Every design for Frederiksværk

Frederiksværk sits on the strip of land between Arresø, the largest lake in Denmark, and Roskilde Fjord, and a man-made canal joins the two straight through the town. That canal is the whole story. It was dug so that running water could turn mills, and along its banks rose a gunpowder works and a cannon foundry that supplied the army. The town took its name from the works and from the king, and for generations it was an industrial town before it was anything else.

Gjethuset, the foundry hall where the cannons were cast, has been restored and now hosts theatre, music and art exhibitions. The town museum fills the old arsenal that once stored those cannons, and a small open-air museum keeps one of the best-preserved powder mills in the world, with a working watermill beside it. Out by the lake lie the ruins known as Dronningholm Slotsruin, a castle begun by Valdemar the Great, and Arresødal Hospice occupies the neoclassical manor built by Johan Frederik Classen, the man who ran the works.

Classen also had the sandy ground planted so that the town would have shelter, and his sarcophagus rests in Vinderød Church, looking out towards Arresø. For anyone raised between the lake and the fjord, the canal on the map is the line that leads home.