The village of Virum is first mentioned in a papal letter from 1186 but is no doubt considerably older. The name "an open place which is easy to defend" ( vigi: "easily defendable place" and -rum: open place). In the letter, Pope Clement III gives the Virum as well as many other villages in the area to Bishop Absalon. Absalon soon ceded the villages to the Bishopric of Roskilde.
The Bishop of Roskilde constructed the small castle Hjortholm at the site in c. 1250. The castle was destroyed during the Count's Feud in 1535. Frederick III took over the estate in 1668. He renamed it Frederiksdal and constructed a small hunting lodge at the site.
The village of Virum was located where Virumgade is today. It belonged to the parish of Lyngby. The land was divided into three areas called "Geelsvang", "Mellemvang" and "Høftevang" which were subdivided into fields and crops were rotated in accordance with the three-field system. The marchy land down towards Furesøen was grazed by livestock. In 1682, it consisted of 13 farms, three houses with land and 14 houses without land.[1]
The modern suburb
The modern suburb was planned in connection with the conversion of the North Line into an S-train line. Virum railway station opened in 1936. The ambition was to create a healthy, well-functioning suburb with a population the size of a medium large Danish provincial town. The centre of the new suburb was Virum Torv, a mixed-use development centred on a roundabout next to the station. It contained retail space, service functions and apartments. Its northeastern corner was completed in 1939, its southeastern corner in 1943 and its southwestern corner less than a year later. A cinema, Virum Bio, was from the beginning located in the building on the southeastern corner. The same building also contained an Irma supermarket.[2]
Sights
Frederiksdal Castle is located in Virum. Its main building was built from 1744–45 and was used as a summer residence for Foreign Affairs, Privy Councilor Johan Sigismund Schulin. The Schulin Family still owns the estate.[3]
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