Heilige Martinus en Heilige Agatha

English translation

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Description

Introduction.

Roman Catholic CHURCH dedicated to St. Martinus of Tours. Design from 1932 in traditionalist formal language by architect H. Valk from 's-Hertogenbosch with, among other things, regional style features of Kempen Gothic. The church, which has a ground plan of approximately 27 metres square, is not oriented. The altar is on the north. On the north-east side of the church, adjoining between church and rectory, lies the sacristy. In the original design the location of the sacristy was situated on the north-west side of the church. During execution a different location was chosen, as a result of which the old mammoth tree in the rectory garden was preserved.

Description.

The church is a five-aisle cruciform church with higher crossing lantern, low apse with three-sided closing of choir and low transept, all under gabled roofs. The side aisles have lean-to roofs. The crossing lantern is crowned by a four-sided bell-cote with bell. Adjacent to the choir are ancillary spaces and a connecting corridor with the rectory. On the south side of the church a square tower with diagonally placed roof, resembling Romanesque Rhenish tower crownings. The tower has a clock and bells, which are not of value from the point of view of heritage conservation. On the east and west sides of the tower a square chapel also under lean-to roofs. The main entrance of the church is round-arched. Three lofty blind recesses with forked tracery adorn the main façade. The gable tops have a climbing arch frieze. The church and sacristy are both internally and externally constructed of hand-moulded monastery bricks laid in offset running bond. This also applies to the scarp wall with half-hipped roof at the street. The middle and side aisles have on the outside heavy buttresses with offset. All masonry is richly provided with tufa stone, among others the columns in the church. The slate-covered roofs are enclosed between masoned crowned spout gables, which are finished with basketwork.

The church has fine brickwork internally. Through the broad middle aisle and the shallow choir with transept arms a centralizing effect is created towards the altar placed under the light crossing lantern. With this the church refers to the experiments of the architect and his contemporaries with the christocentric ground plan type. The elevation of the nave is divided into two parts: above the broad arcade arches on natural stone columns with an octagonal basement and a round shaft are situated small clearstory windows. Internally the nave has three square vaulted bays, the broad arcade arches each encompass two side aisle bays. Through the system of vaulting with climbing monastery vaults executed in brick in the side aisles and groin vaults in the nave, the minimum number of columns could be dispensed with. The outer bays of the side aisles function as ambulatories. At the choir side side chapels adjoin the transepts.

The wall openings of the church are provided with Tudor arches and masoned forked tracery with coloured stained glass windows partly executed in figurative and partly in clear work. The church has a valuable interior. It contains stained glass windows from 1873 originating from the former Public Works church with images of the Apostles: Thaddeus, Bartholomeus, Philippus, Thomas, James the Greater, Peter, Paul, Andrew, John, James the Lesser, Matthew, Simon and Saints Nicasius, Martinus, Leonardus of Veghel. Nicasius was born in the hamlet Kreil near Heeze. This saint, who was one of the martyrs of Gorcum, is specially venerated in Heeze. The painted Stations of the Cross from 1894 by Lucker sr. originating from the Stoltzenberg studio, and the two confessionals likewise originate from the previous church.

The wall paintings in the Holy Mary and St. Jobs chapel were created by Pieter Geraerdts in 1953. About ten wooden images, some polychrome and some not, depicting: St. Anne in Trinity (15th-16th century); Pietà (first half of 16th century); St. John the Baptist (circa 1800); St. Anne with Holy Mary (18th century); St. Nicasius (19th century); Holy Mary image with child and St. Joseph and St. Alphonsus de Ligori (1844) by sculptor Van der Heijden from Den Bosch; St. Carolus Borromeus (19th century). Furthermore there are sixteenth-century vestments in the church.

Valuation.

The church is of general importance. The building has cultural-historical importance as a particular expression of the development of Catholicism in the south and is also of importance as an example of the typological development of the christocentric parish church in the Interwar period. The building has architectural-historical importance through the style and the detailing in the historicizing formal language executed in brick and is of art-historical importance through the interior components. The building is also of importance as an example of the work of architect Valk, who experimented here with his christocentric church type and also effected the transition from expressionistic to more historicizing neo-medieval formal language. The building has ensemble values because of its setting, connected with the development of the church village. It is of importance because of architectural-historical, construction-technical and typological rarity.