| Protestant church of Oentsjerk Saint Mary church | |
|---|---|
Church of Oentsjerk | |
| 53°15′14″N5°53′31″E / 53.2538°N 5.892°E Coordinates: 53°15′14″N5°53′31″E / 53.2538°N 5.892°E | |
| History | |
| Dedication | Before the Reformation, to Saint Mary |
| Specifications | |
| Materials | Brick |
The Protestant church of Oentsjerk or Saint Mary church [1] is a medieval religious building in Oentsjerk, Friesland, Netherlands.
Oentsjerk is a village in Tytsjerksteradiel in the province of Friesland, the Netherlands. It had a population of around 1,784 in January 2017.
Friesland, also historically known as Frisia, is a province of the Netherlands located in the northern part of the country. It is situated west of Groningen, northwest of Drenthe and Overijssel, north of Flevoland, northeast of North Holland, and south of the Wadden Sea. In 2015, the province had a population of 646,092 and a total area of 5,100 km2 (2,000 sq mi).
The Netherlands is a country located mainly in Northwestern Europe. The European portion of the Netherlands consists of twelve separate provinces that border Germany to the east, Belgium to the south, and the North Sea to the northwest, with maritime borders in the North Sea with Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom. Together with three island territories in the Caribbean Sea—Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba— it forms a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The official language is Dutch, but a secondary official language in the province of Friesland is West Frisian.
The church was built c. 1230 out of red brick and has a tower from the 14th century. [1] On the West gallery is a monumental Pipe organ, built in 1871 by P. van Oeckelen [1] The church was originally a Roman Catholic church dedicated to Saint Mary but became a Protestant church after the Protestant Reformation. It is listed as a Rijksmonument, number 35658. [2] The building is located on the Wijnserdijk 9. [3]
A brick is building material used to make walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Traditionally, the term brick referred to a unit composed of clay, but it is now used to denote any rectangular units laid in mortar. A brick can be composed of clay-bearing soil, sand, and lime, or concrete materials. Bricks are produced in numerous classes, types, materials, and sizes which vary with region and time period, and are produced in bulk quantities. Two basic categories of bricks are fired and non-fired bricks.
The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air through the organ pipes selected via a keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ranks, each of which has a common timbre and volume throughout the keyboard compass. Most organs have multiple ranks of pipes of differing timbre, pitch, and volume that the player can employ singly or in combination through the use of controls called stops.
A rijksmonument is a national heritage site of the Netherlands, listed by the agency Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed (RCE) acting for the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science.
