Audioguide in English – The Keep of Helsingborg

Entrance level/guard level

The first floor, accessed via a drawbridge from an external turret in the curtain wall, was probably used both as guardroom and kitchen area. This is where the guards took shifts keeping the enemy at bay. In the fireplace in the niche to the right of the entrance, food was cooked for for those living and working in the keep. The fireplace is also part of the keep’s heating system. A flue leads from the first floor up through the building, connecting with flues from the fireplaces on the second and third floors.

Through the hatch in the floor, you can look down into the eight metre deep cellar. The raised cellar served several purposes. Kärnan was harder to conquer when the entrance was one storey above ground level. It also had a suitably cold temperature as a larder and storeroom.

Level 2

The second floor was used as a domestic space. The middle room was where the servants gathered. An oven and a sink with its drain directly out into the open show that this room besides having a kitchen, also served as a more specialised bakery. Evidence of the high temperatures can be seen on the blackened beams in the ceiling. This storey also has two chambers and a privy all built into the thick walls.
 

Level 3

The third floor was the heart of the stronghold and the King’s premises for representation and court life. Here, many historically important political decisions were made.

The ceiling was raised after rebuilding in the mid 1300s, when the floor between the then third and fourth storeys was opened up. The room was then given ribbed Gothic vaults, a chapel with an altar and a new chamber to the right of the entrance. The walls were plastered and decorated with frescoes. If you look up, you can see the entrance to a mezzanine level which are the remains of the original fourth floor above. This may have been the king’s sleeping chamber. To be able to use the room after the joining of the two storeys, this chamber was given a small internal balcony and a wooden staircase that descended along the wall. Remains from the balcony are still in situ. On the left of the entrance there is a thick wooden door that leads to another chamber with a privy. The door was put in when Kärnan was periodically used as a prison in the 1600s.
 

Level 4

The fourth floor is also a result of changes made in the mid 1300s, when two storeys were made into one. Remains of the medieval vaults can be seen in the corners. The barrel vault in the ceiling dates from the 17th century when Kärnan was made into a gun tower and the roof had to bear the weight of a battery of four cannons. It is not clear what this floor was used for but the central room possibly served as a grand hall. The hatch that you can see if you look up at one of the former sixth floor’s wall openings probably acted as the opening for a lift system to the upper floors, since it was difficult to transport weapons and effects up and down the narrow spiral staircase.
 

The view

The fifth floor, or terrace, was where the keep was defended and an important viewing platform. When Kärnan was converted to a gun tower in the 1600s, the medieval crenulations were pulled down and the whole storey rebuilt. The tower became much lower. When Kärnan was restored in 1893-1894, attempts were made to recreate the keep’s uppermost section as it may have looked in the Middle Ages. The keep thus regained its height and its crenulations. From this level you can see the strategic location of Kärnan and of the former Castle of Helsingborg. From here you can look out over the whole of Helsingborg, Öresund and the Danish coastline.