Lyngsmose Fortress

Right there, just south of the river Hover Å in a desolate landscape of meadow, bog and heathland, Jens Aarup Jensen from Ringkøbing Museum saw something when he was flying with his camera in 1977, looking for undiscovered traces of distant ancestors. It's greener right there, the grain stands better, but why? It wasn't until around the turn of the millennium that an answer was found, because people had lived on this green spot in the Iron Age. And not only had people lived there, the reason for the green patch was that there had been a moat. Here the soil was deeper, so the grain was greener.

An excavation was to show that this was not just an ordinary village that had been located here by the river Hover Å. As one of the two oldest known castles in Denmark, a fortified castle had stood here, on the edge of the outskirts, in a plough field over 2,000 years ago.

Archaeologists at Ringkøbing Museum and the University of Copenhagen found, in addition to the moat, an area the size of a football pitch secured behind the rampart, where there had been 15 long houses and two small houses. It is believed that around 8-10 people lived in each house, which means that there were around 120-150 people living in the village. 

In the moat that surrounded the village, archaeologists found pointed wooden stakes, these were placed close to each other, so it is thought that they acted as a kind of primitive minefield. The village was ready to take on the enemy!

And that's why we know that Lyngsmose was a very special place, a castle ready for battle. Archaeologists believe that the fortress may have served as the last refuge for the inhabitants of the area, a place to retreat to in times of trouble.      

In 2014, the castle was marked in the landscape. This means that today you can see the ramparts where the longhouses, small houses and moat stood 100 years BC. There are also four inclined posts that are thought to have supported the rampart front against a landslide. The whole thing can be studied from the top of a viewing tower. 

In addition to the beautiful visualization, it is also possible to rent shelters, there are good opportunities to sail in canoes on Hover Å (in the summer these can be rented through Lyngsmoseforeningen), and it is also possible to book a guided tour.