Samsø Museum

About the museum

The museum was founded in 1917; in the same year, Samsø Museumsgård was built specifically as a museum building modeled on an old farm from Nordby. The farm is still furnished like the home of a wealthy skipper-farmer family around 1850, with faience and textiles that the island's seamen brought back from afar, box beds, and a parlor for celebrations and funerals.

In 1995 the museum was renamed Økomuseum Samsø in order to turn attention to the interplay of landscape, culture, and the island's inhabitants. A year later it took over the former Brattingsborg manor dairy in Tranebjerg, which Count C. F. Danneskiold-Samsøe had built in 1911 and which served as a cooperative dairy from 1935. Since then the building has been the center of the museum, with a ticket desk, a museum shop in the old cream-separating hall, and changing exhibitions; in the summer half-year it also serves as a tourist information office on weekends.

Since 2015 the museum has belonged to the Moesgaard Museum in Aarhus and again bears its original name. It includes several visitor sites on the island, among them the smallholding Fredensdal from 1904 with old Danish breeds of domestic animals, the powder house at the Vesborg lighthouse, and the old library in Nordby. The museum's research is devoted, among other things, to the Stone Age on Samsø and to the Kanhave Canal from the year 726.

Highlights

• Samsø Museumsgård: skipper-farmer's farmstead with interior from around 1850
• Kitchen garden with old medicinal herbs at the museum farm
• Former Brattingsborg manor dairy from 1911
• HistorieUniverset: family program about the Kanhave Canal
• Fredensdal smallholding with old breeds of domestic animals

Permanent exhibitions

• Samsø Museumsgård – Home of a wealthy skipper-farmer family around 1850 with faience, textiles brought back from abroad, box beds, and a loom from the 17th century.

Founded

1917

Operated by

Moesgaard Museum

Director

Mads Ravn (Abteilungsleiter)

Admission & discounts

The admission of DKK 70 is valid jointly for Samsø Museum and Samsø Museumsgård. Film screening for bus guests DKK 10 per person.

Accessibility

• Partially wheelchair accessible
• Elevator: no information
• Accessible restroom: no information
• Accessible parking: no information
• Service dogs welcome: no information
• Tactile models & exhibits: no information
• Sign language tours: no information
• Easy-to-read materials: no information
• Audio description: no information

Parts of the museum are accessible without steps, but several old buildings have narrow doors, uneven floors, and high thresholds. The museum garden at Samsø Museumsgård and the grounds around Fredensdal are accessible for people with walking difficulties.

Kids & families

Great for kids & families

• Family tours & workshops
• Hands-on stations

In HistorieUniverset, families with children aged about 7 to 12 explore an era with a volunteer in 1½–2 hours: a legend in a storytelling cave, building a model of the Kanhave Canal, and working with large props outdoors. At least two, at most eight children; register by the day before at the latest. Old Danish breeds of domestic animals live at Fredensdal.

Getting there & parking

The museum hasn’t published any information on this – please ask the museum directly.

Amenities & dining

• Museum shop

Museum shop in the dairy's old cream-separating hall with books on Samsø, the Viking Age, and nature, as well as local crafts.

Events & venue rental

The museum hasn’t published any information on this – please ask the museum directly.

Plan your visit