Aars

Aars or Års is a former station town in Vesthimmerland with 8,465 inhabitants (2020), located 43 km southwest of Aalborg, 44 km north of Viborg, 28 km northwest of Hobro and 27 km southeast of Løgstør. The city belongs to the North Jutland Region and is the municipal seat and the largest city in Vesthimmerland Municipality. In 1970-2006, the city was the municipal seat in Aars Municipality.

 

Parish and church

Aars belongs to Aars Parish, and Aars Church is located in the middle of the city. It was built in granite in the first half of the 13th century. When Aars had become a station town and began to grow, it became necessary to expand the church in 1921-22, where it was also whitewashed as it is now.

The city also has an evangelical charismatic free church, which was founded in 1989.

 

Attractions

At Søndergade 44 is Museumscenter Aars, which was established in 1999 by merging the cultural history Vesthimmerlands Museum from 1935 and the art history Himmerlands Kunstmuseum from 1980. In the center there are both permanent and changing exhibitions with the area's archaeological finds and contemporary art. There is also a permanent exhibition about Johannes V. Jensen, who took the initiative for the cultural history museum already in 1920. The new buildings from 1999 were designed by architect Jens Bertelsen in collaboration with Per Kirkeby, who is one of the many artists who have left their mark on the city with sculptures and buildings.

The Danish Museum of Contemporary Art stores things from the Danes' everyday lives for the last 100 years. It was opened in May 1994 in a disused farmhouse and now has approx. 1200 m² exhibition.

5 km southeast of the town is the reconstructed Borremose fortress, a refuge castle and later village from the Iron Age. In Rævemosen 4 km east of the city, the site of the Gundestrup vessel is marked with a memorial stone.

 

Facilities

There are two primary schools in Aars, both with full superstructures (grades 0-9) and approximately 90 employees. Aars Skole has approximately 575 students in 2-3 tracks and 10 special classes. Around 200 children attend the school's after-school program. The school h. Østermarkskolen has 660 students, mostly in three tracks. A good 220 children attend the school's after-school program. The school has 83 employees.
Close to the Østermark School is the Østermarken Sports Center, which is used by nine sports clubs and has two large halls, vaulting room, gymnasium, wrestling room, two activity rooms, four meeting rooms, café and foyer with table tennis table, play station and climbing wall. The city also has a swimming pool and outdoor pool.
Aars has three day care institutions: The field wing built in 1989 and with space for 50 kindergarten children. In 2013 expanded to an integrated institution with 13 employees and space for 25 nursery children and 65 kindergarten children. Mejsevej, with 17 employees, is rated for 65 children, including some under the age of three. Bakgården has 48 kindergarten children and 10 employees.
In 1960, Vesthimmerlands Gymnasium opened in Aars as Denmark's first parish municipal gymnasium. The high school later also got HF and VUC.
Vesthimmerland's Musikhus ALFA was completed in 2008 and contains, among other things, a concert hall with a stage and space for 420 spectators as well as teaching rooms. The Musikhuset is located next to the high school and during the day is a teaching place for high school and high school as well as the Culture School Vesthimmerland. The house is the entire cultural center of Vesthimmerland. The name ALFA is composed of the initials of the municipality's four main towns: Aalestrup, Løgstør, Farsø and Aars.
Erhvervsskolerne Aars is Himmerland's largest education center with over 1,000 students on vocational or high school youth programs and 200 participants on adult or continuing education. The schools have a school dormitory that the students can stay in if they have more than five quarters of an hour to travel. The school house houses more than 200 pupils, the majority of whom are students on the construction and agricultural machinery programme.
Messecenter Vesthimmerland has an indoor area of 9,000 m² with three exhibition halls, meeting and conference rooms and an outdoor area of 38,000 m².
Aars Hotel, founded in 1897, has 27 rooms and 6 function rooms with space for a total of 220 people.
Aars Teater Bio is an association-run cinema with two halls with 104 and 32 seats and five wheelchair spaces.
Jutlander Bank has its headquarters in Aars. It was formed in 2014 by a merger between Sparekassen Hobro and Sparekassen Himmerland, which was established in 1871 and also had its headquarters in Aars.
Aars Avis has been published in the city since 1927 and covers a large local area with a weekly circulation of more than 17,000.

 

History

The name
The name "Aars" appears on 5 May 1394 in the form Arsoghæreth. Place name researcher Svend Aakjærs estimated that the name originates from the Old Norse/Old Icelandic word árr or ármadr, in Old English ar, which in Danish means the king's ombudsman or earl. Another interpretation is that it comes from the male name Aar/Ar or Old Danish ar (servant). The suffix is -high, while herred is an administrative addition.

Ludvig Holberg has his protagonist Peder Paars in the joke poem of the same name travel from Kalundborg by sea to "Aars", which here naturally means Aarhus.

The village
Aars village in 1682 consisted of six farms and four houses with land and the nearby Aars Mill. The total cultivated area amounted to 238.8 hectares of land, attributed to 30.99 hectares of hard grain. The form of cultivation was grassland farming with rows.

In 1875, there were 782 residents in Aars parish, and the town was described as follows: "Aars with church, rectory, school and inn with merchant, bakery and malthouse". In 1880 there was one more merchant and one manufacturer.

The station town
In 1893, the town got a state railway station on the Himmerlandsbanerne from Hobro/Viborg via Aalestrup to Løgstør. In 1899, Aars became Himmerland's railway junction, when the private railway Aars-Nibe-Svenstrup (-Aalborg) had its terminus here and in 1910 was extended from Aars to Hvalpsund. The great railway act from 1918 opened up the possibility that there should also be a cross-Himmerland railway Aars-Arden-Bælum-Øster Hurup, but this railway was – like most projects in this law – never realised.

In 1901, the town was described as follows: "Aars, by the country road, large village with church, presbytery, school, folk high school and agricultural school (built 1899), meeting house (built 1892), mission house (built 1897), doctor's residence, veterinarian's residence , Savings bank for A.-Havbro S. (established 14/12 1871...Number of accounts 684), Bank for A. and surroundings (established 25/5 1899), Cooperative dairy, mill, brewery, malting, machine building ( especially agricultural machinery), carpentry, dyeing, woolen knitting, bakeries, grocery stores, craftsmen, etc., guest house, market place (market in Feb., Apr., Sept., Oct. and Nov.), station on the Hobro-Løgstør line and terminus for Svenstrup -Nibe-Aars Railway, telegraph and telephone exchange and postal forwarding (Aars Address Newspaper is published in A; by the town a small facility)".

Aalborg-Hvalpsund Railway was closed down in 1969. Already in 1966, DSB's passenger traffic at Aars Station had ceased. The Viborg-Løgstør freight traffic continued with a dispatch point in Aars, but ceased in 1999. The station was demolished, the track was taken up in 2006, and the former station site is now a shop square. Outside the station area, the track has been preserved in all four directions and is used by the Himmerlandsstien to Viborg and Løgstør. The Nibe-Hvalpsund nature trail uses the track to the Nibe, but follows Løgstørvej for the first two kilometers towards Havbro.