Lønborg

Lønborg lies approximately 15km northeast of Bork, near the mouth of the Skjern River in Ringkøbing Fjord, where it forms Denmark’s only river delta. In Viking times, there was a settlement here and from the hilltop, on a clear day, you have a good view of the landscape: Skjern Ådal, Ringkøbing Fjord and the North Sea dunes – and here it’s not hard to imagine the traffic by land and by sea in the Viking Age.  Lønborg was strategically well-placed for navigation, because in the Middle Ages, the mouth of the Skjern River was just next to the church – in fact the Skjern River was then called the Lønborg River. A deep sunken road leads down to a crossing point, used since the Iron Age and partly uncovered by archaeological excavations in connection with the re-establishment of the Skjern River in the 1990s. No traces of bridges have been found, but only stone-paved fording places, so perhaps a ferry helped travellers to get across the river dry-shod. That is an experience you can still have today on the cable ferries in the delta. The twelfth-century Lønborg Church is prominent above the landscape at the top of the hill. It is dedicated to Saint Knut, and the veneration of the last Viking king, Knut the Holy, is also associated with both the nearby holy well that bears his name and the burial mound 500m east of the church, known as Knudshøj. Among other things, Frankish jewellery, a bronze weight and a bronze key have been found in the fields around the church. In the Middle Ages, an earthworks fortification, Borgvold, was built west of the church. Borgvold has since been obliterated; a road from the 1960s intersects the complex, and gravel digging has destroyed the last possibilities for archaeological studies and the dream of finding Borgvold’s Viking Age predecessor. However, controlling the traffic in West Jutland was only one of several important reasons for Lønborg’s existence; fishing was another factor of great importance. It is mentioned in sources from as early as 1100, and in the 1200s Lønborg used salmon as a tax. When the delta later shifted further west, the site lost its importance.