Bakkehuset

Kamma Rahbek’s romantic garden

Permanent exhibition

On a visit to Kamma Rahbek’s romantic garden, you can experience the aesthetics, the colours and even the authentic aromas of the 19th century in a uniquely evocative way. The garden can be experienced in spring, summer and autumn, but it exhibits its greatest plendour around May and June. The garden provides the best possible completion for a visit to the museum, and in summer concerts, readings and other activities are arranged there.

Don’t miss out on a visit to the Orangery’s lunch restaurant, where open sandwiches, homemade lemonade, wine, beer and coffee are served in spring and summer.

Today Bakkehuset stands encircled by a beautiful little museum garden, which was established in a newly conceived Romantic style by landscape architect, Charlotte Skibsted, in 2017. In the same year the octagonal Orangery was erected, designed by Rønnow Arkitekter. The Orangery functions as a luncheon restaurant in spring and summer, and the building is inspired by an octagonal gazebo and an orangery that stood here in the 18th century.

The garden contains a broad range of the plants that were cultivated in Kamma Rahbek’s day. In addition to the plants that we know she had in her garden, there are also plants taken from her decorations of boxes, gouaches and other forms of crafts, in which plant ornamentation was a recurring theme. Kamma Rahbek had a predilection for compositions in yellow, white, gold, pink and deep violet flowers, compositions that the garden has incorporated today.

The garden is part of the museum’s area and its presentation of history. It is open to the public all year round, and there is no entrance fee. Part of the garden is, however, locked at night.

– It is not permitted to bring dogs into the back part of the garden behind the house, whether on a leash or not.

– It is not allowed to pick the garden’s flowers and leaves.

– Food may not be brought into and consumed in the garden – instead, we recommend a visit to the Orangery.

Kamma Rahbek

A true garden enthusiast

Kamma Rahbek was a true garden enthusiast and knew much about botany and gardening. When she and her husband bought Bakkehuset in 1802, she had the opportunity to cultivate and reorganise the large garden that belonged to the house. The garden was expanded in 1812 to approximately 7 hectares. Kamma Rahbek shared her extensive knowledge of botany with a circle of professional gardeners, among them, the head gardener at the Botanical Gardens in Copenhagen, Frederik Ludvig Holbøll.

In Kamma Rahbek’s time the garden consisted of a flower garden close to the house, and a kitchen garden a little further away. Here she cultivated vegetables, fruit and herbs. Part of the harvest went into the household, and part was sold directly from the garden. Kamma Rahbek kept precise accounts for the harvest, which is the reason that we know what she cultivated.

There were quite a few trees in the garden, among them, two large lime trees in front of the facade of the house, where there was a flower bed. The couple’s niece, Marie Louise Konow, has described how Kamma Rahbek’s garden was established in a modern style – that is as a Romantic landscape garden with, for instance, lawns, which were an innovative feature. Unfortunately, we have very few descriptions of the garden and no plans of its layout.

In the yard in front of the chestnut tree stands a memorial stone to Kamma and Knud Lyne Rahbek executed by the architect G.F. Hetsch and the sculptor Hermann Ernst Freund from 1833. On the stone we see a relief with K.L.Rahbek’s portrait and on the other side a relief with the muse of poetry.