Welcome to the St Vitus Church

Part One

I am your guide today and I hope you will find this tour pleasant and informative.  As you see I am a middle aged figure and as this church is older than I am, not everything is from memory. As far as we know, this church dates from the 12th century and possibly before. This can still be seen at the romanesque arches on the outer walls. A building material call tuff, was used for this church and that was no longer used around 1250 . From then on a kind of roman brick was used by the monks as they were usually the builders of the churches and monasteries.

In 1374 the abbot of Dokkum (the town 2 miles from here) recognized the jurisdiction of the dean of the "Oud-Munster" of Utrecht over the chapel here in Witzense as Wetsens was called in those days. From the last will of Minne Jarla in 1494 we know that the patron saint of the church of Wetsens was named Saint Vitus.

We will start our tour at the entrance and go around the church in a clockwise direction.  When you look above the door you see romanesque frieze-arches as you also will see a bit further on beyond that green wooden shed on the left. You will notice that the tops of these friezes and the shed form a line and that the stone above is different from that below.

Well, that line indicates where the original roof was.  Around 1560 the church got a new roof at a higher level.   In 1842 this roof came under restauration, hardly any beam has been replaced as the oak beams were in such enormously good condition as we will see later. The green shed covers a part that was not finished by the restauration works in the nineteenseventies.

At that spot the church used to have a transept about one yard outwards in which there was very likely a small altar. The same is the case at the south side of the church.   This is clear from the foundations as you can see in the plan below.

The drawing (left) shows the wall as it once was. The part of the wall with the window lies a bit back compared to the rest of the wall. This is still clearly visible when you look at the frieze-arches. See photographs below. Later alterations have been made in both parts, however the blind window in the right part seems to be original. This building-style, which occurred for the first time in Wetsens, can also be seen at the church of Oldeberkeap en at the tower of the church in Beusichem (Betuwe).

This photograph of 1970 shows the deplorable state the church was in before the restauration in the 1970's. It is unknown why the part of the wall, where the transept was, is white plastered.

What the wall looked like before it was white plastered is unknown, therefore it was decided to leave the wall as it is, not to change history and cover it up with the shedlike structure. It is used for tools and funeral attributes.   In the photos above and right we see left of plastered part (or green shed) a blind doorway. This was used by the priests and lead directly to the choir. Further to the left we see a blind window.   This was a squint or hagioscope.  From outside one could directly see the altar. Among other views it is thought that its purpose was to send the Light of Christ into the dark world outside which was to the north.

To hear again the choir music, use the buttons            else click next to proceed.