St. Barbara's Church

St. Barbara's Church, Scheulder

Single-nave church with a nave of three bays, a tower of four sections with constricted spire on the north side and a semicircular apse on the east side. The longitudinal axis of the church runs north-south. A sacristy has been added to the apse with a younger extension on the east side.

Building history
The parish of Scheulder owes its name to the hospital for the benefit of the so-called Holy Spirit Poor, needy strangers who did not belong to the municipality. The first report about a hospice, where the poor found 'shulen', i.e. a shelter, dates from the beginning of the 17th century. In 1631 the hospital must have been there and in the register of Deliberations under the year 1879 there is the remark: "The old chapel seems to have been erected by the Counts De Merey of Argenteau". The hospital stood opposite the current church. Attached to the hospital was a chapel, first mentioned in 1645. That chapel was dedicated to St. Barbara. Her effigy, a late medieval wood sculpture from the chapel, still has a place of honour on the side altar dedicated to the saint. The chapel had several benefices with the aim of being able to read mass on Sundays and holidays. This was done from Wittem. In 1803 the old chapel was elevated to the status of rectorate chapel In 1850 land was donated for the construction of a new chapel. On the site of the old hospital with chapel there is now a modern house.
On 15 April 1850, the couple Theodoor Ploumen and Birgitta Jcobs donated their orchard on the Scheulderdorpsstraat, large 'six rods and 15 ells square' for the construction of a new chapel and a cemetery to be built next to it, to the church council of Wijlre, to which Scheulder belonged. A crucial condition was that the plot 'would not belong to the church wardens of Wijlre, but would belong to the possible church wardens of the aforementioned Scheulder'. So they wanted to break away from Wijlre, which of course led to resistance from the municipality and parish.
In 1850, during the rectorship of Joh. Peter Keesmeker, the fa. Lemmens from Beek built a new chapel on the said site. By Royal Decree of 19 July 1865, King William III granted the right to form his own church council, which was installed on 23 January 1866. On January 28, 1869, Bishop Paredis elevated Scheulder to an independent parish. The main form of the present church dates from 1850, but changes were made with the construction of the tower and the singer's hall in 1903-'04. For example, the round-arched windows were replaced by the current neo-Gothic windows.
The church suffered war damage in the night of 28 and 29 June 1944.

Exterior
The church is built with sawn marl blocks (Sibbersteen) and has a slate-covered gable roof. Between the Gothic windows are buttresses with a small gable roof. The tower, also covered with slates, consists of four sections, in which the porch and choir on the street side are provided with angled buttresses. As a horizontal division, codron mouldings have been applied in the flat wallwork. The window above the main entrance is pointed arched and filled with six-lane racing. The reverb holes are straight-cut lancets. There are two on each side. The nave is lit by Gothic windows with central mounts and three- or four-pass head tracery. It was probably not until 1903-04 that these windows replaced round-arched windows, which are more appropriate for the interior of 1850. The chancel is lit only by a window in the straight choir bay. The semi-circular clasp is blind. The nave and chancel are supported just above the windows by buttresses with a gable roof cover.

Interior
The interior is covered by a stucco barrel vault with flat ribs, which are a continuation of the flat wall pilasters, which serve as bay indications. The walls are plastered. The choir room behind the round-arched triumphal arch has a barrel vault and a skullcap. On the floor of the nave and the choir, which is one step higher, are light and dark grey bluestone tiles. The space above the choir is covered by a stone cross-rib vault and is lit by a wide Gothic window.

Source: The Dutch Monuments of History and Art. The Province of Limburg /South Limburg - Rijksdienst voor de Monumentenzorg, Zeist en Waanders Publishers, Zwolle, 1991. ISBN 90-6630-248-8 b.

Eijsden-Margraten