The Border Station in Egebæk-Hviding

The Vedsted-Hvidding railway station was opened in 1887. In 1923 the railway station became a psychiatric clinic which in turn became an asylum centre in 2015. The area forms a cultural environment.

The Danish/German Border Station

Following 1864, Egebæk-Hviding was divided in two: Egebæk in Denmark and Hviding in Prussia. The station opened on 15 November 1887, connecting the Bramming-Ribe-railway line with Schleswig-Holstein. Thomas Arboe was the architect, and with its 220 m platform the station became Northern Europe’s longest.

The platform was divided by an iron grille and each country had its own staff to cover all functions. The Customs staff checked for smuggling, which also took place amongst staff members themselves. In 1916, a German porter, Peter Olsen, was caught smuggling a piglet to Germany under the pretence that it was a rabbit.

Mental Hospital

Following the Reunification, the station lost its significance, and on 1 April 1923, the Mental Hospital opened in Vedsted.

The platform was converted into lounging halls and the main building’s waiting rooms became dormitories. Maria Anchersen was the hospital’s first chief physician. Some of the hospital’s first patients were soldiers suffering from war traumas from WWI.

Asylum centre and cultural environment

The hospital closed on 4 November 2015, reopening later that month as Hviding Centre for 300 asylum-seekers.

The area has been nominated as a cultural environment worthy of preservation because of its architectural intactness.