St. Nicolai Church (Wöhrden)
The St. Nicolai Church is a Protestant church, which is located on the highest Wurt of the municipality of Wöhrden . The church, built from 1786 to 1788 in the late Baroque style, is probably the third church building on this site. The builder was August Rothe from Saxony. The second church in Wöhrden was of particular importance. It was important for the entire region, but had to be demolished due to its dilapidation and danger of collapse.
history
The parish of Wöhrden was first mentioned in 1281. The church of the earlier importance of the place is consecrated according to the patron saint of boatmen and merchants St. Nicholas . Little is known about this first church building, except that it was protected by a 3 to 6 meter thick wall made of field stone. It was destroyed on September 8, 1319 in the Battle of Wöhrden when Gerhard the Great of Holstein-Rendsburg tried to take Wöhrden. The defenders fled to the church, which was then set on fire by the attackers. Neocorus described their escape:
- In de Kerken tho Oldenworden and fasten them as a Borch, where they best worked. In the end, however, the fire raged so badly that Bly van dem Dache melted down. (P. 53)
In desperation, the Dithmarscher broke out and drove the enemy to flight.
After their victory, the people of Wöhrden built a late Gothic hall church, which was also - less splendid at the time - later in Meldorf and Wesselburen . A comparison with the Meldorfer Church , today the most impressive church building on the west coast, can hardly be drawn. In terms of size at least, both churches were roughly the same size. While later chroniclers referred to this as the Victory Church or state monument , this interpretation is too modern for the Dithmarschen of the 14th century. While an important victory for the Dithmarschers over the Holstein nobility probably actually took place at this point, church building was a matter for the individual parishes and not for the Dithmarscher in general. The magnificent church building from the 14th century points above all to the wealth and importance of Wöhrden at that time.
The new building consisted of a main nave in the north, which was 160 feet (about 52 m) long and a 92 feet (about 35 m) long aisle in the south, was a total of 70 feet (about 24 m) wide and the height to the roof was 28 feet. The walls of the main nave were made of field stone, those of the aisle were partly made of brick. The main nave was partly covered with a gable roof , partly with a hipped roof, the south aisle with a pure gable roof. On the main nave there was a separate roof turret in which the bell and hour bell of the church were. In the additional, separate wooden bell tower, perhaps 5 × 5 m², there were the large bells of St Nicolai's Church. In addition to various signs of victory from the Dithmarschers, the church also contained the grave of Adolph Kösters, Neocorus' father. The oldest pictorial representation of the old church comes from Peter Boeckel's Dithmarscher map from 1559, on which the latter recorded the events of the Last Feud .
According to the temporary village pastor Johann Adrian Bolten, the church was :
- provided with such handsome stone vaults, such a spacious choir and generally so valuable furnishings that it could almost give a crown to all regional churches of that time. (P. 51)
The floor of the church, however, was due to the further growth of the Wurt finally a few meters below the Wurt surface, so that there was a problem with inflowing water that had persisted for centuries. Raising the floor in 1741 could not help. Ultimately, however, the wall between the two aisles was likely to have been decisive for the structural deterioration of the church, through which water regularly penetrated and irreparably damaged the supporting wood. The master builder Stammer stated on the occasion of the police closure of the church in 1777:
- the external main walls [are] pushed through over the perpendicular line, therefore these arches and walls also received large cracks in various ways; unequal arches rounding itzo are ... The other cross arches not only have many transverse, but rather alarming large long cracks, therefore unevenly squashed and shifted in a straight line as a crooked line. (P. 66)
organ
The church has a valuable historical organ that goes back to an instrument that was built by the organ builder Anthonius Wilde (Otterndorf) in 1593 using material from the previous organ . The instrument at that time had 32 registers (1757 pipes) on three manuals and a pedal. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the instrument was permanently changed in terms of sound and technology in the course of several restorations. In the years 1958–1960 the organ building company Emanuel Kemper (Lübeck) tried to approximate the historical findings. In 1978 the game mechanics and parts of the wind system were renewed, the upper work was set up as a swell, two new registers were added and the organ was re-voiced according to the knowledge of the time. Since then, the purely mechanical instrument has 33 registers (2252 pipes) and combines stylistic features from different building periods.
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- Coupling : I / II, III / I, III / II, I / P, II / P
- Secondary register: Zimbelstern
- W = Register by Anthonius Wilde
- H = predominantly historical register inventory.
- N = register from 1980
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Reimer Hansen: The old Wöhrden church. In: Reimer Hansen: From a millennium historical neighborhood. Studies on the history of Schleswig, Holstein and Dithmarschen . Malente, Schleswig-Holsteinischer Geschichtsverlag 2005, ISBN 3-933862-33-7 .
- ^ Anthonius Wilde organ. Woehrden-Online. Retrieved October 12, 2012 .
Web links
Coordinates: 54 ° 9 ′ 54.9 ″ N , 8 ° 59 ′ 51.5 ″ E