Vilvenich

Vilvenich 2009

Vilvenich was a settlement that belonged to Pier in the municipality of Inden in the district of Düren , North Rhine-Westphalia .

General

Vilvenich was between Düren and Jülich , just inside the Inden lignite opencast mine . The houses of the rural village stood on a road that branches off the Roman road between Merken and Pier at right angles to the northeast. The largest building was the Zehnthof , newly built in the 18th century , to which the Helena Chapel belonged. The estate had historical ties to the nearby village of Pier, in which the collegiate churches of Düsseldorf-Gerresheim and St. Ursula in Cologne owned properties.

In the summer of 2015 all buildings were demolished, in 2017/2018 the location of the Inden open-cast lignite mine was dredged.

Helena Chapel

Helena Chapel

The chapel was the oldest and most important structure that fell victim to the lignite opencast mine in Inden. St. Helena in Vilvenich was first mentioned in writing in the 14th century, but it was older. The hall church with retracted rectangular choir and roof turret was built on the 12th – 13th centuries. Dated century. On the street and the choir side it had walled up small arched windows, on the courtyard side, on the other hand, walled openings with unusual kinked lintels could be seen. Quarry stones and secondary Roman material served as building material, including hypocaust bricks and at least one matron consecration stone (see Matronenstein von Vilvenich ). With around two dozen changes, St. Helena was a very authentic example of a simple Romanesque sacred building . In many other Romanesque churches in the Rhineland , modernizations, restorations, war destruction and reconstruction have erased or covered up traces of architectural history.

Rescue attempts

With the successful implementation of the Romanesque church of Heuersdorf in Saxony from an open-cast mining area, which received worldwide attention, a public discussion about the preservation of the historically significant building began in the Vilvenich case. The Heuersdorf Church was comparable to the Vilvenich Church in terms of type, size, age and historical significance. Suitable resettlement locations could have been found in the vicinity and in the region. In Saxony it has been proven that the relocation of an entire church is technically and financially feasible. Other examples of displaced churches can be found in the Belgian open-air museum Bokrijk and in Most in the Czech Republic. While the first case involves the exact reconstruction of a Romanesque village church according to previous documentation, in the former ČSSR a much larger Gothic church was put on rails and driven out of an opencast mining area. However, on June 24, 2010, the Helena Chapel was demolished. In consultation with the construction management, stones that belonged to historical building findings could be marked beforehand. They should be stored so that they can be reinstalled if the stone material is used again.

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  Field cross

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  Vilvenich

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  Homestead in Vilvenich

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  Homestead in Vilvenich

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  Gate entrance in Vilvenich (1815)

Coordinates: 50 ° 51 '  N , 6 ° 25'  E