Sankt Annæ Gade

Sankt Annæ Gade is a street in the Christianshavn district of Copenhagen, Denmark. It connects the main harbourfront at Asiatisk Plads in the west to Christianshavn Rampart in the east by of the Snorrebroen bridge. Church of Our Saviour is located in the street.

Founded in about 1620, Sankt Annæ Gade is one of the oldest streets in Christianshavn. It is named for Saint Anne, a patron saint of seamen. For more than a century, no bridge spanned the canal connecting the two halves of the street. Construction of townhouses soon began along the western half, while Christianshavn's first church, a temporary wooden structure, was built on the south side of the far end of the street in about 1640. The north side was used as the town's first graveyard. It was in these grounds, on the north side of the street, that construction of the present Church of Our Saviour began in 1882. It was inaugurated in 1696.

In 1772, instigated by the crown, Peter Christian Abildgaard, who had studied veterinarian science in Lyon, began the construction of Denmark's first veterinarian school on the site across the street from the church. The school was taken over by the crown in 1776. A number of new buildings were added over the course of the next decades.

In 1858, the Royal Veterinarian School left Sankt Annæ Gade when a large new Royal Veterinary and Agricultural College was inaugurated outside the city in Frederiksberg. The old buildings were all torn down and replaced by a prison complex which was used to accommodate prisoners from the neighbouring Christianshavn Penitentiary which was demolished in 1862 to make way for a modern prison building which was inaugurated in 1864 to designs by Niels Sigfred Nebelong. When the new building, which completely filled the block between Christianshavns Torv and Sankt Annæ Gade, was turned into a women's prison in 1870, the interim facility remained in use for male inmates. This lasted until 1908 when it became part of the women's prison which finally closed in 1921.

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