Hesselø
| Hesselø | ||
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| Waters | Kattegat | |
| Geographical location | 56 ° 11 '55 " N , 11 ° 41' 43" E | |
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| length | 1.5 km | |
| width | 700 m | |
| surface | 71 ha | |
| Highest elevation | unnamed 20 m |
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| Residents | uninhabited | |
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The small Danish island of Hesselø is located in the Kattegat , about 28 km north of Zealand .
geography
Hesselø is 0.71 km² in size, 1.5 km long and 700 meters wide. The island belonged to the parish of Torup ( Torup Sogn in the Harde Strø Herred , Frederiksborg Amt ), since 1970 to the Hundested Municipality , which in turn became part of the Frederiksværk-Hundested Municipality in the Hovedstaden region as part of the municipal reform on January 1, 2007 was renamed on January 1st, 2008 in Halsnæs Kommune . The main part of the municipality is 25 km away on the island of Zealand. The island is privately owned.
The island got its name from the seals (sæl) , which used to be hunted there and are still common today. This is one of the reasons why Hesselø is a nature reserve with very limited opportunities to visit. The island reaches a height of 20 meters. At the highest point there is a 24 meter high lighthouse . The island has been uninhabited since 2005. There is a weather station and a cemetery on the island, where mostly shipwrecked victims who were washed ashore are buried.
A three-kilometer-long reef extends from the north-western tip of the island, with some rocks protruding from the water. The reef is marked by a buoy . In the southeast, a narrow sand spike extends 1.5 kilometers into the sea. At the southeast end there is a rock over which the waves break on stormy days. This point is also marked with a buoy.
history
Stone Age and Middle Ages
After excavations, the results of which were published in 1973 by the archaeologist Jørgen Skaarup from the Langelands Museum, finds from residents can be dated back to the late Neolithic (3200 BC). The early dwellings turned out to be seasonal settlements. The hunters of that time left their permanent settlements on Zealand or in Sweden to hunt the gray seal cubs during the breeding season. The animals were skinned, butchered and taken to the permanent settlements by boat for cooking oil and meat. The seal hunt continued in the Middle Ages and was only stopped completely in 1977 when the last animals were placed under protection.
In the Waldemar earth book of 1231 the island is mentioned as Esæl ("Island of the Seals").
19th and 20th centuries
By royal decree of April 12, 1822 it was determined that Hesselø belongs to the (then) rural municipality of Rørvig. Until then, the island's municipality membership was not defined.
The white lighthouse designed by the architect NS Nebelongs was built in 1864.
On November 13, 1872, the Norwegian barque Hilda encountered the northwestern reef during a storm surge and capsized. The lighthouse keeper and his assistant saved all ten crew members. A memorial plaque on the lighthouse reminds of this today.
In 1899 the island was for sale. The master hunter Christian Frederik Emil von Holstein-Rathlou from Rathlousdal near Odder wanted to use the island as a hunting ground. He commissioned the architecture professor Martin Nyrup to design a large log house, to plant a number of foreign tree species and plants such as chestnuts , oaks , fruit trees and holly and to create a park around the Hesselhus ("Hesselhaus"). In 1902 he built the Hesselgård ("Hesselhof"), mainly to breed pheasants , but also to feed the imported kangaroos from Australia and turtles. After the abolition of the feudal system in Denmark in 1919, the son of Nyrup gave the island to other hands.
In 1939 FL Smidth took over Hesselø as a holiday island for the company's staff and as a hunting ground.
In 1963 the last family left the island. In 1970 the operation of the lighthouse was automated and controlled from the Fornæs Fyr control station. Since the automation of the lighthouse, the population has decreased from 16 in 1955 to two in 2000.
On the occasion of a Danish-approved search for oil in 1983 northeast of the island (here are the shoals Lysegrund and Lille Lysegrund ), there was a diplomatic dispute between Denmark and Sweden .
21st century
In 2002 the owner, a cement company, sold the island to the Danish radar company Weibel Scientific for 12 million Danish kroner .
In 2003 the protected island was in the news again when the owner, main shareholder Erik Tingleff Larsen, built an unauthorized port next to the extension of the runway to 600 meters. The beach rock that was removed in the process destroyed 10,000 square meters of meadow on the coast. Remnants of some Stone Age settlements were also damaged during the expansion work. The environmental authority of Frederiksborg Amt and the committee for “natural complaints” demanded the leveling of the harbor and the restoration of the beach rocks to their original state. The owner agreed and also paid a fine.
In 2007, 33 dead seals were found on the island, believed to have died of the seal plague spread from the Danish island of Anholt .
literature
- Niels Houkjær: Hesselø in De danske øer - En lystrejse til Danmarks småøer , p. 143 ff., (Danish), Nordisk Forlag A / S, Copenhagen 2006, ISBN 87-02-04176-6 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ statistikbanken.dk: Area and population. Regions and inhabited islands (PDF; 39 kB), accessed on August 6, 2010 (Danish)
- ↑ Trine Munk-Petersen in Berlingske Tidende on November 5, 2003: Hesselø fik ny havn og landingsbane uden tilladelse , accessed on August 6, 2010 (Danish)
- ↑ Politiken on July 5, 2007: 33 døde sæler fundet på Hesselø , accessed on August 6, 2010 (Danish)