THE CASTLE

The manor house was the first building to be restored (from 1992 to 1998).
The designation of ”the castle”, which may indeed seem somewhat extravagant to most people, is in fact a local jest, and the reason is probably that in our days Ærø has no manor houses, so a ”castle” seemed appropriate. Moreover, a castle is characterised by the fact that people of the royal house have lived there; and this requirement is fully met by Søby-gaard, as you will see in the chapters about the dukes. However, for reasons of clarity in the English version of our text, we will refer to ”the castle” as "the manor house".

The three chapters on the history of Søbygård before its restoration will also touch upon the very complicated history of the building. For instance, the building previously had two full storeys. But also many other changes over the years have been discovered during the restoration work.