Glorup

Glorup is a manor house located between Nyborg and Svendborg in the south-east of the Danish island Funen.

Rebuilt to the design of Nicolas-Henri Jardin and his pupil Christian Josef Zuber in 1763–65, it is considered one of the finest Baroque complexes in Denmark and was included in the 2006 Danish Culture Canon.

The first reliable documentation of Glorup is from the Renaissance, when Christoffer Valkendorff built a four-winged house in two storeys with four towers, surrounded by a moat.

It was an impressive building for its time but only the foundation with the cellar and a sandstone tablet with a horse and the Valkendorf coat of arms are left of this house.

In 1723, Privy Councillor (Danish: Gehejmeråd) Christian Ludvig Scheel-Plessen inherited Glorup and, from 1743 to 1744, rebuilt the house with the assistance of architect Philip de Lange.

After the death of Scheel-Plessen in 1762, Glorup was purchased by Count Adam Gottlob Moltke of Bregentved, who at the same time bought Rygaard, the neighbouring manor, for 120,000 rigsdaler.

Moltke, a prominent and skillful farmer, put the manor on its feet again, helped by the rising prices of agricultural products in Europe.

He therefore decided to have it modernized, commissioning Denmark's foremost architect, Nicolas-Henri Jardin, who had just assisted him at Marienlyst Palace, and his architectural designer Christian Josef Zuber.

They were laid out between 1862 and 1875 by landscape architect Henrik August Flindt, with the head gardener Ditlev Christian Ernst Eltzholtz (1838–1928) in charge of the work on site.

[3] Glorup Manor consists of four low white-washed wings with window frames, cornices and pilasters partly painted yellow.

It depicts Andromeda who, as divine punishment for her mother's bragging, was chained to a rock as a sacrifice to a sea monster.

Drawing of the house from 1898
The house viewed at a distance
The garden and lake