HANS HANSENS FARM 

The farm is made Museum Farm 

The farm was opened as museum farm in 1968. The history behind this event is that the latest private owner had an interest in the past so strong that he left the furniture of his farm to the Danish National Museum. The best way to make use of this gift would be to exhibit everything where it belonged. Con- sequently, after the land had been sold away the buildings were preserved by the National Museum taking over the ownership. This made it possible to arrange a museum farm which could give a picture of peasant culture in the island of Møn covering the period from the Agriculture Reform Acts at the end of the 18th cent. till the time of the last private owner. 

The history of the farm 

Originally our farm was placed in the hamlet of Keldbylille. As a result of the agricultural reforms the tenant farmers here became freeholders and the system of a large number of separate strip holdings was abandoned in favour of a system of one compact holding for each owner. In the year 1800 the then owner of our farm, Poul Bendtsen, moved with his entire household, a total of ten persons, to settle on his own land. The new farm was built from the foundations but with some use being made of materials from the old farm in the hamlet, so that these old buildings were the following year described as being changed and diminished. Poul Bendtsen's second wife survived him and married one Hans Hansen. For a long period this name was linked with the farm and it was repeated a hundred years later when a grandchild of the first Hans Hansen, bearing the same name, was the last private owner of the farm. 

The dwelling-house 

In this farm consisting of four undetached wings we find the dwelling in the southern one. In accordance with the dominating tradition of the island of Mon, and with that of Zealand, too, the walls of all the wings are white-washed all over. The framework timber is practically invisible that way. The beams are mortised through the upright posts. Seen from the farmyard the tenons stick out from the top of the wall, whereas they have been removed on the garden side of the house. The roof thatch is reeds and the ridge cover straw kept in position by means of roof-trees. 

The gable overlooking the garden is characteristic of the island, being covered with horizontal boards in the top part of the vertical, un-hipped gable. The brick-built gable at the gate-way, however, is rather late and the rooms at this end of the house were not originally part of the dwelling. During the better part of the 19th cent. they were barn, sheep-house, etc. 

The rooms of the dwelling-house 

The entrance of the dwelling is through the middle door from the yard. It opens into the kitchen. Here the cooking was done on a cast-iron kitchen range. Formerly it took place at a fireplace inside the large chimney which was first built with the entire front forming an entrance. 

In the living-room the furniture is placed according to traditions known from countless farm-houses. There is a fixed bench along the windows with a long table in front. At one end of the table is another fixed bench with a panelled wall behind and a sawn out side-board, and in the corner a cabinet placed on top of the bench. The placing of the two beds with hangings in front of the windowless wall towards the yard is perfectly normal, too. The grandfather clock was made in the island of Bornholm. Some of the pieces of furniture are so old that presumably they have been taken along from the hamlet when the farm was built in 1800, and others belong to the period right after that event. Distinctly later, however, is the brown coat of paint which was added in the late 19th cent. Here and there it shows that it covers older paint in different colours. The wallpaper, pictures on the walls, and pelmets above the windows all belong to this late period. 

From the living-room one goes into the “better room" furnished with a chest with lid, a chest of drawers, and a folding table. Next to this room is the larder. In the far end of the dwelling-house is the best room". This type of room was formerly used mainly as a store-room for textiles. A suggestion of this function is seen in the large 18th cent. wardrobe and the chests of drawers from the late 19th cent. The furnishing of these rooms usually did not show that the „best room" was also used for parties. Not till the late 19th cent. was the room appointed with furniture suitable for a kind of parlour. Furniture characteristic of this development was a sofa with cushions, a rocking-chair, a pouf, and a chaise-longue. Another feature typical of the period is the large number of knick-knacks, framed portraits placed on various pieces of furniture, and albums with family portraits. 

The scullery is another room which is part of the dwelling though here placed in the neighbouring wing. There is, however, a connecting door from the best room". In the scullery is a large open chimney with an inscription mentioning the year 1800 for the erection of the farm and the initials of the owner and his wife. At the rear of the chimney is the mouth of a large bread oven which protrudes outside the outer wall protected by a lean-to roof. 

Outbuildings 

Opposite to the dwelling-house is the barn where the crops were pitchforked through the hatch from outside. As usual in Møn grain crop was also stacked right outside the farm. The cow-house is in one end of the barn wing and round the corner in the neighbouring wing, which was even as late as about 1860 large enough to house the entire cow-house. For the sake of the cow-house the end of the barn wing was made wider as early as some time last century. In this century a further modernization of the cow-house has taken place, i. e. the old frame- work building has been replaced by the only brick-built house in the farm. The latest modernization is a milking-machine from the years right after Second World War. In the stable the only existing old parts are a few stall partitions and one manger. 

Just outside the back gate is a small detached workshop which was used by the farmer. Behind the late board covering is hidden the old framework con- struction with clay-covered in-fillings. Farther away from the same gate is the cart shed built from tin plates and reeds. Here we find the tractor, the threshing- machine, etc. 

The garden 

The original garden is in front of the farm-house. It is arranged according to the style characteristic of old peasant gardens, a style which was developed during the 19th cent., but on the basis of older traditions. There are twisting garden walks round lawns with circular and oblong beds of flowers, and at the outskirts of the garden are sheltering plantations of trees. A vegetable garden had recently been laid out in a field. The last owner took great interest in gardening and enlarged the garden to a size far above what was normal in farm gardens. Only in the part of the garden next to the original garden in front of the dwelling-house was the old garden-style kept up, at least to some extent. A small pond was laid out in one side and in the far corner a rockery with a flagpole placed where there was a view of the Baltic.