Saint Nicholas Church Perk

St.-Niklaaskerk (borough of Perk)
The former prayer chapels along the old Roman connecting roads became too small, so churches were built everywhere.
Very early in history (before the year 1,000) there was only one chapel for Perk. When it disappeared, a sandstone chapel (now St. Nicholas Church) was built in Perk, initially dedicated to Our Lady. This chapel, of which the Romanesque substructure of the tower is a remnant, has much in common with the church of Humelgem and that of Kwerps. A bricked-up entrance to the old chapel can still be seen behind the funerary monument of Cardinal Goossens.

The tower is built according to the Scheldt Romanesque, which is a branch of the Northern French and Norman school. This style is mainly found west of the Dyle, because our regions depended on the bishop of Cambrai in France. The Romanesque is characterized by the stockiness and solidity of the construction and the round-arched windows. Scheldt-Romanesque is mainly characterized by a central tower. Here, too, we have a Romanesque tower with a square floor plan, framed between the choir and the nave. A central tower (Scheldt-Romanesque) dating from the 12th century, so actually for our regions already late Romanesque, which we see in the decorations with columns. The tower was later crowned with a slender constricted needle spire. It is distinguished by its curious allure with walls of 1.5 meters thickness and its ornate gallows holes. The church building has undergone many changes over the years, which have alienated it from its original building plan.

The church was first in the form of a Latin cross. During the Romanesque period, the church was enlarged with the current nave and choir. In the 14th century, the Romanesque choir was replaced by a Gothic building with three windows. The former choir had, according to the customs of the time, a semicircular construction. In the 16th century, transepts were built on the last arch of the nave.
In 1853 the church was expanded by building two aisles in red brick. This made the building much more spacious, but the Latin cross disappeared immediately, which is regrettable.

The red brick also contrasts sharply with the beautiful sand color of the former building.

Perk is best known because the great painter David Teniers worked and lived here.
David Teniers the Second, spent thirty years of his life in Perk in the castle De Dry Toren and died in 1690. Teniers was above all the painter of peasant life and the Flemish fairs. In many of his paintings he has immortalized the church of Perk and its surroundings.

Bieveulen