Vorupør Old Cemetery

By Kapelvej, east of the coast road by northern Vorupør, lies the fishing village’s old cemetery. It is a very evocative place and definitely worth a visit.

The gravestones tell a story

At the cemetery there are headstones and memorial stones in memory of dead fishermen and shipwrecked seamen, and the headstones bear witness of the harsh life by the sea. There are headstones featuring old fishing families, and many of them indicate that infant mortality was high and many fishermen died young. In one grave rest the crew of the German ship Concordia, which ran aground close to Vorupør in 1896. You will also find the headstone of Jens Munk Poulsen. He was the driving force of Fiskercompagniet, which helped to develop Vorupør in the late 1800s.

Another headstone has been placed in memory of eight fishermen who died on 26 March 1885. A storm suddenly appeared from the west, and on the violent waves, a rescue boat picked up the crews from two fishing boats.   The rescue boat capsized, and eight of ten rescued fishermen drowned.  The rescue team survived thanks to their lifebelts and the fishing boats that were ready to assist. This accident was very serious for the fishing village, and afterwards a lot of fishing families turned for comfort to the Home Mission, which is an evangelical branch of the Church of Denmark. 

The Church and the Home Mission

In the northern part of Vorupør, the church and its neighbour the Home Mission chapel have a visible place in the townscape, just as the birth of the Home Mission plays an important role the history of the town.

Until the late 1800s, the fishermen of southern and northern Vorupør had belonged to the church in Hundborg, but soon the need for a church closer to the coast became increasingly evident. In 1878, a church was constructed east of northern Vorupør, where the old cemetery stands today, and where the porch from the later demolished church is now used as a chapel. The church had room for 150 worshippers, but in the later decades it proved too small because of the growth in population, and a new church was built in 1902. The first Home Mission house was built in the southern part of Vorupør in 1887. The Home Mission house “Filadelfia” in northern Vorupør was built in 1916.