Every design for Brønderslev

Among the rhododendrons of Hedelund Lystanlæg, a park laid out where a beech grove once stood, it is easy to forget that Brønderslev began as a modest farming village called Vester Brønderslev. The name comes from Brunder, a Norse chieftain of the area. The village lay away from the main roads of Vendsyssel and grew slowly, until an inn and a busy market began to draw traders to settle along the highway. Then the railway arrived, linking the town with Aalborg and Hjørring, and the station placed in the old village brought a post office, a hospital, schools, banks and a daily newspaper. In time Brønderslev became a købstad, a market town, and a centre of trade and industry.

Ask people from here what they remember, and the market comes up first. Store Brønderslev Marked began as a cattle fair big enough to move livestock prices, and it still carries the old trading spirit. To the southwest stretches the great bog of Store Vildmose, whose finds from the Iron Age are told at Vildmosemuseet, and burial mounds such as Eskilshøj and Thorshøj stand in the fields.

Trace the railway, the long main street and the park on the map, and the town you grew up in appears in lines you already know by heart.