Hundested is a port city in North Zealand with 8,616 inhabitants
(2020), located on the peninsula Halsnæs in Torup Parish. The city
belongs to Halsnæs Municipality and is located in the Capital
Region.
In the early 1800s, the net fishermen from Lynæs
began landing their ships on the beach off the reef. During the
1830s, many of the fishermen built dwelling houses on the site. As
the ships got bigger, the port had to be expanded. Originally, the
harbor had simply consisted of some rice paddies going out into the
water. Over time, the Port of Hundested developed into a modern
traffic port.
The railway came to Hundested in 1916 as an
extension of the Hillerød-Frederiksværk line.
In 1927, a ferry connection was established to
Rørvig. The Grenaa-Hundested Line was active in the period
1934-1996, but disappeared as a result of competing companies' more
attractive connections to Jutland.
Hundested Harbor today
consists of a fishing harbor, ferry harbor, freight harbor,
container harbor and marina.
There are several fishmongers at
the harbor, and in 2008 a glassblowing was inaugurated. During these
years, several artists are helping to create new life on the
waterfront, including the annual sand sculpture festival.
In
the years 2010-2012, there have been several activities at the
harbor, for example a brewery in the old sewing workshop / smithy.
Home-brewed beer and light snacks are served here. Fiskeriets og
Havnens Hus tells about the harbor through time. Work is underway to
create a maritime experience center in new buildings at Hundested
Harbor. A newly restored Hundested engine has been set up, which you
can hear on occasion.
The city's sand sculpture festival from May to
September is a true display of imaginative and beautifully executed
sand sculptures. Artists from home and abroad have been working for
a long time to shape sculptures based on different themes. The sand
sculptures can stand for several months and survive even heavy rain.
In the harbor, with the water as a neighbor, is in a black
building the glass workshop Glassmedjen, which was inaugurated in
2008. Here you experiment with old and modern techniques. You can
daily experience the transformation of glass from raw material to
finished art when the glassblowers work in the workshop.
In
Knud Rasmussen's House is a museum with effects from his Greenland
expeditions. The house is beautifully situated overlooking the water
in the hills northeast of the harbor. There are barely two
kilometers to walk.
The place name, listed as
Hundested Aaß, Hunder steed leed m.fl. is mentioned for the first
time in the field book from 1682. The (village) town name appears
for the first time in a church book from 1841. Local historical
sources later tell of a very large "Hundesten", which lay on the
shore at the very first pilot house on the site where the current
Sydhavnsvej ends in Strandvejen.
The origin of the name
remains unknown. It CAN refer to the animal name 'dog'. The
connection with 'seal' dogs is doubtful, however, as seal dogs are
not registered in dialects north of Møn.
Skrønen
A tourist
brochure from 1963 tells that there was previously a rock reef,
which stretched in a northwesterly direction from Spodsbjerg and far
out to sea. According to this, a very large number of seals (dogs)
lived and bred there, and several Danish kings, came to Hundested to
hunt seals.
The reef's rock should later have been removed
and used as a foundation for Copenhagen's lake fortification, and
when large parts of the rock reef disappeared, it accelerated
coastal erosion, as the steep slopes at Spodsbjerg should testify.
Ancient charts and other historical sources contradict all of
this as a modern myth.