Stenstrup Exercise and Meeting House

Facts

Shooters' house

By Jan Steen Jacobsen, Cand.phil. i europæisk etnologi. (5 stories)

Stenstrup Exercise and Meeting House in Odsherred was built in 1880. It was listed one hundred years later in 1980. A smaller building was built close to the meeting house in the 1890s for a handicraft society. In 1915, the two buildings were connected by a passage. The meeting house was built by the local shooting club, probably in cooperation with master builder Andreas Bentsen. It was for the shooting club members to exercise and improve their weaponry skills in winter. Andreas Bentsen was a teacher at Vallekilde Folk High School in the vocational studies department and was an eager chairman of the shooting club. By about 1900, meeting houses, like village halls, had become common and accepted in almost every village.

Partly a public place

Listen to the story
Share

Contribute to Stenstrup Exercise and Meeting House

Have you visited / Want to visit? Contribute to this place Add to route

Recommend Log in or create profile to recommend

Selected entry

A house for ideology and community spirit

Story written by Jan Steen Jacobsen

Time / Periode 1880

0 comments 0 recommendations

The meeting house culture began in Denmark in the 1870s. This was a new idea and the first meeting houses were controversial. They smacked of ideology and politics and were activists' houses built by people with the same convictions in a popular movement. Many of the houses were built as exercise and meeting houses for shooting clubs and were close to Grundtvigian free schools. In Stenstrup, the nature of the ideological and national community was highlighted by a design on the gable of the large hall. It shows King Frederik VII bidding his troops farewell at Rosenborg parade ground in Copenhagen in 1848. Under the picture it says: From his heart sounded the words of the King, leave with God you brave souls and while rejoicing everyone swore that soon Ledet would be set right". "Ledet" is the border to Germany. The design refers to the war between Denmark, Schleswig-Holstein and Prussia in 1848-50. "