#Bromølle Kro

[thehmn]

The oldest inn in Denmark sounds like something that was taken straight out of a horror story bordering on being too cliche or weird to be believable.

I present to you Bromølle Kro

We don’t know how old it is because it was first mentioned in a text from 1198 when it had already been open for years. I could go into detail about how it also used to function as a mill and store but that’s boring.

The first strange part is that the current building isn’t the original. You see, it was build on a bog and slowly each incarnation of the inn would get more and more damp, the floor would become soggy, mould would spread and the walls would bend as the whole thing sank into the ground. Eventually the owners would tear the whole thing down and build a new inn on the rubble. They did this over and over again, leaving everyone to wonder why they didn’t rebuild it somewhere else.

Then in the 1700’s guests started to disappear. It took a while for people to notice because most guests were travellers who were expected to be gone by morning anyway, but eventually so many people disappeared it couldn’t be ignored.

The couple who owned the inn were accused of getting rich patrons senselessly drunk, dragging them to their room and beating them to death with a club hidden under the bed. They then threw the victims out the window into the river that ran behind the inn.

For years people weren’t sure how true the story was. Did they really kill that many people? How would that even be possible without anyone seeing or hearing it?

Then in the 1950’s people wanted to straighten the river out for convenience and after they temporarily dried it up they started digging and found a skeleton. And another. And another. And another.

In all they dug up 28 skeletons from one small stretch of the river very close to the inn. And those were just the ones they found.

And despite all this the inn stayed in business. It wasn’t closed despite repeatedly sinking into the ground. It didn’t close when the owners were hanged for being serial killers. And it didn’t bother anyone that they had been sleeping and dining next to murder victims for years.

Today the ground has dried up and you can even enjoy the view of the river while you have lunch. They keep two of the skulls in the reception and named one of them Frede (a name that means peace/rest) for your viewing pleasure.

And somehow Bromølle Kro just keeps going and going…

[fotografaarhus-blog]

Selskabslokaler og lokaler til bryllupsfester

Bromølle Kro er Danmarks ældste kro

Bromølle Kro er Danmarks ældste kro. Vi har ligget på samme naturskønne sted siden 1198. Kroen er omgivet af skov, så der er rige muligheder for at få taget bryllupsbilledet i romantiske omgivelser. Vores selskabslokaler er smagfuldt indrettet. Ligesom Emma Gad lægger vi vægt på at holde traditionerne og dækker selvfølgelig op med sølvtøj. Køkkenet er kendt for…

[heroofthreefaces]

Then in the 1700’s guests started to disappear. 

Then in the 1950’s ... In all they dug up 28 skeletons

It didn’t close when the owners were hanged for being serial killers. 

So wait ... I’m fuzzy on the order of events. Were people disappearing for two hundred years? Were generations of inn owners tossing corpses into the river until finally one set was hanged on behalf of all their predecessors? Or was there only a single generation of serial killers who were hanged in the 1700s on circumstantial evidence but the disappearances stopped?

The oldest inn in Denmark sounds like something that was taken straight out of a horror story bordering on being too cliche or weird to be believable.

I present to you Bromølle Kro

We don’t know how old it is because it was first mentioned in a text from 1198 when it had already been open for years. I could go into detail about how it also used to function as a mill and store but that’s boring.

The first strange part is that the current building isn’t the original. You see, it was build on a bog and slowly each incarnation of the inn would get more and more damp, the floor would become soggy, mould would spread and the walls would bend as the whole thing sank into the ground. Eventually the owners would tear the whole thing down and build a new inn on the rubble. They did this over and over again, leaving everyone to wonder why they didn’t rebuild it somewhere else.

Then in the 1700’s guests started to disappear. It took a while for people to notice because most guests were travellers who were expected to be gone by morning anyway, but eventually so many people disappeared it couldn’t be ignored.

The couple who owned the inn were accused of getting rich patrons senselessly drunk, dragging them to their room and beating them to death with a club hidden under the bed. They then threw the victims out the window into the river that ran behind the inn.

For years people weren’t sure how true the story was. Did they really kill that many people? How would that even be possible without anyone seeing or hearing it?

Then in the 1950’s people wanted to straighten the river out for convenience and after they temporarily dried it up they started digging and found a skeleton. And another. And another. And another.

In all they dug up 28 skeletons from one small stretch of the river very close to the inn. And those were just the ones they found.

And despite all this the inn stayed in business. It wasn’t closed despite repeatedly sinking into the ground. It didn’t close when the owners were hanged for being serial killers. And it didn’t bother anyone that they had been sleeping and dining next to murder victims for years.

Today the ground has dried up and you can even enjoy the view of the river while you have lunch. They keep two of the skulls in the reception and named one of them Fede (a name that means peace/rest) for your viewing pleasure.

And somehow the inn just keeps going and going…

[thehmn]

The people in the tags saying this is just normal Denmark/Europe either lives in a horrific alternative universe, only read about the most insane cases or are Americans who think that because Europe is old all bad things have happened everywhere.

Sorry to disappoint but as someone who likes to read up on old buildings and is always looking for something juicy the history of most old places is in fact incredibly boring.

I live next to no less than three manors that are also so old we don’t know when they were build, just when they were first mentioned in writing, and the worst thing that happened at any of them was a jealous farmhand who strangled a milkmaid and the people at the time thought it was so horrible they raised a stone to commemorate her. Even a single murder is relatively rare (unless it’s a royal castle because royals are insane)

Most old buildings just have a history of siblings buying each other out or the king buying it so he can sell it later or give to a friend or whatever.

And if you look into the history you’ll notice that most castles have a ghost or five but people usually don’t know why but there’s this story/rumour that can’t be confirmed about a thing happened so that might be the origin of the ghost. In other words, the ghost came first and then people tried to come up with a reason why. Bromølle Kro is one of the few places where the thing happened first and then people started seeing ghosts.

And there are other places like that but they are few and far between compared to what people think and that’s usually why we know about them; because they are unusual. So not to spoil anyone’s fun but normal everyday European history and historical places are pretty boring unless you’re really into siblings fighting over how to split the field between them until one of them throws down some cash.

The oldest inn in Denmark sounds like something that was taken straight out of a horror story bordering on being too cliche or weird to be believable.

I present to you Bromølle Kro

We don’t know how old it is because it was first mentioned in a text from 1198 when it had already been open for years. I could go into detail about how it also used to function as a mill and store but that’s boring.

The first strange part is that the current building isn’t the original. You see, it was build on a bog and slowly each incarnation of the inn would get more and more damp, the floor would become soggy, mould would spread and the walls would bend as the whole thing sank into the ground. Eventually the owners would tear the whole thing down and build a new inn on the rubble. They did this over and over again, leaving everyone to wonder why they didn’t rebuild it somewhere else.

Then in the 1700’s guests started to disappear. It took a while for people to notice because most guests were travellers who were expected to be gone by morning anyway, but eventually so many people disappeared it couldn’t be ignored.

The couple who owned the inn were accused of getting rich patrons senselessly drunk, dragging them to their room and beating them to death with a club hidden under the bed. They then threw the victims out the window into the river that ran behind the inn.

For years people weren’t sure how true the story was. Did they really kill that many people? How would that even be possible without anyone seeing or hearing it?

Then in the 1950’s people wanted to straighten the river out for convenience and after they temporarily dried it up they started digging and found a skeleton. And another. And another. And another.

In all they dug up 28 skeletons from one small stretch of the river very close to the inn. And those were just the ones they found.

And despite all this the inn stayed in business. It wasn’t closed despite repeatedly sinking into the ground. It didn’t close when the owners were hanged for being serial killers. And it didn’t bother anyone that they had been sleeping and dining next to murder victims for years.

Today the ground has dried up and you can even enjoy the view of the river while you have lunch. They keep two of the skulls in the reception and named one of them Frede (a name that means peace/rest) for your viewing pleasure.

And somehow Bromølle Kro just keeps going and going…