During this later period life at the manor was relatively stable
until 1926 - a total of 600 years in the same family. True, the
family name had changed from Brock to Scheel, but throughout the
period the manor was only ever passed on by inheritance from parent
to oldest child. However, in 1919 the Danish parliament enacted the
Abolition of Entailment Act, removing the right to sole
inheritance, so that when Christen Scheel (1853-1926) died there
were 11 children who were equal heirs to the estate. The family
therefore chose to sell the manor and from 1928 the main building
was owned by Christen Scheel's son-in-law, Valdemar Uttental, who
worked with other interested individuals and public institutions to
set up the self-owning institution, Gammel Estrup, Jutland's Manor
Museum in 1930.
The farm buildings and the land around the manor continued to be
farmed until 1969, at which point the state purchased them and
converted them into the Danish Agricultural Museum. Today the two
institutions share ticket sales but are otherwise independent
museums with different areas of responsibility, staffs and
activities.