Obervalbert

Obervalbert City of Lennestadt Coordinates: 51 ° 11 ′ 18 ″  N , 8 ° 6 ′ 37 ″  E
Height :	408 m above sea level NHN
Residents :	58  (Jun 30, 2020)
Postal code :	57368
Area code :	02725
Location of Obervalbert in Lennestadt
Aerial view of Obervalbert

Obervalbert is a district of the city of Lennestadt in the Olpe district in North Rhine-Westphalia . Neighboring places are Oedingen and Oberelspe .

history

The place is mentioned for the first time in 1439 in a notarized letter in which Arnt Rump von Obervalbert bequeathed a guilder of money or grain as an annual pension from the tithe to Altenvalbert to the church in Elspe . The origins of the place are likely to be earlier. In this area, several settlements were founded as early as the turn of the century as part of large clearings, which in the Carolingian-Ottonian period were apparently directed by the Elspe royal court.

The different spellings of Obervalbert in the 15th to 17th centuries contain the forms "val (en)" and "var (en)". According to a more recent investigation of the place names in the Olpe district, these word components may be descriptions of the color impression (such as “pale”, “yellowish”) of the place marked with “-bert”. A coherent interpretation of the basic word “-bert” or the possibly older version “ -bracht ” does not seem possible. An interpretation found for Hessian places as “bald mountain” cannot be easily transferred to the Westphalian situation. The prefix “Ober-” in the place name denotes the location of the place relative to Haus Valbert upstream on the Kettelersbach.

More precise clues about the size of Obervalbert emerge for the first time from the treasury register (used to collect taxes) from 1543 of the Duchy of Westphalia . According to this, at that time there were four people liable to treasure in Oueren Farenbertt (Obervalbert), the number of which should roughly correspond to the existing families or houses. At the end of June 2020 the population was 58, of which a relatively large proportion of 25.9% was made up of young people up to the age of 18 (proportion of the Lennestadt urban area 20.0%). The proportion of senior citizens among the local residents is also above average at 22.4% (urban area 17.4%).

St. Agatha

St. Agatha in Obervalbert

The St. Agatha chapel is the center of the town, which today has around 50 inhabitants. The original building (first mentioned in 1474) was consecrated by the auxiliary bishop on October 17, 1749. According to a cost estimate from 1835, repairs to the building, which had since fallen into disrepair, no longer made sense. The contract for a new building was given, whereby the residents of Obervalbert undertook to demolish the old chapel, excavate the foundation and move stones and sand on their own. The inauguration of the new building was carried out in 1838 by Landdechant Böschen from Meschede. The single-nave chapel was extended by a transept and a choir room around 1910/11 . The old chapel bell from 1883 had to be handed in during the Second World War and was replaced by a new bell in 1946. Comprehensive renovations took place in 1988; the choir room was redesigned. In the chapel there is a wooden altarpiece with four twisted columns from 1674 and two sculptures of Saints Joseph and Anthony .

Panoramic view of Obervalbert with the village chapel

Web links

Commons : Obervalbert  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original dated May 7, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Page 40 
2. ↑ see also: Oberelspe, Altenvalbert, Burbecke, Elsperhusen in texts and pictures, ed. for the 50th anniversary of the St. Quirinus rifle club and the SGV - Oberelspe department (1985), Olpe, p. 7
3. ↑ cf. Michael Flöer: The place names of the district of Olpe. Westphalian Place Name Book (WOB), Publishing House for Regional History, Bielefeld 2014, pp. 238, 239 u. 266.
4. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from October 3, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Page 72 
5. ^ Information from the city of Lennestadt
6. ↑ Ralf Breer and Otto Höffer, Churches and Chapels in Attendorn, Lennestadt and Kirchundem, Attendorn 1999, p. 114 ff.