This is the sixth batch of church visits that I’ve blogged about. You can read about 1-10, 11-20, 21-30, 31-40 and 41-50 as well.
Churches visited this time
51. Wegekapelle Lind, Boisheim-Lind
52. St Peter, Viersen-Boisheim
53. St Gertrud, Dilkrath
54. Johanneskapelle, Dilkrath
55. St Jakobus, Lüttelforst
56. St Heinrich, Mülhausen
57. Johanneskapelle, Nettetal
58. St Mariae Rosenkranz, Willich
59. St Lambertus, Leuth
60. St Katharina, Willich
51. Wegekapelle Lind, Boisheim-Lind
Linder Straße, Viersen-Boisheim
http://www.viersen.de/C125704A0030C552/html/27C7C0AB9F49CCA5C125705F0033D05B?openDocument
I visited this chapel in the early evening, dragging triker friend Klaus with me. The normal photo of the church with my velomobile or trike now has an extra trike!
The chapel is in the middle of the countryside between Boisheim and Dülken in the farming hamlet of Lind and was built in 1911-12 to commemorate the tornado of 1 July 1891. The neo-Romanesque brick chapel was built in a Latin cross plan overlaid on an Octagon. You can see the field of potatoes next door!
The description of this chapel on the website gives an interesting insight into the purpose of some of these small chapels:
Weiterhin ist sie ein Zeugnis für die Fortführung des Jahrhunderte alten Brauchs, nachdem Hagelkreuze und Wetterkreuze in die “Flur” gesetzt wurden, um Gewitter, Sturm und Hagel abzuwehren.
This explains that crosses were placed in the church to ward off thunder, storm and hail, the continuation of a centuries-old rite.
I found this interesting to read as I had, during this cycle ride, asked Klaus if he knew why so many of these little chapels were built. He didn’t really know but wondered if it was to do with collecting lots of money and having to have something tangible to show for it.
On our ride we then visited a third chapel in the middle of nowhere east of Lobberich but as this was a wayside one (no services held there) I couldn’t really include it, but it was in a beautiful location so I’ve put a few pictures here.
This was a chapel to St Hubertus (he seems popular round here – he’s the patron saint of hunting, I believe).
Inside there are no seats (and it was all locked up), just a little altar.
And this was the view if you sat outside the chapel – lovely!
Klaus and I spent about 10 minutes trying to identify what we could see. Kempen was visible in the far distance because of the white tower of the Propsteikirche but we weren’t sure if we could see Grefrath or Oedt directly ahead of us. It turned out to be Oedt, which I had suspected because of the chimney also visible. In the far background we could see the Hülser Berg (near Krefeld) as well as the other moraine upon which Tönisberg sits.
St Peter, Viersen-Boisheim
Pastoratstraße 3, 41751 Viersen
http://st-cornelius-und-peter.de/
I visited this church on the way to visiting the furthest-distance church of my challenge, the church in Lüttelforst. I did a different route there and back, as you can see from the track below. On the way there I took the more western track which passed through Boisheim after I crossed the A61 motorway
The church was a very impressive sight, for once not surrounded by buildings.
And by the front door was this sign – ‘Church open’
It wasn’t completely open, however. Well, you could go in the main doors but there were then some glass doors (with metal gates behind them) to prevent you going right into the church. However I was able to see the windows and it all looked rather nice.
There has been a church in this site for quite some time – in historical documents from 1290 it is mentioned that there is a ‘Capella’ in ‘Buyschem’.
A small brick church was built in 1487 and further enlarged in 1899, including the tower. The church was badly damaged in 1945 and repairs were completed in 1954.
53. St Gertrud, Dilkrath
Boisheimer Str. 52, 41366 Schwalmtal-Dilkrath
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Gertrudis_%28Dilkrath%29
When I arrived at this church there was a large procession of people walking down the road, a priest talking through a loud-hailer and lots of general activity. It turned out there was a funeral taking place and the church service part had just finished, they were now walking to the cemetery (I presume).
So I waited a bit around the corner until people had left so that I didn’t disturb them with my photograph-taking.
Because the church was open following the funeral I popped in to have a quick look.
The church was originally built in 1460 and was much enlarged from 1902-1904, including painting the brick red.
54. Johanneskapelle, Dilkrath
Genend, 41366 Schwalmtal-Dilkrath
http://www.limburg-bernd.de/Viersen/DenkSch/Nr.%2022.htm
This was a gorgeous little chapel hiding in the fields – I thought the waypoint on my Garmin must be wrong as I couldn’t see the chapel, just a strange white tower, but the chapel was hiding behind the tower.
55. St Jakobus, Lüttelforst
Niederstraße 31, 41366 Schwalmtal-Waldniel
http://st-matthias-schwalmtal.kibac.de/#
So I made it to Lüttelforst (which I had always assumed was spelled Lüttelvorst and so had been writing it wrong for ages). It is the furthest-away church in my challenge and was an 80km (50 mile) round trip. Great fun though!
This church is perched on a hill above the road and was a pretty steep climb for Penelope.
The church was built in 1802.
This stone shows that a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela would be a bit of a trek from here!
It also had rather a lot of mosquitoes buzzing around whilst I was visiting – undoubtedly due to its close proximity to the river.
Lüttelforst seemed a very quiet little village without much going on but apparently there is a good restaurant at Lüttelforster Mühle which I may visit some other time.
56. St Heinrich, Mülhausen
Kirchstraße 4, 47929 Grefrath-Mülhausen
http://www.grefrather-pfarren.de/index.php?id=185
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve passed this church and gazed up at its rather ugly tower.
On my ride back on the main road from Grefrath I have to wait at a traffic light opposite this church and the traffic lights are slow so I see it a lot.
However, I decided to pop in on one particular day as I was doing a nice 30km loop around Kempen.
Apparently it was built in 1900 in the neogothic style but it looks to me like some industrial chimney or something. It goes a long way back and the rest of the church looked reasonably interesting but that tower! It totally takes over the look of the church!
57. Johanneskapelle Nettetal
an der B509 zwischen Leuth und Hinsbeck
At this point I have to admit something shocking – that a few of these church visits have not involved me cycling from Kempen. Instead I have visited them when starting my ride from Viersen (when I have been riding with Klaus). The original plan was to ride to all these churches from Kempen but it seems rude not to bag them when I am passing anyway, and it’s usually on a long ride, and I have probably ridden past them when having cycled from Kempen at some other time, etc etc. Excuses. I let you the reader decide if I have been cheating on my Churches Challenge.
This chapel is situated beside a main road down the hill from Hinsbeck. I think it might be linked to Haus Bey, which is now a golf course/centre near the Krickenbecker See.
It was built in 1617 as a memorial to Sophia Gräfin von Schaesberg (1823-1844) and was renovated in 1854 and 1994.
There’s a photograph of the interior, plus further explanation of this chapel in English, on this Flickr page.
58. St Mariae Rosenkrantz, Willich
Krefelder Straße 354, 47877 Willich
http://st-maria-rosenkranz.kibac.de/
This is another church that I visited when riding from Viersen rather than Kempen.
I wasn’t able to take a good photograph but here is one from their website.
Klaus took a picture of me sitting underneath the bells and desperately hoping that they wouldn’t ring…
I wasn’t able to find out much information about this church at all.
59. St Lambertus, Leuth
Johann-Finken-Straße 2, 41334 Nettetal
I had passed this church several times on my travels but decided to visit it whilst leading a group ride with several of Gudula’s friends. I’m not sure they understood exactly why we were stopping at the church and I was photographing it but it was a nice day and time for a water break for them anyway!
Here they all are standing outside looking puzzled.
Here is Alfie with Gudula’s bike having a rest beside the church.
The webpage for this church seemed to be dead but this plaque tells you that the tower was built in the second half of the 15th century and the nave 1860-1861 in the neogothic style.
60. St Katharina, Willich
Hülsdonkstraße 11, 47877 Willich
http://gdg-willich.kibac.de/sankt-katharina-willich/
Willich is pretty much at the bottom right hand side of Kreis Viersen and is somewhere I visit for the choir practices at the Auferstehungskirche but I hadn’t actually been into the centre of the town since arriving in Germany.
There were three churches to visit in Willich (including the aforementioned Auferstehungskirche) so I headed off directly to Willich, returning later via Anrath (where there are some nice cafés and for a variation in the route), riding 47km in total.
I arrived at St Katharina – which is easy to see as it is yet another of these colossal churches whose spires are visible for miles around.
But when up close it’s impossible to fit the whole church in the photo!
Round the corner, to get the side view, didn’t help much either because of the sun.
Here’s a photo from Wikipedia:
This was another church about which I found it very tricky to find information. There’s plenty of information about services and the kindergarten but little about history. However, Willich’s entry in Wikipedia explains that there was a church here in 800 AD. There was a big fire in 1675 where most of the village of Willich was destroyed, including the church which burned to the ground. The present church was built in 1901 in the neogothic style.
Churches 51-60 complete
So that brings to an end the next batch of 10 churches which have been scattered all over Kreis Viersen (I haven’t been very systematic in my visiting). But the dots on the map are spreading a bit wider now which is good news!
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