Home
Up
The 19th Century
Baroque Style
Problems of Stability
Transept
Enlargement of the choir
Alternation to the lower church
The New Lower Church
How the Parish Came Into Existence |
The state of St Nicholas’s church
became alarming from the end of the 16th century onwards. Not only was the
church old, it was also unstable.
To enhance its stability more and more
windows were bricked up and the tower underwent considerable changes.
Measures needed to be taken urgently. It was no longer possible to conceal
the poor state of the exterior walls, so five houses were built against
the northern wing of the church. The tower continued to decay. Its shell
was altered and the buttresses were fortified. But a severe storm on the
first of October 1673 tore the elegant and high spire, which had to be
demolished. It was replaced by a flat roof that definitely changed its
appearance and was maintained after the restoration.
As far as works inside the church were concerned, the
lantern tower was closed off by a vault in 1658. The vaults of the
southern aisle were torn down and rebuilt. Capillary moisture in the
church caused a lot of problems. The groundwater level in that part of
town had risen due to the continuous construction works and in 1662 the
floor of the lower church and choir were elevated. As a result the
profiled bases of the clustered columns disappeared out of sight. |
