De Oude Toren (Winter)

Winter - wooden church

The written history of the church in Oostelbeers starts back in 1207 with a deed in which the Abbey of Tongerlo (Belgium) gains the right to appoint pastors.  We don’t know exactly what the first church looked like. The only traces left are all underground. Archaeological research elsewhere in De Kempen shows that the region’s first churches were made of wood. The church in Oostelbeers won’t have been any different. It will have been a small rectangular space with a choir on the east side. The walls will have consisted of a wickerwork of twigs to which clay was applied and the roof will have been covered with reeds or straw. It would have been surrounded by farms.

Caption: Saint Andrew , patron saint of the church in Oostelbeers. Pietro del Po, engraving after François Du Quesnoy, 1620 - 1692 (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam).