Barony Rosendal

About

Barony Rosendal (Norwegian: Baroniet Rosendal) is a historic estate and manor house situated in the village of Rosendal in Kvinnherad Municipality in Vestland county, Norway. The barony was built in the 17th century by Danish noblemen on the old estate of the Norwegian noble Galte family, the current barony estate making out the historical farms of Hatteberg, Mel and Eik.

The history of Rosendal dates back to the 1650s, when the nobleman Ludvig Holgersen Rosenkrantz (1628-1685) of the House of Rosenkrantz came to Bergen as commissioner of war for the Danish king, Frederick III. At a ball at the fortress of Bergenhus he met Karen Axelsdatter Mowatt (1630-1675), sole heiress to the largest fortune in the country at the time. Her father was a great land-owner and had more than 550 farms all over the western part of Norway. They were married in 1658 and were given the farm of Hatteberg in Rosendal as a wedding present. In 1661, Ludwig Rosenkrantz started building his own country house in Rosendal and completed this in 1665. In 1678, King Christian V of Denmark gave the estate the status of a barony - the only one of its kind in Norway. Around 1850, an expansive romantic garden...