Lovns

Facts

Mini fort

By Per Ole Rindel, Lektor, Ph.D., Købehavn Universitet (12 stories)

When sailing from Hvalpsund to Lovns Bredning you'll see a small circular fort – called a ring fortress - at the tip of the point. The area inside the fortress is now just a shallow dip measuring 10 metres in diameter. Around the outer side of the fortress is an irregular moat up to three metres deep. To the east, it is interrupted by a dam. This makes it easier to enter the ring fortress from the opposite side of the coast. As it has never been excavated, we are not sure when it was built. It could date back to the Iron Age, Viking Age or even Middle Ages.

Public place

Selected entry

Look out for enemy ships

Story written by Per Ole Rindel

Time / Periode 0 1200

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I'm expecting a lot from my first meeting with the ring fortress. A glade opens before me. Shortly after, my uphill and downhill struggle along the overgrown path is rewarded. The view over Hvalpsund is formidable on this lovely June day. This fascinating ring fortress has puzzled me for a while. A few ring fortresses in Jutland have been dated as being built in the Iron Age. But they are bigger. There's hardly room here for a single building here. It would have to be a tower. The view from the top of the tower would have encompassed the sound and broadland and it would have been possible to signal to other forts that enemy ships were approaching. Such a system of fortified warning towers would not have been out of place in the 11th or 12th centuries. Perhaps lives were saved by the warnings sent all the way to Viborg in the early Middle Ages.