Sorensen Family Home at Fjenneslev, Denmark—
The name of the farm is in Danish “Toftegaard.” It is a very typical name for a Danish farm and “toft” means paddock, croft. In my dictionary it is a little piece of land just outside the house and “gaard” means farm. It is situated in a village called “Kirke Fjenneslev" with twenty-five inhabitants. “Kirke” means church in Danish and the village is named after the church in the village; “Fjenneslev Kirke.” it is a very famous church built around 1150 AD.
The area of the land has originally been sixty-nine acres which was a rather big farm at that time. In 1875 twenty-five acres was sold and now it is forty-four acres which in the first part of the century still was a good size for a farm.
I take the starting point for this short description of the farm in the photo taken from the air. The corners of the earth are in the following order — up (north), down (south), left (west) and right (east). I will later use these corners of the earth to characterize the four different wings of the farm.
The length of the south wing is 30 meters (about 32 yards) and the total area is about 700 square meters.
Generally the farm is typical for this part of the country (Sjælland — Zealand). There is a museum for old farms north of Copenhagen where an original farm from this area can be seen. The type goes way back to the early middle ages. Here it means the year 1000 to 1100 AD and before that was the Viking time. The Vikings had a quite a different way of constructing their buildings.
So you have to imagine a village on the country side over a long period of time as consisting of five to ten farms with four wings around a village pond and with the farmland outside the farms.
Of course this farm is not actually as old as that. On the four wings, you will go on reconstructing a wing when it (is) not good enough for its purpose. It means that a four winged farm has wings of four different ages.
There is no exact historical information of the building time of the farm. The reason for that is that the farm was owned by an estate called “Soroe Academy” and the farm was rented by the people living on the farm. So the Sorensen family (Nicolai’s father) rented the farm around the year 1800. All the papers describing the history burned at the library at the estate around 1840. In around 1858 Frederik Sorensen [Nicolai’s older brother] bought the farm from the estate and it rested in the family up to 1960. From that time three different owners had the farm until 1971 where my wife — Helen — and I bought it. Sorensen is a common name in Denmark and their is no family relationship between us and Nicolai Sorensen.
Looking at the photo of the farm you will see the south wing which is the farm house and it is probably built around 1800 when the family took over the farm. Anyhow the papers show that Nicolai is born in Fjenneslev and there is good reason to believe that the actual farm house is his birthplace. It has changed since then. The half-timbered house has been covered by a layer of plaster on the outside and whitewashed by lime. It happened in the last part of the last century at the same time when the little extension to the south was added to the farm house. The story goes that a young wife brought some money to the house and she wanted the farm to look like more a house in the town. The wing is rather narrow and with an entrance to the north the extension gives more space to the room inside.
To the west of the south wing there has been rooms for the farm hands and woodshed. To the east there has been room for the girls working on the farm and storage for food.
The east wing has been stable for horses, cowhouse and pigsty. Horses has been used in Denmark up to the end of the second world war. (The first tractors came at that time to Denmark with the Marshall [Plan] help form the USA!) The wing has been built in the last part in the last century. The north wing with the entrance to the yard has been divided — the east part used a cowhouse, the west part as threshing place. The wing has been built in the last part in the last century.
The west wing has been used for different purposes: cart shed, storage of grain etc. The wing is the oldest at the farm which can be seen from the way it is constructed. I have been told that it has been used as a farmhouse before the south-wing was built. At that time they have possibly considered that not good enough for living, it could be used for other purposes. Here the original half-timbered construction can be seen and the age could now be more that three hundred years. Anyway Nicolai has been born in either the south or the west wing.
In the end a few words about the roof. Originally it has been thatched. Here we go back to the later stone age. The actually roof is quite new. Every generation has to put on a new roof. It is a very practical roof for a farmer because he grows it on the farm and the material is what stays when the grain has been removed. Nowadays it is more expensive in fire insurance and construction. Looking at the photo four wings have eight sides of the roof. Seven of them are thatched and number eight directing to north has an ordinary roof. It has been put on by one of the former owners and if I ever come across some money I will change it to the original roof.(1)
- Poul Holling Sorensen, Fjenneslev, Denmark, Description of the Birthplace of Nikolaj Sorensen, Correspondence to Paul B. Sorensen, May 5, 1999.
