Tureborg Castle is a faux-medieval castle located in Uddevalla Municipality, Sweden, it sits atop a hill overlooking the neighbourhood of Tureborg . It was constructed during the late 19th century and early 20th century. Today a ruin after a fire in the 1950s, the castle remains a prominent landmark in Uddevalla. [1]
The castle was built by Ture Malmgren, founder of the newspaper Bohusläningen and liberal local politician. Malmgren appears to have been inspired by medieval castles he saw travelling in Germany. Construction began in 1899, and continued until 1912, although it was never fully finished. An opening ceremony, featuring invited journalists from Gothenburg, was held during the Pentecost of 1911. The faux-medieval castle consisted of, among other things, almost forty different rooms, a great hall with rough stone pillars, several towers, balconies, and tall stone walls. Among the rooms were a bedouin-style room, a bowling alley, a music room with three pianos, and several rooms with artworks by among others the painter Anders Zorn. [2] Typical of Malmgren's style, a secret passage was included, activated by pressing a hidden button on a wooden panel. [3]
No proper blueprints were ever used, instead much of the structure was largely improvised from postcards depicting the castles of the Rhine Valley, with help from Malmgren's close friend, the builder J. A. Widén. While Malmgren had a significant fortune, the construction was still a significant expense – to lower the costs, cheap materials were procured by buying and demolishing old timber houses in the city. [4]
Until his death in 1922, Malmgren held many grand feasts inspired by national romanticism, featuring for example fully roasted pigs and mead served in wooden tankards. [3] During the last six years of his life he was however physically unable to visit the place, admiring it from afar in his home Villa Elfkulla. After he died, Malmgren's widow Hilma never put her foot in the castle again, staying in Villa Elfkullen at the hill's foot. Over the following decades the building gradually fell into disrepair. The land was bought in 1942 by August Löfgren, who divided it into several smaller lots. Several prospective buyers appeared – among them two businessmen whose desires to settle in the castle were dismissed by their wives, the Swedish Author Association which wanted to dismantle the castle and move it to Stockholm, and a communist association in Uddevalla. [2] During the Second World War, soldiers mobilized in case of invasion were housed in the castle. Continued disrepair, combined with vandalism, led to its purchase by the builder Kjell Stolt, who planned to dismantle the castle and reuse its timber. Before he could do so, a fire broke out on 26 November 1950, consuming all of Tureborg. [3] [4]
In the 21st century, the castle is prominent among the city's landmarks. Despite this, the area has only irregularly been taken care of, with the ruins facing slow decay, overgrowth, and vandalism. In September 2014 a newly formed group, the Tureborgen Society (Swedish : Sällskapet Tureborgen) set out to start maintaining the castle. On 22 September a first round of maintenance began, with minor repairs made and encroaching vegetation removed. [5] [6]
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Bohuslän is a Swedish province in Götaland, on the northernmost part of the country's west coast. It is bordered by Dalsland to the northeast, Västergötland to the southeast, the Skagerrak arm of the North Sea to the west, and the county of Østfold, in Norway, to the north. In English it literally means Bohus County, although it shared counties with the city of Gothenburg prior to the 1998 county merger and thus was not an administrative unit in its own right.
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Uddevalla is a town and the seat of Uddevalla Municipality in Västra Götaland County, Sweden. In 2010, it had a population of 31,212.
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Brita Kerstin Gunvor Borg was a Swedish singer, actress, and variety show artist. Her variety show career spanned from 1943 into the 1970s, while her singing career trailed away at the end of the 1960s. However, she was still an active actress in the 1980s. Borg represented Sweden in the Eurovision Song Contest 1959 in Cannes.
Torsburgen, Tors borg or þors borg are the remains of an ancient hillfort in Kräklingbo on the Swedish island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea. The fort is approximately 1.2 km2 (0.46 sq mi), was constructed in the 1st-4th century and in use until the 12th century. Situated on a plateau hill it is protected by high cliffs and wall sections, almost 2 km (1.2 mi) long in total. The fort is featured in the Gutasaga. The plateau is also a nature reserve.
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Dalhem Church is a medieval church in Dalhem on the Swedish island of Gotland. Built in the 13th and 14th century, the church underwent major changes during a renovation at the turn of the 19th–20th centuries. Dalhem Church lies in the Diocese of Visby of the Church of Sweden.
Bohusläningen is a daily newspaper, focusing on central and northern Bohuslän, as well as western Dalsland.
Ture Robert Ferdinand Malmgren was a Swedish journalist, book publisher, and municipal politician. A prominent figure in his home Uddevalla, Malmgren became a colourful and well-known part of the city's history through, among other things, his long-lasting ownership of the newspaper Bohusläningen, work in the local political scene, eccentric and extravagant lifestyle, and faux-medieval Tureborg Castle.
Fjällhyddan, also known as Jakthyddan and other variants of that name, was a building constructed in Uddevalla, Sweden, during the late 19th century. It was created by Ture Malmgren (1851–1922), a prominent – and highly eccentric – local businessman and politician. Today the building is a ruin.
Ture Valleys or Ture's Valleys is a nature reserve in the town of Uddevalla, Sweden. Located by the foot of the mountain Fjällsätern, on which Tureborg Castle stands, close to the Tureborg district, the area is named for Ture Malmgren (1851–1922), a prominent, wealthy and highly eccentric local politician and newspaper owner, once chairman of the Uddevalla city council and founder of Bohusläningen. Originally proposed in 1979, a plan to survey the area was put in place in 1988, and the nature reserve was finally created in 1991. The nature reserve – administrated by Uddevalla Municipality, and about seven hectares large – is a popular hiking area.
The Eastern Cemetery is a cemetery in Uddevalla, Sweden. It belongs to the Church of Sweden, which professes to Lutheranism, and serves as burial grounds for – primarily – the members of Bäve Parish (sv).
The Uddevalla Suffrage Association was a late-19th-century political movement founded in Uddevalla, Sweden. Local historians and the Swedish Social Democratic Party consider it the first political predecessor of the Swedish labour movement in the province of Bohuslän. Its purpose was to bring about universal suffrage in Sweden: At the time, suffrage in the country was restricted to men and based on personal wealth, therefore excluding most of the urban and rural working class from the electoral process. The Uddevalla Suffrage Association was one of many groups throughout Sweden that helped bring democratic thought into the common discourse and make way for the political breakthrough of the labour movement.
The tomb of Ture Malmgren is a structure located in Uddevalla, Bohuslän, Sweden. It is located by the foot of Fjällsätern, near the center of the residential district of Tureborg. Carved into the sheer cliff face, it was intended as the final resting place of the local politician and publicist Ture Malmgren. Despite his own wishes, Malmgren was instead interred elsewhere after his death in 1922, effectively rendering the empty rock-cut tomb a cenotaph of sorts.
Fjällsätern is a minor mountain in southern Uddevalla, Sweden. Its summit reaches 105.9 metres (347 ft) above sea level according to one 1950 estimate, making it the area's second highest. There the local politician and publicist Ture Malmgren (1851–1922) began building his grand Tureborg Castle, today a ruin, in 1899. Along its slopes Malmgren constructed several other structures, among them the likewise faux-medieval summer residence Fjällhyddan, and his own would-be tomb. The area was once completely barren, but Malmgren – who was engaged in the tree-planting movement of that time – promised his wife Hilma that she would one day be able to walk beneath trees on Fjällsätern, and set about planting the thick forest of today. A nature reserve named after him, Ture Valleys, is situated on the mountain's eastern side.
Tureholm is a small and uninhabited artificial river island in Bäveån, which runs through the city of Uddevalla in Bohuslän, Sweden. It was created in the late 19th century or early 20th century by the local politician and publicist Ture Malmgren (1851–1922), close to his residence Villa Elfkullen. According to his newspaper Bohusläningen, the process of land reclamation took place because Malmgren enjoyed water, and wanted to be closer to the river. According to another author, it partially functioned as a wave breaker, preventing the ice of the late winters from pulling the nearby bridge with it. A small bridge is said to have formerly led from the mainland to its now overgrown embankments. The islet was named in reference to Malmgren by his friends. Other places named for him include the ruined Tureborg Castle and the nature reserve Ture Valleys.