The Infamous Financial Scandal
Gammel Estrup’s position as the centre of one of Denmark’s largest estate complexes came to an end with Jørgen Count Scheel (1768–1825). He enjoyed the good life in Denmark and during his travels across Europe in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Together with his wife, Christiane Mette Bille-Brahe, he managed to spend the Scheels’ enormous fortune, leading to one of the most remarkable financial scandals in Danish history. In 1815, Jørgen Count Scheel went bankrupt, and only Gammel Estrup’s status as an entailed estate saved it for the family.
After the bankruptcy, the Scheel family lived a quiet life at Gammel Estrup until 1926. The estate had then been in the same family’s ownership for 600 years. Admittedly, the family name had changed from Brock to Scheel, but the estate had not been sold during this period—only inherited. In 1926, however, the family’s time as owners of Gammel Estrup came to an end.
