Taarbæk

History

Taarbæk was established as a fishing village in the 17th century. It was originally called Thorsbæk, meaning Thor's Stream, a reference to a local stream. The village had no harbor, the fishing boats were pulled up on the beach. Most of the fish were sold on the fish market at Gammel Strand in Copenhagen. The village belonged to the parish of Kongens Lyngby. An inn opened in about 1800. On 22 May 1730, it received a royal license to brew its own beer and make its own aquavit. The innkeeper had to pay his tax to the king in cod. In 1821, local residents started working for Taarbæk to get its own school and church room. The school opened in a building which was donated to the project by the two English owners. Taarbæk became a spa town when Klampenborg Vandkuur-, Brønd- og Søbadeanstalt opened in 1845. The section for women was located at Taarbæk while the section for men was located a little further to the south in Klampenborg. The number of summer visitors grew steadily. Some stayed with the local fishermen while other built their own country houses. In the 1860s, Taarbæk began to change even faster. A key event was the opening of the Klampenborg Railway in 1863. The area to the south of the village was built over with summer residences. In 1864, the town finally got its own church. Taarbæk Harbour, with room for 70 small boats, was built in 1865. In the 1880s, a new district known as Ny Taarbæk ("New Taarbæk") formed to the north of the village when wealthy people from Copenhagen began to construct summer residences in the area. The new residents included the two Magasin du Nord founders Theodor Wessel and Emil Vett. Connections to Copenhagen improved even more with the opening of the Coast Line in 1884, although trevallers to and from Taarbæk still had to use…