St. Andreas

English translation

The text above is the record as published by the Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed, in Dutch. The English below is a machine translation made by TreeAlive, not by the Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed; it has not been checked by a person. Where the two differ, the original is the record. Report a translation error: privacy@treealive.com

Description

Introduction

Roman Catholic neo-Gothic village CHURCH from the end of the 19th century. The church was built in phases in 1895-1896 according to the design of C.J.H. Franssen on the site of the former Weurt Andreas Chapel. Pastor J. van der Marck was, as mentioned on the foundation stone, also involved in the construction. The church was consecrated on 12 September 1898. In 1898 the tower, also designed by Franssen, was added. The church is characteristically situated on a churchyard, which encloses the church. On the west and north sides the grounds are enclosed by simple wrought-iron FENCING.

The church possesses valuable liturgical vessels and furnishings.

Description

The R.C. SINT-ANDREASKERK is constructed in machine-made brick in English bond with natural stone for the cornices, mouldings and buttress cappings. The roofs and spire are covered with Fourgeau slate in Maas bond. The church has a three-aisled basilical nave of five bays, a 5/8 closed single-aisled choir with adjoining rooms and a slender west tower with four storeys and a constricted needle spire. Against the north wall of the tower stands a five-sided stair tower, which reaches to and including the third storey and closes there with a small spire. The side aisles are straight closed on the east and west sides and are covered with a half-hipped roof. The nave is slightly wider than the tower and has a gabled roof, with spout gables at the junction with the tower and at the transition to the choir. The choir has a slightly lower hipped roof with an iron cross at the ridge end. The nave roof and choir roof are provided with roof dormers with a shutter and a two-sided closed hipped roof with a finial at the ridge end. The tower spire has four roof dormers with a shutter and a gable and cornerwise four-sided small spire. Both rectangular adjoining rooms of the choir have a hipped roof. The church building has buttresses on the side aisles and choir, which project at the height of the plinth and window sills - in the choir also halfway up the windows. The cornices are topped with natural stone slabs. The walls of the side aisles and clerestory feature, at the top, tooled false arch friezes and double projecting dog-tooth mouldings. The clerestory of the nave has, in addition, above it a tooled false arch frieze. Below the drip mouldings of the windows in the side aisles and choir is further a brick block-tooth moulding. The adjoining rooms of the choir have pilasters and, at the top, a block-tooth moulding and projecting double dog-tooth mouldings. The gutter mouldings are clad with slate.

The nave of the aisle has no buttresses, but pilasters (in fact forming part of the cross-shaped pillar cores of the interior). Because the nave has a wooden pointed-arch barrel vault, buttresses and/or flying buttresses were not necessary. The side aisles and choir have stone cross-ribbed vaults and therefore also have buttresses. Per bay the clerestory of the nave has four coupled pointed-arch windows. The side aisles have per bay two pointed-arch windows. The end walls of the side aisles on either side of the tower have a pointed-arch window, flanked on either side by a buttress and in the gable top three stepped executed pointed-arch recesses with a shared cornice with block-tooth moulding. The end gable of the nave has on either side of the tower a narrow pointed-arch recess and in the base of the gable top two stepped executed pointed-arch recesses with cornice with block-tooth moulding. Both side aisles have in the fourth bay (counted from the tower) in the lower section a projecting brick confessional room with blank wall closed by a block-tooth moulding and gutter moulding with slate cladding.

The choir has per bay a tall pointed-arch window with two-part brick tracery of a high-Gothic type (first occurring in Reims Cathedral), with two lancets and a circle in the top. This type of tracery is still executed without foils. Of the two rectangular adjoining rooms on either side of the choir, in the extension of the side aisles, the northern is of more recent date and simpler in execution. Both outbuildings have a hipped roof covered with slate in Maas bond, with in the eastern slope a roof dormer with shutter and a gabled roof transitioning into a cornerwise placed four-sided small spire with ridge finial. In the east gable of both rooms is a door under a segmental arch with tooled arch drum (decorative brickwork, executed in the sacristy on the south side in brown and yellow brick). The clamped door of the sacristy has decorative ironwork. The sacristy has further in the two bays broad south gable per bay two coupled pointed-arch windows with a natural stone cornice and drip moulding. The central pilaster of this gable continues above the roofline in optical effect in a brick chimney which tapers with at the transition hardstone capping slabs. At the top the chimney has an eight-sided finial, springing from a hardstone base. The storage room on the north side has in the north gable per bay only one pointed-arch window with brick weathering sill. The choir is slightly narrower than the nave. Noteworthy are the flues installed at a later stage (at the same time as the northern adjoining room?) which rise in the corners between nave and choir and close with a chimney, while branches run along the choir roof against the end gable of the nave and meet above in a chimney. The brickwork of the end gable of the nave is partly incorporated in these channels. The bases of the end gable with natural stone saddle ridge just protrude from the flues. The tower has on the corners pilasters which above are interconnected below the roofline by brick friezes.

The tower has four storeys on a low brick plinth, closed with a hardstone drip moulding. The gable surfaces of the various storeys of the tower are decorated with three pointed-arch recesses, of which the central one is executed wider with brick two-part tracery (two lancets and an oculus). These central recesses also have narrow light slits. The recesses have a shared natural stone cornice, which also serves as a division of the various storeys. These mouldings do not extend over the corner pilasters. These pilasters run uninterrupted up to the spire. The recesses in the fourth storey are open and serve as sound holes with in the central recess at the top a round clock face of the clock mechanism. Here is located a mechanical TOWER CLOCK by B. Eysbouts, Asten., later provided with electric winding, in the original, somewhat modified case. The window recess portal in the west gable extends over two storeys and has a passage with double clamped door with decorative ironwork under a natural stone lintel with a pointed-arch shaped fanlight with a three-part brick lancet-tracery. Then follows a hardstone drip moulding with a strip of four tooled rectangular recesses, closed by a hardstone cornice and finally in the second storey a pointed-arch window with four-part brick tracery (four lancets with in the top three circles). The whole is set in a tall pointed-arch recess with a substantial hollow moulding in the edge, per storey flanked on either side by a narrow pointed-arch recess. Against the north gable stands the five-sided stair tower, with a plinth and two tall and one low storey with small spire. The stair tower has slit windows and reaches into the third storey of the tower.

The INTERIOR of the nave has brick pointed-arch shaped transverse arches on brick cross pillars. The pillars pass without a capital into the arches. The front part of the pillars is carried along the nave wall to the base of the ribs (vault ribs) of the barrel vault. Here the pillar is closed by a foliage capital. The nave wall has a three-part elevation, consisting of the arcade, a flat strip between horizontal mouldings and the clerestory with per bay four brick lancet windows. The arch spandrels and the wall surface above the arcade (triforium zone) are plastered and provided with religious paintings. The other parts are executed in finished brickwork using coloured brick, worked in bands on the pillars and block patterns on the arches. The clerestory closes with a brick pointed-arch frieze and series of projecting bricks, on which rests the front edge of the vault cladding. Against pillars is placed a natural stone console with foliage decoration, on which a plaster figure is placed. The vault ribs and ribs of the side aisle vaults are received on natural stone corbels, decorated with foliage. In the walls of the side aisles are built-in confessionals, of which the doors are still partly present. The cross-ribbed vault and radiant vault of the choir is also executed in stone. The brick ribs are received on brick small columns with foliage capitals. The triumphal arch with surrounding brickwork is completely plastered on the nave side and painted with as central element the Lamb of God (adoration of the Lamb). The sacristy, accessible from the priest's choir, has a built-in vestment cabinet. Below the elevated priest's choir is still the original tiled floor.

The church has a very well-preserved interior, dating mainly from around 1900 with some older interior elements. - The PULPIT is Baroque, from the first quarter of the 18th century.

- The ORGAN is single-manual, made in 1777 by A.F.G. Heyneman. In 1847 rebuilt by A.A. Kuerten, probably the case was also made by H. Weitjens at that time. In 1981 the organ was restored by Verschueren Orgelbouw.

- The richly decorated neo-Gothic style PEW PLAN dates from the time of construction. A large part of the interior was executed, sometimes according to designs by C. Franssen, by the gifted sculptor H. van der Geld from 's-Hertogenbosch.

- HIGH ALTAR (neo-Gothic, wood with stone mensa, design C.J.H. Franssen, signed H. van der Geld, 1900, polychrome painted in 1919) ;

- MARIA ALTAR (neo-Gothic, c. 1897 - 1898, Roermond workshop ?) ;

- JOSEPH ALTAR (neo-Gothic, c. 1897 - 1898, Roermond workshop ?) ;

- In the celebrant's altar are incorporated parts of the former COMMUNION RAIL. (H. van der Geld, 1900, neo-Gothic) ;

- FONT (yellow copper, circa 1800) ;

- Two FIGURES (a Caecilia, originally probably a Maria and the apostle Andreas), from 1850 - 1860, 150 cm high. Carved wood ;

- Two FIGURES, oak wood, H. van der Geld, 1919, representing Anna (51 cm) and Victor (52 cm).

- Nine plaster FIGURES against pillars nave and in triumphal arch, neo-Gothic, unknown workshop (Peter, Paul, Anna, Joseph with Child, Ambrose, Anthony of Padua, Gerard Majella, Sacred Heart of Jesus and Sacred Heart of Mary) ;

- MISSION CRUCIFIX (crucifix of 100 cm height, polychrome painted wood from 1856) ;

- Polychrome on barrel vault from 1898 by Guillaume Deumens from Venlo. Symbolic representations of eucharist and divine and cardinal virtues ;

- Paintings on walls, executed in 1902 by M.H. van Winsten from Warmond and Van de Wiel, church painters from Stratum, with representations from the youth and public life of Christ and further scenes from the life of Mary and her glorification. The arch spandrels are painted with censing angels and vines with text scrolls. Festival gift for the jubilant pastor. The paintings were applied using stencils ;

- WAY OF THE CROSS, fourteen stations on canvas, painted by H. Sneltens from Sittard in 1901 (copy of an Antwerp way of the cross from third quarter 19th century by Louis Hendriks) ;

- Stained glass (seven in total) from 1912 and 1914 from workshop F. Nicolas and sons from Roermond in the choir windows. The windows contain two representations from the Old Testament as a prefiguration of a representation also depicted in each window from the New Testament. In the circle in the window tops a symbolic representation is included of an animal figure or monogram. - Three windows in choir closure from 1912 and placed in 1913 : - Nativity, Moses found in the Nile, burning bush, lion in the top ; - Crucifixion, sacrifice of Isaac, bronze serpent, pelican in the top ; - Resurrection, Samson carries the gates of Gaza, Jonah spewed out by the whale, phoenix in the top.

Four windows from 1914 in choir bay and adjoining closure sides : - Annunciation, fall of Eve, fleece of Gideon, God the Father with Alpha and Omega in the top ; - Visitation, hospitality of Abraham, Samuel, Eli and Hannah in the temple, Maria Monogram in the top ; - Ascension of Christ, Tobias led by Angel, Elijah carried to Heaven, Jesus Monogram in the top ; - Pentecost, Moses receives the stone tablets, Elijah defeats on Mount Carmel the priests of Baal (fire from heaven on altar of Elijah), Spirit Dove in the top ;

- Wall sconces, seven against the pillars of the nave, and two three-armed against the front wall of the priest's choir, yellow copper, circa 1900 neo-Gothic ;

On the west side and partly on the north side the grounds are enclosed by simple wrought-iron FENCING, with brick pillars on Kerkstraat. Between two of these pillars is located a wrought-iron gate.

Evaluation

R.C. SINT-ANDREASKERK from 1895 - 1896

- Of architectural-historical value as a good and well-preserved example of a neo-Gothic village church, with a fine characteristic tower built according to a design by C.J.H. Franssen, and of importance for the oeuvre of the architect. The fine and very well-preserved interior furthermore contains very valuable elements, including an 18th-century pulpit, an 18th-century organ, altars by the renowned sculptor H. van der Geld according to a design by C.J.H. Franssen, stained glass by workshop Nicolas and sons, paintings on the wooden vault and walls and furnishings.

- Of urban value through the characteristic situation of the church, undoubtedly the most well-known and striking building in the village of Weurt, situated in the old village centre of Weurt on the south side of the dike of the Waal river. The church building determines with its striking silhouette with substantial tower with needle spire the appearance in this still historically well-preserved and valuable surroundings. The church with churchyard and adjacent parsonage are part of the old historical structure of the village centre, which has been preserved here relatively intact.

- Of cultural-historical value as an example of an old village church which has played a great role throughout the centuries in the life of the village. From the church various buildings were founded and institutions supported, such as the convent and the school, both located on Pastoor van der Marckstraat. Also in the personal lives of many inhabitants the church played or plays a determining role. The present church stands on a site that has been in use for religious purposes for centuries and serves as a tangible reminder of all events from the past, in which the church has played a role both on a general and personal level. The history of this religious place certainly dates back to the 13th century (the Weurt chapel dates from this time) and the site is therefore also of great archaeological importance.

Cultural-historical description

It was the time of the "Rich Catholic Life", from which the village of Weurt also benefited. The architectural style used was almost exclusively neo-Gothic until around 1910, the "revival" of the quintessential Catholic medieval style: Gothic. C.J.H. Franssen also built in neo-Gothic style and employed this style in various villages until around 1915, when neo-Gothic had already passed its peak in the cities. Following his master dr. P.J.H. Cuypers, he drew inspiration especially from Early French Gothic (a very good example of this is his Roman Catholic church at Bergharen) and, in contrast to dr. P.J.H. Cuypers himself during his career, moved away from it only with difficulty. Occasionally, however, he also allowed elements from regional Gothic styles in his designs, such as influences from Lower Rhine Gothic tower construction, which he incorporated in his tower designs for Weurt and Beuningen. The tower of Weurt possesses typical Lower Rhine elements, such as the construction without buttresses (only flat corner lisens) in four cubic elements (storeys), the facade surfaces of which are decorated with pointed arch niches. A very recognizable Lower Rhine element is further the "window-niche portal", where the portal with fanlight and a pointed arch window in the storey above are together framed in one tall pointed arch niche. The first two storeys in Lower Rhine towers frequently formed internally a large, high tower hall covered by a stone vault, which necessitated a staircase tower built against the outer facade to reach the storeys and spire above this vault. Franssen placed the staircase tower against the north facade of the tower.

When the parish continued to grow at the end of the nineteenth century, partly due to the establishment of a brick factory, pastor F. Verhees decided to have the church enlarged. Franssen was engaged to design the whole. First the choir section and two nave bays were built against the old church. This began in 1895 and was completed that same year. It was decided to continue building the church according to Franssen's design and the entire nave was completed in 1897. The small medieval tower (15th century) remained standing for some time, because demolition was initially refused. This brick tower had three storeys, of which the second storey in the north and south facades had a pointed arch niche with brick fork tracery. In the uppermost storey this motif was repeated with more depth and relief in three facade surfaces. In these niches two round arch openings were left out as sound holes. The tower had a (later modified) window-niche portal, extending over one and a half storeys and terminating in a spire with inset, with square clock faces on the roof line. The internal tower hall was closed off with a cross-rib vault. The spire of this tower reached to the ridge of the new nave roof and stood one metre in front of the gable wall of the new nave, a situation that was recorded in a photograph.

Eventually this small, distinctive tower was allowed to be demolished and replaced by a tower more suited to the building. In 1898 this tower, also designed by Franssen, was added. The church was consecrated on 12 September 1898.

The church was able to come about also through the support of the wealthy Weurt families, such as Burgers, Daamen and Braam. In particular the brick manufacturers, the brothers Burgers, played a major role in Weurt and the surrounding area. They had various villas built or renovated (among others on the Jonkerstraat) and donated the bricks for the construction of the church, cloister and school. Members of these influential families are buried in the churchyard to the right of the church (see separate description).

Both for their churches and for other building projects, late 19th-century master builders often employed standard models. P.J.H. Cuypers initially had as an ideal the French cathedral type, a cross basilica with ambulatory and radial chapels, preferably with twin-tower front, which he also used for smaller churches through scaling down. C. Franssen also developed standard types in due course, both for churches and for cloisters. So we know that Franssen, for example, designed the cloister at Bergharen. We probably have here a standard type by Franssen, because of the great similarity in layout and execution with cloisters in places such as Weurt, Nederasselt and Winssen. In church building Franssen initially employed, depending on the available budgets, different types of churches, including also cathedral-like designs with two towers as in Cuyk. However, for the less affluent parishes he soon developed a layout that was applied to many smaller village churches; namely a transept-less, three-aisle basilical nave with single-aisle choir with adjoining spaces and one west tower with a spire. Nave and side aisles were lit by lancet windows, mostly executed coupled in triplets (groups of three stepped windows) or double and fourfold lancets, as in Weurt. The churches of, for example, Beers, Horssen, Weurt, Beuningen and Nederasselt are of this type. These are very efficiently built village churches, which also play a defining role in the silhouette of the village.