Grundtvig House


The Grundtvig House is a complex of historic buildings at Torvestræde 7 in Præstø, Vordingborg Municipality, Denmark. It takes its name after N. F. S. Grundtvig but he only lived in it for a one and a half years while he served pastor at Præstø Church in the early 1920s. It was listed on the Danish registry of protected buildings and places by the Danish Heritage Agency on 1 March 1982.

History

The house was built for the baker Frantz Dems in 1820-1821. It reused some of the timber framing from the previous building at the site.
N. F. S. Grundtvig rented an apartment in the building when he became pator at Præstø Church in June 1821. Grundtvig returned to Copenhagen in December 1822 to assume a position as pastor at Church of Our Saciour on Christianshavn. He initially lived in a now demolished building at Torvegade 25 on Christianshavn. Grundtvig was later elected for Rigsdagen in the electoral district of Præstø in 1849.
A later owner, Niels Hansen, who was a master builder, expanded the building northwards with two bays in 1856. He also constructed a new side wing in 1862 from where he operated a brewery.

Architecture

The Grundtvig House is a long one-storey brick building with yellow rendering on a black-painted plinth. It has a three-bay wall dormer above the centrally placed, arched gateway that opens to the courtyard. The side wing from 1862 is built with timber framing on a black-painted brick plinth.