

Heavy artillery

Story written by Poul Thestrup

Time / Periode 1874

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In July 1944, the German coastal defences began building a cannon position at Blåvand, north of Esbjerg. It was part of Jutland's anti-invasion defences. The main weapons were to be two armoured battleship turrets, each with two 38 cm ship's cannons. As it happened, Denmark was liberated in 1945 before the artillery position was completed. The cannon barrels, weighing 110 tons each, never made it further than a storage yard near a siding one kilometre from Guldager Station. They had stranded there because they were too heavy for the railway bridge across Varde River. One of the cannons was sent by train to the Royal Danish Arsenal Museum in Copenhagen in 1947. It is now on display at Museumscenter Hanstholm. The others were scrapped at Guldager Station.