History Tullgarn Palace

Tullgarn Palace. Copperplate, Erik Dahlberg's "Suecia antiqua et hodierna". Original: The National Library of Sweden, The Royal Library.

Many Swedish people associate Tullgarn Palace, near Trosa in Södermanland, with King Gustaf V and his Queen Victoria.

During the 1920s, 30s and 40s, newspapers carried many feature articles describing Tullgarn as King Gustaf's summer residence. But its history goes back much further.

The old Palace

The "Tyllegarn" estate is already mentioned in medieval documents, but the first Palace only built in the late 16th century, for Count Carl Sture.

The old Renaissance Palace was pulled down in about 1720 and replaced with the present building, designed by the French fortification officer Joseph Gabriel Destain for the then owner, Count Magnus Julius De la Gardie.

In the 1770s the Palace was acquired by the State for Gustav III's youngest brother, Duke Fredrik Adolf.

Modernizations

He embarked on a radical rebuilding of the Palace in the 1780s, when the wings were raised one storey higher and the whole building was given a new, modern flat Italian roof.

Duke Fredrik Adolf's interiors at Tullgarn, for instance the Red Antechamber and the Great and Lesser Bedchamb-ers, are among the finest of their kind in Sweden.

A summer resicence

In 1881, Crown Prince Gustaf (V) married Princess Victoria of Baden, and Tullgarn became their favoriet summer residence.

Many interiors were modernized at that time. The Great Breakfast Room, fitted out in virtually South-German Renaissance style, is a typical example.

Tullgarn of today

Today Tullgarn is open to the general public during the summer and parts of it are used as holiday accommodation for employees at the Royal Palaces.

An "English Park" with meandering footpaths and ponds surrounds the Palace.

The Tullgarn area has been designated an area of national scientific interest, and there are permanent research stations here for biologists and zoologists from Stockholm University.