Bergische-Geschichten.de

geschichte.pfad
Historischer Wanderweg Sand
von Manfred Dasbach und Udo Harler

Kapitel 20
Alter Kirchhof und alte Kirche
Seiten 60 - 68

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"geschichte.pfad Historischer Wanderweg Sand"
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No.20: Old church yard and old church In 1894 master roofer Bläsius was paid the sum of 199 Mark to tear down the small old church at Sand to its foundations. How grateful some villagers would be today if he had left it untouched! But then as now little value is attached to landmark buildings with a particularly rich history. And then as now there sometimes remains only a vacuum where historical treasures are destroyed. So it is that one fine summer morning in 2005 two men walked across the Old Sand Church Yard with a gadget that seemed to have been borrowed from a science fiction film.

The inhabitants of Sand were worried. Hadn’t the site been just put in order owing to the interest they take in their past and their readiness to donate money? And hadn’t they just had the old grave crosses and sepulchral steles expertly restored? But the churchyard is in no risk of danger, on the contrary: Professor Michael Werling and Dr. Harald von der Osten-Woldenburg from the Institute of Construction History and the Preservation of Monuments of Cologne University were trying – with the help of a ground-penetrating radar system – to find out more about the small old church or rather:

about the old churches of Sand. The place of worship torn down in 1894 was by no means the first church at Sand. In fact it is more than likely that already in the 13th century - in any case in 1349 at the latest - there was a small hall church in the same place. It may have had wooden walls and a thatched roof as was the case with many churches in those times. As the two researchers also found out with their ground radar system this place of worship initially hadn’t got a tower. It may have been added at a later date, perhaps at the instigation of Knight Konrad von Sand. In a document dated and signed 1349 this Knight is mentioned as the owner of the farmyard at Sand. The timber framed structure at the east side of the church yard is a relic of this age-old farm. The document also informs us that Konrad and his wife Kunigunde donated a piece of land to the Church so that a dwelling place might be built for the priest. Werling and Osten-Woldenburg found out that the second church was built round the smaller old one. At the beginning of the Thirty-Year-War, in 1619 the old church was derelict to such a degree that the authorities intervened. Their verdict is as follows: “The Ravages of time brought about by several centuries have so much damaged and ruined the House of Worship and it has become so run down that it is beyond repair”.

Church Services can only be held in dry weather. But it took many years before the new church at Sand could be at long last consecrated in 1653. It could only be erected thanks to donations made by church goers as well as by house to house collections. This church remained in existence until the end of the 19th century. In 1741 it was equipped with the first bell, a donation of the then priest Willmundt. It was only in 1851 and again by public subscription that an organ could be acquired. At that time the house of God had once more become too small for the 400 members of the parish at Sand. The construction of a new church was taken into consideration.

Since the demolition of the old church only the ancient tombs and the church wall bear witness to the changing history of the place. In 1910, that is to say “in the good old times” people began to look for heroes and found one in the person of the erstwhile priest Ommerborn, “the heroic Man of God”. In a way he conducted his guerrilla war against the French with whom Germany was at odds again. In no time at all a monument to his memory was built and the local historian Dr. Ferdinand Schmitz delivered an impassioned and overly patriotic speech when it was inaugurated on November 15th, 1910. After World War II - such heroes were no longer in demand – the church yard was only provisionally maintained, the tomb stones and crosses were overgrown, the wall fell apart. Since 2003, however, local residents and associations together with the Historic Society of Bergisch Gladbach have seen to it that The Old Church Yard receives the regard that it deserves as common cultural heritage.

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