Garnisons Cemetery 2.31

Garnisons Cemetery is a cemetery in Copenhagen, Denmark. It was inaugurated in 1671 on a site just outside the Eastern City Gate, as a military cemetery complementing the naval Holmens Cemetery which had been inaugurated a few years earlier on a neighbouring site. Later the cemetery was opened to civilian burials as well.Garnisons Cemetery is an independent cemetery, managed by the parochial church council, placed under the army's highest authority.HistoryGarnisons Cemetery was founded by a decree from King Frederick III and laid out in 1664 on a site outside the Bastioned Fortifications, next to the main road leading in and out of the Eastern City Gate and opposite the naval Holmens Cemetery which was laid out around the same time. Burials began the same year but the site, former marshland, was rather unsuitable for the purpose since ground water levels made it hard to bury the bodies in sufficiently deep grounds. In 1671 some improvements were made when the site was enclosed by pallisades and ditches and the cemetery was officially inaugurated on 13 July 1671.During the first decades, the cemetery remained relatively little used. In 1706 Garnison's Church was built on Sankt Annæ Plads and in 1723 the Soldier's Cemetery received its current name.