Lutheran Cemetery Hochstrasse (Wuppertal)
The Lutheran Cemetery Hochstrasse is the oldest of the three cemeteries on Hochstrasse in the Elberfeld district of Wuppertal .
history
The cemetery was created as the first of the three Christian cemeteries on what was then the main road from the east of the Elberfeld to Neviges on the Elberfeld Dorrenberg . It was inaugurated on August 16, 1842 after the Lutheran Cemetery at Hofkamp, opened in 1797, became too small for the growing community. It was created back then in joint planning with the Reformed community of Elberfeld, which also wanted to build a new cemetery on the Dorrenberg. The sloping plot of land sloping to the west was delimited by the western road to Neviges, today's Briller Straße, and delimited by a high retaining wall along the road.
As early as 1842 a neo-Gothic gate building with a morgue, storage room and a small cemetery attendant's apartment was built on the north side of the cemetery. At first there was no chapel, the morgue was used for the funeral ceremonies, whereby the visitors had to stand for lack of seating. In 1905 the Boeddinghaus family donated the family's hereditary burial, which was located in the cemetery, together with a small private chapel to the community on the condition that it should be used as a new cemetery chapel . But this turned out to be much too small for the funeral ceremonies, so that in May 1907 the presbytery decided to build a new chapel with a large house for the cemetery attendant and a toilet facility in the area of the old gateway. The old gatehouse was demolished except for the actual central gate and a neo-Gothic chapel was added to the south of the preserved central section. At the north end of the archway, a multi-storey residential building with toilet facilities and administration rooms in the basement and an apartment on the upper floors was built. The new chapel was inaugurated on November 24th, 1908, and a small hand-operated bell on the outer wall was not rung.
The cemetery survived the Second World War largely undamaged.
Since the cemetery chapel built in 1908 had neither a sacristy nor sufficient coffin chambers, the construction of a new cemetery chapel was necessary in the 1960s. This was inaugurated on September 1, 1963 in the immediate vicinity of the old cemetery chapel. The old cemetery chapel was used for non-church funeral services until 1993 and has not been used since then.
In 2005 a new columbarium was opened in the cemetery and has been expanded several times since then.
Chapels
Old cemetery chapel
The old cemetery chapel on the south side of the archway built in 1842 was built entirely from sandstone in the neo-Gothic style between 1907 and 1908. The ten meter long nave and the altar face south and was originally closed with a short apse on the southern wall of the cemetery. The east and west sides are divided by two simple windows with extremely fine tracery. The neo-Gothic apse was demolished during the construction of the new cemetery chapel and replaced by a flat choir.
The interior of the chapel, which was still in use until 1993, is entered from the north side below the archway. The light marble tile floor, together with the light pews, creates a particularly light atmosphere, reinforced by the high, pointed windows on the sides and originally also in the choir. A small choir arch separated the choir and nave until it was demolished.
The old chapel and the entire gatehouse have been a listed building since October 5th, 1995.
New cemetery chapel
The new cemetery chapel, built in 1963, is a simple, rectangular building in the style of post-war modernism . The building, which borders the southern cemetery wall and the former apse of the old chapel, faces west with the short nave and is entered from the north from the side. The building, made of glazed brick , only has a high window front on the north side above the double door, which gives the high, column-free room with exposed walls and the light wooden ceiling a particularly warm impression. A single-manual pipe organ is located in the southwest corner next to the round apse.
Personalities
The graves of the following people, some of which are listed, can be found in the cemetery:
- Eduard Graf (1829–1895), physician and politician
- Adolf Hermann Jaeger (1832–1899), Lord Mayor of Elberfeld
- Oskar Erbslöh (1879–1910), aviation pioneer
- Friedrich Bayer (1825–1880), entrepreneur and founder of today's Bayer AG
- Carl Rumpff (1839–1889), entrepreneur
- Richard Bayer (1883–1972), Elberfeld industrialist
- Friedrich Bayer (1851–1920), entrepreneur
literature
- Klaus Goebel , Andreas Knorr: Churches and places of worship in Elberfeld, Düsseldorf 1999. ISBN 3-930250-35-7
- Evangelical and Catholic Church in Wuppertal: Wuppertaler Friedhofsführer , Wuppertal 2011
Web links
- Entry in the Wuppertal monument list
Coordinates: 51 ° 15 ′ 49 ″ N , 7 ° 8 ′ 4 ″ E