Every design for Haslev

Have you walked Jernbanegade from end to end? Then you have seen the whole idea of Haslev: the church at one end, the railway station at the other, and the shops of the town in between. Haslev is the largest town in Faxe Municipality and its seat, a railway town in the south of Sjælland that grew from the small village of Hasle once the line opened. The street was paved to link the old church with the new station, and it soon filled with shops and banks.

What makes Haslev unusual is that it grew into one of the larger towns in Denmark without ever becoming a market town. Its growth came from the railway and from schools: the Inner Mission movement built a folk high school and a sixth-form college here, and the Nobel laureate Jens Christian Skou was once a pupil at Haslev Gymnasium. Later, new neighbourhoods of affordable family houses drew families from across Sjælland, especially from Copenhagen.

The country estates of Gisselfeld and Bregentved lie close by, and Haslev Museum keeps the town's own story. But the picture most people carry is simpler: a train pulling in at one end of Jernbanegade, with the church waiting at the other.