Upcoming symposia
Nordisk Slots- og Herregårdssymposium 2026 is expected to be held in Finland in August. More information to follow.
Recent symposia held
Nordisk Slots- og Herregårdssymposium 2025 held in Skara, Sverige the 21. – 23 August
Nordisk Slots- og Herregårdssymposium 2024 held on Fyn, Danmark the 19. – 21. September.
Nordisk Slots- og Herregårdssymposium 2023 held in Oslo, Norge the 21. – 23. September.
Nordisk Slots- og Herregårdssymposium 2022 held in Åbo og Västra Nyland, Finland the 18–20 August.
Nordisk Slots- og Herregårdssymposium 2019 held on Sjælland, Danmark, the 15.-17. August.
Nordisk Slots- og Herregårdssymposium 2018 held in Östergötland, Sverige, the 16.-18. August.
Nordisk Slots- og Herregårdssymposium 2017 held in Sør-Trøndelag, Norge the 18.-21. Oktober.
Nordisk Slots- og Herregårdssymposium 2016 held in Helsinki, Finland, the 15.-17. August.
Nordisk Slots- og Herregårdssymposium 2014 held on Fyn, Danmark, the 18.-21. September.
Nordisk Slots- og Herregårdssymposium 2013 held in Skåne, Sverige, the 15-17. August.
Nordisk Slots- og Herregårdssymposium 2012 held in Larvik og Vestfold, Norge, the 20-22. September.
Read about the previous symposia here:
Nordisk slots- og herregårdssymposium 2025 was held in Västergötland, Sweden, 21–23 August
The symposium began with a conference day in Skara City Hall, with the theme “The Nordic Manor and the Landscape of Power”. After a welcome by Professor Solfrid Söderlind, Lund University and Rebecka Millhagen Adelswärd, Carl-Göran Adelswärd Foundation, a program consisting of three sessions followed. Then two excursion days.
Read the program here
Nordisk Slots- og Herregårdssymposium
Nordic manors as educational centers
Held at Broholm Gods, Denmark, September 19-21
Education represents a history across high and low in the world of the manor. However, the personal education, behavior and the individual's cultural and intellectual competences were also one of this world's solid points of distinction. It helped to place, for example, the nobility and servants in their own obvious categories and cement the social differences.
The Nordic manor environments are generally hardly perceived today as exclusive centers of education – but their history is generally perceived as an important part of national general education.
Therefore, this symposium was held with a focus on topics such as:
- The manor elite and (education)
- Education – between society and manor.
- The manor as a center for knowledge, art and culture.
Nordisk slots- og herregårdssymposium 2023 was held in Oslo Turku, Norway, September 21–23.
The symposium began with a conference day at the Norwegian Folk Museum, with the theme “Manor Museums and New Museum Ideals”. After a plenary lecture by Peter Aronsson, Rector, Linnaeus University, Växjö, a program consisting of first two sessions held in parallel – then a plenary lecture and two further parallel sessions followed. As the symposium was combined with this year’s ENCOUNTER (European Network for Country House and Estate Research) conference, the two sessions were held in English.
The following days offered a very ambitious and eventful excursion program.
Read more about the conference program here: Successful joint venture: Nordic symposium on manors and manor museums/The 7th ENCOUNTER Conference –
Nordisk Slots- og Herregårdssymposium 2022
Nordisk slots- og herregårdssymposium 2022 was held in Turku and Western Uusimaa, Finland on August 18–20.
The symposium began with a conference day at Åbo Akademi University, the overall theme of which was “manors and economics”. The 12 presentations held on the day dealt with topics such as consumption, ironworks and forestry, agriculture and parks. The following two days included excursions to manors in Western Uusimaa.
Link to website with program: https://blogs2.abo.fi/slott2022/
Nordisk Slots- og Herregårdssympoisum was held in Copenhagen and northern Zealand in 2019 and highlighted the topic “18th-century Nordic castles and manors”
This year's symposium focused on three overall themes – namely 1. country houses, castle and manor architecture, interiors, gardens and parks, 2. gender and politics on the manor, and 3. law and administration on the estate – all with the 18th century as the periodical framework.
Presentations and debates took place in the Harsdorff Hall on Slotsholmen in Copenhagen, and the program presented professional contributions from a strong Nordic field of manor researchers. The participants also visited a number of excursion destinations among Zealand's castles, manors and landscapes with particular relevance to this year's theme. The trip went to Christian VII's Palace at Amalienborg, Bernstorff Palace Gardens, the Hermitage Palace and Jægersborg Dyrehave, as well as the manors of Ledreborg, Lerchenborg and Frederiksdal.
The symposium brought together 65 participants from the Nordic countries with an academic and professional interest in the history of Nordic manor houses.
The symposium was held in 2018 in Östergötland, Sweden, around the theme “Local, national and international perspectives on the Nordic estate”
In August 2018, around 70 manor house researchers met in Linköping at Östergötlands Museum for this year's symposium. The first day of the symposium consisted of a rich and exciting conference program with two international keynotes, which initially gave their perspective on the symposium's theme and illuminated the Nordic manor house environment of the past in an international perspective, followed by three parallel sessions with a total of 12 presentations delivered by speakers from the Nordic countries.
The following days, the symposium participants visited a number of manors in the region, including Sturefoss and Löfstad Manor.
Download material in pdf here:
The symposium was held in the Norwegian county of Sør-Trøndelag in 2017
The museums in Sør-Trøndelag hosted this year's Nordic Palace and Manor Symposium, and this year's theme was historical landscapes, parks, gardens and conservation issues.
The symposium was held over three days and included a conference day in Trondheim, where the year's themes were discussed with presentations from Norwegian, Finnish, Swedish and Danish speakers. This was followed by two excursion days in the area, where both manors, pleasure farms and manor landscapes were visited and discussed.
See more abour the symposium on the norwegian website here
See a video from the visit to Austrått
See a video from the visit to Granåsen
The symposium was held in and around Helsinki in 2016 under the title New times in old farms – innovations, urbanization and society's turning points
In August 2016, over 50 manor researchers gathered in Helsinki around the topic “New Times in Old Manors.” The theme highlighted how conditions, activities and cultural environments on old manors have been influenced and changed by social development and urbanization from the 19th century to the present day.
The symposium consisted of a conference day in Helsinki and two excursion days in Helsinki itself and the surrounding countryside. During the excursions, the participants became acquainted with the Finnish manor's encounter with the urbanization around the capital and the integration or non-integration of the manor landscape with the city.
See more about the symposium on the Finnish website here
Contribution (incl. PP) by senior consultant Tove Thøgersen, Norway
The symposium was held in 2014 in Denmark under the title "Estates, manors and lordships in the 17th century Nordic countries".
The 2014 symposium focused on a unified chronological focus – namely the 17th century – which is of crucial importance for the research understanding of the Nordic manor landscape. The period was characterized, among other things, by a strong international orientation, and the manor families were linked across national borders in the Nordic countries. At the same time, we also see fundamentally different developments in the manor area during this period, which to this day leave a different mark on the manors and their place in both the landscape and society in the respective Nordic countries.
Under the theme “Nobility and peasantry – Estates and rural society in the 17th century Nordic countries”, the first day of the symposium offered five lectures, which, among other things, dealt with conditions for landlords and peasants as well as state power and the formation of estates in the Nordic countries. As a novelty, the day also featured a program item called “News from manor research”, where everyone was invited to present ongoing or upcoming projects in short presentations of five minutes in length, in order to promote the Nordic Palace and Manor Symposium’s function as a networking forum for the professional field. The second day of the symposium featured a series of lectures under the theme “Manor and Manor – Buildings and Manor Life in the 17th Century Nordic Region”, where the lectures dealt, among other things, with learned noblewomen, the staging of the nobility and the manor architecture of the period in the Nordic Region.
The last two days of the symposium featured excursions to manors on Funen, all of which were built in the 17th century and which thereby formed a perspective for the lectures and discussions of the previous days. The trip went to Holckenhavn, Hesselagergård, Brobygård, Lundegaard, Skjoldemose and Broholm. In all places, the gathering was received with great openness and friendliness.
The 2013 symposium was held in Skåne, Sweden, from August 15 to 17.
The theme of the Symposium in 2013 was material culture, a research tradition with deep roots in, among other things, Art History and Ethnology, but which in recent decades has also grown strong within history and economic history.
This year's symposium took place in Skåne, which is one of the most manor-dense areas in Sweden.
Skåne was part of Denmark until 1658, and the Danish heritage in combination with the area's proximity to the continent has influenced both the architecture of the castles and manors as well as the estates' agriculture, work organization and landscape.
It was in 2012 Vestfoldmuseene and Østfoldmuseene, who invited to the Nordisk Slotts- og Herregårdssymposium in Norway.
The theme of this year's symposium was: Manor culture and cultural heritage production. The symposium took place in Vestfold, in the old counties of Larvik and Jarlsberg, and the symposium focused on, among other things, the formation of the Norwegian nation and the interpretation of manor culture, as well as drawing lines for modern perceptions and applications of manor culture.
