Nylandsmosen

Facts

Denmark's oldest reclamation

The credit for Denmark's earliest reclamation project, Nylandsmosen, goes to landowner Knud Thott. After the Scanian War (1675-79), when Denmark had to give up Scania, Halland and Blekinge to the Swedes, life in Scania for Danish landowners was no bed of roses. Knud Thott, a wealthy man, felt the ground burning beneath his feet and fled to Gavnø near Næstved in 1682. Thott had travelled in Europe and while in Holland had studied land reclamation and dam building. In 1690, he applied for royal permission to dam 140 hectares of land in Dybsø Fiord. It became Nylandsmosen.

Partly a public place

Selected entry

Nylandsmosen is still farmed

Story written by Kjeld Hansen

Time / Periode 1690

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More than 400 years after the dam was built, the Nylandsmosen land is still farmed. Gavnø landowner Otto Reedtz-Thott easily harvests 45 yields of wheat on the old fiord bed, but it requires constant effort to maintain the transformation from fiord bed to reclaimed land, and change bog land into meadows and arable land. In 1690, Knud Thott built a couple of Dutch windmills to pump away water. They are long gone. The lone mill that now stands on the dam with no top and no wings, was built in about 1870. Both in the 18th century and afterwards, in 1862, 1872, 1913, 1921, 1929 and 1952, large engineering projects were conducted. Climate change will also mean that the dam will have to be raised as the water level in Dybsø Fiord rises.