Fredensborg Palace

Fredensborg Palace, pronounced  is a palace located on the eastern shore of Lake Esrum  in Fredensborg on the island of Zealand  in Denmark. It is the Danish Royal Family’s spring and autumn residence, and is often the site of important state visits and events in the Royal Family. It is the most used of the Royal Family’s residences.

At the end of the Great Northern War King Frederick IV asked architect Johan Cornelius Krieger, royal gardener to the court at Rosenborg Castle, to build him a small pleasure palace on the site of a farmyard named Ostrup. Krieger built the French-inspired baroque palace 1720 -1726, and the King himself took an active part in the planning of the building and grounds, and followed construction closely. The man responsible for the actual construction was General Building Master Johan Conrad Ernst, who was also responsible for the construction of Frederiksberg Palace.

While the building was still under construction Denmark and Sweden negotiated a peace treaty, which was signed July 3, 1720 on the site of the unfinished palace The treaty determined the fate of Skane, which since that time has been a part of Sweden, and ended Denmark’s eleven year participation in the Great Northern War. To commemorate the signing of the peace accord the palace was named Fredens Borg .