Thursday, March 07, 2013

Kastbjerg church, Djurs Nørre herred, Randers amt.

Kastbjerg church, ab. 10 km northwest of Grenå.

 Kastbjerg parish, Djurs Nørre herred, Randers amt.
The church in Kastbjerg is a longhouse building with a Romanesque nave and a Gothic choir-extension, aA tower to the west and a porch to the south . From the Romanesque building, which is built in granite ashlars upon a bevel plinth, stands only the nave, which has kept its straight-edged south door in use. A round arch window to the north is only visible inside, bricked-up as a niche. In the Gothic period, maybe already in the 1300s, the original choir was replaced by a three-sided longhouse choir, and later cross-vaults were built in  the church, which outside are supported by heavy, sloping buttresses. In the western vault was a now bricked-up trapdoor to the loft, which indicates that the tower was built after the building of the vault. The tower, which bottom room has an octagonal vault, opens to the nave in a pointed arch, which is of the same width as the nave and has gables north- south. The north gable has five close-placed round arch glares, the south gable is very re-built ab. 1834 ( iron numbers). The porch in granite boulder and monk bricks is probably from the middle of the 1500s. Its smooth gable has a small Renaissance-marked top peak. In a lightning in 1950 the church was so damaged that it had to get a thorough restoration, and during this was found frescoes, which were washed over.

 Pulpit in simple Renaissance, new altarpiece by Poul Winter, granite lion-font, small altar crucifix, probably Italian.

Upon an earlier communion table-panel was an inscription that the altarpiece was plundered by the Poles, but the table was re-dressed in 1661 again by herredsfoged Søren Pedersen and his wife Birgitte. The  *altarpiece is a copy  from 1923 after Carl Bloch's Gethsemane in a neo-Gothic frame work. An earlier altar painting from 1870 by Andreas Tastrup hangs in the tower room. A small altar crucifix with side figures, all in soft wood from the 1700s,  is probably Italian. Brass candelabres in late Gothic type. A Romanesque granite font with lions in Himmerland-type,but without foot; the basin rests upon a common ashlar. A South German baptismal dish ab. 1575, stamped RS. A small pulpit in simple Renaissance with painted date 1589 and a contemporary sounding board. A parish clerk stool 1665 and pews with years 1649 and 1651.

Addition: * New altarpiece by Poul Winther. 

At Selkær was the Thing of the herred (district) once, later at Skindbjerg .

Listed prehistorics: 5 hills, of which two, Storhøj southwest of Selkær and Møgelhøj south of Skindbjerg, are rather large.
Demolished or destroyed: a long dolmen and 34 hills upon a hillside, stretching from south of Selkær to Laen (Glesborg parish) where was once al row of hills.

Names from the Middle Ages: Kastbjerg (1421 Kaszbierg 1455 Kasebiærgh); Skindbjerg (1404 Skindberg, 1455 Skinbyærgh); Selkær (1360 Siælker, 1442 Sællækiær).

Source: Trap Danmark, Randers amt, 1963.     

Photo Kastbjerg kirke 2009: grethe bachmann

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