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The Postal Service’s Own Lighthouses

By Erik Jensen

The museum has come across a collection of very fine original drawings of lighthouses from the time when the postal service was in charge of the ferry service across the Great Belt.


On 12th September 1996 Post Denmark, Stamps and Philately, issued a very beautiful series of stamps with motifs of the lighthouses of Fornæs, Blåvandshuk, Bovbjerg, and Møn. The edition was naturally linked with the Day of the Stamp which has since 1996 again been placed in September and thus in the beginning of the stamp season. This year the Day of the Stamp was held in 10 different towns throughout the country and the P&T Museum contributed with stamps and objects for part of the exhibitions and arrangements that took place during the days of 12th-15th September.

In connection with this work we came across a series of well-preserved drawings of different equipment like fire baskets, oil lamps and reflectors, and hoist structures, as well as entire lighthouses on the island of Sprogø and in the towns of Korsør, Halsskov, Nyborg, and Knudshoved.

The drawings are in the Post and Telegraph Museum as in the old days it was up to the postal service to take care of the erection of lighthouses for the guidance of the ferries across the Great Belt. The lighthouses of the postal service did not fall under the Lights and Buoys Service and ordinary navigation did not benefit from them. They were only functioning when mail-carrying ships were expected. Public lighthouse marking in the Great Belt was only introduced when the Sound Tolls were abolished in 1857, until then it was not an option to sneak west of Zealand in the dead of night in order to avoid paying the tolls! In the daytime, the revenue vessels were patrolling.

It is known that already in 1705 the postal service established a bascule light on the island of Bågø in the Little Belt on the mail route Assens-Årøsund. In the Great Belt the postal service erected in 1727 a beacon light with a fire basket at Halsskov and a corresponding bascule light was established at Knudshoved – perhaps the same year, but there is no information about this bascule light before 1750. By the way, the beacon light was still used by the Danish state-owned railway company in foggy weather as late as in 1904. In 1779, the postal service even set up bascule lights for their own use in Bredfjed on Lolland, at Puttgarden on Fehmern, and at Heiligenhafen, but the lights were put out again when the route was discontinued in 1787.

A lamp light was established at Knudshoved in 1809. It was provided with seven parabolic mirrors which in 1822 were replaced with a so-called "sidereal lamp". In 1810, also Halsskov got a catoptric light in order to supplement the beacon light. It was set up in the building on the hill behind the beacon light. In 1809, Sprogø got a flashing light with five lamps which were provided with oil from a common container. The light was reflected by 5 parabolic mirrors and enhanced by passing planoconvex lenses. It was the first dioptric light in Denmark.

The drawings in the museum have been made during the years 1798-1819. Most of them were made by P.J. Hjort, but some of the coloured drawings bear the signature of Poul Løvenørn, who had become head of the Lights and Buoys Service in 1797 and who acted as an expert advisor to the General Directorate of Posts in ferry matters.

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