Skydebanehaven – The Shooting Range Garden
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Skydebanehaven – The Shooting Range Garden – is a small garden with a playground for children in the center of Copenhagen, Denmark. It was listed in 1969 and the Copenhagen Municipality is obliged to preserve the area as a recreational green space and maintain it as a park and playground.
As the name suggests, the park has a past as a part of a shooting range. The royal shooting company building from 1787 can still be visited on Vesterbrogade 59 since the building today houses the City Museum of Copenhagen.
The extent of Skydebanehaven has been redefined several times. At the southern end of the garden, the imposing shooting range wall is most characteristic. This wall looks like the entrance to a large feudal castle when viewed from inside the garden. The purpose of the wall, which was built in 1887, was to protect the citizens against stray bullets, but reportedly the wall was also essential in preventing the high society shooters to be distracted by seeing the surrounding slum.
A large part of Skydebanehaven is made up of the playground, wading pool, and sports fields.
However, the northern part is planted with lawns and flower beds, which, despite the garden’s small size, serve as a green respite for many of the neighborhood’s inhabitants.
