Hesepe Chapel
The Hesepe Chapel is a sacred building used as a village chapel in the formerly independent community of Hesepe , now a district of Nordhorn . It is the last of the many chapels that once stood in the Grafschaft Bentheim and either disappeared shortly after the Reformation or later. It used to be considered the smallest chapel in the county.
The origin of the sacred building is before Reformation and probably dates from the 14th or 15th century. The building was renovated in 1853 at the request of the residents with funds from the Royal Hanoverian Private Casket; as a memorial, the wall above the entrance shows this year.
The chapel does not belong to a parish , but to the formerly independent brand municipality of Hesepe and is therefore ultimately owned by the local farmers.
The interior has a simple neo-Gothic design; the pulpit dates from 1776. The building is a listed building .
history
There is comparatively little evidence of the history of the peasant chapel and much has only passed on in fragments. Its history is closely linked to that of the farming family on whose property it was built. The farmer worked as a sexton for generations, and to this day the family is responsible for ringing the bell.
According to Maschmeyer, the building was built between the late 14th and early 15th centuries on an existing sandstone foundation.
Tradition has it that it comes from the pre-Reformation period and that it was consecrated to John the Baptist . After the Reformation, an originally quarterly mass was replaced by four monthly chapel sermons. This custom lasted until the early 1960s. After that the chapel was without function and fell into disrepair.
As long as the chapel did not have a bell, it was the farmer's job to drum at noon . From 1798, the chapel was provided with a small bell, which was rung not only at noon but also for 15 minutes in the morning at 9 a.m. when a member of the community had died. The bell also had to be rung in the event of a fire. This tradition has continued to this day.
The bell bears the inscription "Maria Elisabeth 1798"; it could be an earlier ship's bell .
In 2006 the band received a new organ from private funds.
building
The chapel is not far from the former elementary school Hesepe on Tillenberger Weg. The building is free-standing, but was built very close to a rural house. It is 6.80 meters wide and 10.80 meters long and made of large-format bricks . The eaves height above the ground is 5.50 meters.
In the east, the floor plan has a symmetrical trapezoidal finish. In the west there is a gable with a half-hip roof . This is based on the ceiling joists a hexagonal verschieferter skylights with a bell . The roof turret wears a welsh hood (bell-shaped curved tower roof) on which an iron tower cross with a weathercock is attached. The eastern end of the ridge bears a smaller, also iron cross.
The exterior of the building has seen a number of changes over time. Until around 1900, the roofing consisted of red hollow pans , as Maschmeyer says, the oldest available photo from the property of the property owner shows. A short time later, the roofing was made with double-trough cement pans . Later, the outer walls were gradually plastered with cement plaster, as can be seen in a photo before 1930, which shows a plastered west side with the south wall still unplastered. Around 1930 the rotten cement pans were replaced by blue-gray Schermbeck double- groove interlocking tiles . The roof turret was also rebuilt.
During restoration work in 1983 it was found that the chapel was made entirely of brick - in contrast to most sacred buildings in the Grafschaft Bentheim, for which sandstone was preferably used. The format of the bricks used corresponds to those used for the Frensweger Klosterkirche (built 1440–45) and the Burg camp (around 1450). Only a little below the upper small window opening on the western front was there a change in format of the bricks to the size of 21 × 10.5 × 5 centimeters common in the 19th century .
Furthermore, on the western front there is a sandstone corner block, which is not repeated at the choir corners and is not provided with the foundation wall templates with beveled edges, which are bricked from above down to floor level. According to Maschmeyer, these are parts of an older west wall, which could be proven in 1983 through excavations inside the chapel.
Until probably 1853, the west wall had a very high window in its center, the lower part of which reached to the entrance door, where its lower part has been preserved. The wall was then rebuilt from the height of the current window sills. During the restoration work, exposure of the brickwork turned out to be no longer possible due to the plaster adhering and the frost damage to the brick caused by the cement plaster, so that the walls were re-plastered with breathing lime mortar .
The wooden extension with a pointed roof in front of the entrance, which serves as a vestibule , was built after the renovation in 1983. It covers the inscription plaque above the entrance door made in the style of the Dutch late classicism "Bentheim-Gildehauser stamping", which is also made of sandstone and the following Inscription bears:
Keep your feet when you are blessed who go to God's house in God 's word
. Pred. 4, 17 hear and preserve. Luc. 11.28
Above the entrance and the wooden vestibule, which was added later, there are two pointed arched windows on the western front with wooden lattice frames and sandstone walls, which show traces of different versions, as well as a small, pointed arched window opening in the gable. In between there are four wall anchors with the year 1853 at eaves height, which hold the gable and stretcher together.
The eaves sides show, like the western front, two ogival, but somewhat longer windows; The anchors of the ceiling beams are located under the eaves.
The three sides of the choir on the trapezoidal east side are closed from the outside and appear to have no special features; During the renovation in 1983, however, it turned out that the choir room previously had a window opening closed with a basket arch on each of the three walls . There were also two niches on the east and south-east walls, each at Reichhöhe.
Maschmeyer assumes that the nave was probably provided with a wooden barrel cover, which is not to be found in comparable buildings in the area. He therefore judges the building to be unique.
Another renovation took place in 2014, during which existing damage to the outer shell and windows was removed.
Interior
The interior of the chapel is very simple.
The wooden ceiling consists of tongue and groove boards that are nailed to the ceiling joists . The beam ceiling itself dates from 1853. After the floor, which was built up as cement screed on slag , was removed during the renovation work in 1983 , the former location of the pulpit on the north side and its presumably 1853 relocation to the center of the ship, probably at the same time removing the altar plinth, could be found to be established.
The altar slab with the dimensions 93 × 159 centimeters and five hammered consecration crosses was found as a pavement slab on the forecourt to the chapel entrance.
Based on these findings, the sanctuary was redesigned in 1983 and the old altar plate is used again as a table for a communion table . The benches are from the 1930s.
The pulpit dates from 1776, as can be seen from a note in the marriage and death book, born between 1749 and 1809 of the Protestant Reformation parish in Nordhorn:
" D. 18 Decemb. (1776) Hebbe ik to Hesepe preached uit Nehem. 8 V. 5, 6 en 7 onder toevloet van seer veele people, te occasion dat de meant van Hesepe aldaar een nieuwen prediktstoel according to hadden. "
The pulpit is a typical, contemporary carpentry that is executed in the shape of a hexagon . A wreath board, which has a bookend in the front area, forms the upper end. The board surfaces are provided with profile strips so that the impression of real fillings is created. Profiled wooden columns are attached to four beveled corners, above and below each a wooden box ("base" and "entablature"). One side is designed as a door, to which a staircase with sandstone steps leads.
literature
- Dietrich Maschmeyer: The old peasant chapel in Hesepe, city of Nordhorn. A medieval religious building . In: Bentheimer Jahrbuch , ISSN 0723-8940 , vol. 1984, pp. 43-59.
- Arnold Nöldeke (ed.): The art monuments of the province of Hanover . Volume 14, Hanover 1919.
- Heinrich Daniel Andreas Sonne: Earth description of the Kingdom of Hanover. Verlag Voigt, 1817. p. 353.
- Heiko Aarnink: Chronicle of the brand and chapel community Hesepe. Hesepe parish 2006.
Web links
- Chapel Hesepe in the Lower Saxony Monument Atlas
- Image index of art and architecture: Hesepe Chapel around 1910
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Arnold Noldeke: The monuments of the province of Hannover . P. 158 ff.
- ↑ a b c Heiko Aarnink: Chronicle of the brand and chapel community Hesepe.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Dietrich Maschmeyer: The old peasant chapel in Hesepe, city of Nordhorn. Pp. 43-59
- ^ H. Blasting, A. Schröder: Handbook of the old diocese of Münster. Volume I, Münster 1946. p. 411.
- ↑ Grafschafter Nachrichten of November 14, 2006: You can't refuse anything .
- ^ Local action group Region Grafschaft Bentheim eV: renovation of the Hesepe chapel
Coordinates: 52 ° 24 '54.48 " N , 7 ° 6' 33.61" O