Geopark: The three-winged farm anglergård - Gravendal
With the increasing prosperity starting in the 1840s, the peasants in Angel between Flensburg and Schleswig began displaying their new status within the building culture with three-winged farms
In danish the building were named “anglergård” (after Angel) consisting of a standalone main building flanked by farm buildings. This framed a courtyard, a cour d´honneur, with a lawn or garden in the middle just like at a manor, where you could receive your guests. And it was precisely the manors in Holstein that were the inspiration to the peasants in Angel.
There are several examples of this type of farmhouses on Ærø that have been built in the second half of the 1800s. However, the earliest and most impressive anglergård is no doubt Gravendal by Drejet out toward Marstal. This farm was built in 1858 after a four-winged farm before it had burnt down. Presumably it was the Estates Representative for Ærø in Schleswig, Jens Clausen Klestrup (1776–1857), who got inspired during his travels and who relayed the new fashion in farmhouse building to the developer, his son Eli Sophus Klestrup (1813–1876).
Gravendal fits in with the rolling ice-marginal moraine landscape beautifully, with a long avenue from the highway to the farm and its cour d´honneur that has indicated wealth and social status on Ærø since its construction in 1858.