Acciseboden

Acciseboden (the octroi house) on the ramparts of Christianshavn is situated a bit further towards Torvegade than Ravelinen - on the same side as and on the border of the rampart. It is the very beautiful small yellow building with the elegantly shaped roof - and the less interesting toilet hut on the back of the house. - not really an accisebod. The house was built as a porter's lodge and guardhouse and it was originally situated a bit further towards Amager - where the streets of Amagerbrogade and Markmandsgade lead into Christmas Møllers Plads.

The house was built in 1718-20 and is - in spite of the name "Accise" is French and means "excise tax on consumer goods - especially when these are brought to the town". That is, acciseboden was where one had to pay a kind of duty or tax for the goods one brought to town. Today, something like octroi or excise is called value-added tax (VAT) and is paid directly when we buy goods - not when we pass town gates.

When the peasants wanted to go to town with their goods, they had to pay a tax at acciseboden, then situated further towards Markmandsgade. Further on one's way to the town, one was controlled at Ravelinen where guards would check if one had really paid tax for the goods and, finally, further towards the town, one will find the fine yellow house that today is called the accisebod (the octroi house) though it was really just a kind of porter's lodge. Earlier, the house was situated further out on the road. When the road was widened in the 1930s, the house was cleverly rolled some ten metres back. The real accisebod at Markmandsgade was built in the 1820s, and later, in 1913, it was pulled down. Fortunately, the building that we nowadays call acciseboden has attained status as protected property. Peter Olesen, journalist and writer