Lundbæk Agricultural College

Lundbæk Agriculture School, the most northern of fifteen agricultural schools in Denmark, was founded in 1948, when a group of local farmers bought the manor house Lundbæk, and started to educate “free independent farmers” in the same buildings, where their ancestors for generations had been slaving for the former landlords of the estate, the Juel­- Ryssensteen barony.

Lundbæk is located on the peninsula, Jutland, 25 km west of Aalborg, right on the banks of the Limfjord, with a magnificent view of the Nibe Bay.

Every year, when the 120 new students are beginning their education at Lundbæk, they are introduced to the history of the estate. A lot of tales are connected to the old manor house, which dates back to 1805, and is encircled by a 10-meter wide moat, and when the students are standing in the courtyard, paved by cobblestones, all the different tales of the old manor house are being told. Very few are untouched by the historical whirr.

The two most outstanding persons in the history of Lundbæk are General Frederik Adolph Schleppegrell and “Tordenkalven”

General Schleppegrell had married Baroness Johanne, one of the daughters from Lundbæk, but he was killed 1850 in the battle at Istedt, when Denmark fought one of numerous wars against Germany. His adjutant made arrangements to have his beloved horse brought back to Lundbæk, where the widower insisted to have the horse taken care of in a royal manner, and when the animal finally died, to have it buried at the very same spot on the hillside, where Johanne and Schleppegrell in their youth had enjoyed the sunset over the Limfjord. The grave and tombstone can still be seen.

Tordenkalven (The calf of thunder) was born out of wedlock in 1816. He was baptised Christen Christian Larsen, and was brought up in a very poor home. At the age of 7 he had to go begging in order to help feed his family, and when he was to be confirmed, his clothing was collected from seven different persons. Tordenkalven was a very big boy, and at the age of fourteen he was able to go and work as a grown up on the different farms in the area. He was a loner, and did not fit in. Dismissed from the army after only two days, he started working at Lundbæk, a decision, which would alter his life for good. One day he wanted to show off by breaking in a wild horse, which nobody could ride. Tordenkalven told the other farmhands to tie his legs under the hors’s belly, and then: “Just get out of the way” The horse bucked, landed on it’s back, and the thigh of Tordenkalven was crushed. In those days farmhands were not taken to the hospital, but instead placed in some straw, waiting for Nature to act. Slowly he recovered, but with a leg much shorter than the other. He could no longer work, and spend the rest of his life as a tramp, limping from one farm to the other, always on his two crutches, and carrying all his belongings in a bundle on his back. He died 1891. The Nobel Prize winning Danish author Johannes V Jensen later described his life in the novel "Himmerlandshistorier". 

Besides the famous people, Lundbæk is well known as the place in Denmark, where the oldest small-leaved lime tree (Tilia cordata) is still growing. Hopefully still many year to come as the legend claims Lundbæk will burn the day the 400 year old Lime stops sprouting.

The original manor house is today the private home of the principal, and also serving as short course facilities, as new and more modern classrooms have been build on the other side of the moat