Kirche Reckershausen
Kirche Reckershausen
Where to find this church
Church Information
This church with no dedication is located in Reckershausen, a village in Niedersachsen close to the Autobahn A38 and the former inner-German border, now the border between Niedersachsen and Thüringen.
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Visiting Kirche Reckershausen
The church in Reckershausen is unusual for the Round Tower Churches of Lower Saxony in several respects. First of all, it is always locked outside church services. When I visited, a notice on the church pointed out that this was not possible for insurance reasons (Ha! And why are so many other churches always open?), and that if you were interested you could contact the sacristan Mrs Gottschalk “here in Reckershausen”, with a telephone number. But I couldn’t find out where in Reckershausen, and I couldn’t reach anyone by phone. Currently they have added “right next to the church” to make it easier to locate Mrs. Gottschalk. I couldn’t find her during my visit, so I was not able to visit the inside of the church. And not much information about the history of the church can be found on the internet. The parish itself is stingy in this respect, and there is no “proper” website of its own. So here is what little I could gather from the information on the Göttingen parish website (the same information can also be found on the above-mentioned notice board, of which I took a photo – 2008; since then the information situation has obviously not “improved”):
The church has a three-storey round tower, which dates from 1308 and is about 16 m high. It was originally used as an observation tower. The nave was added in the 15th century. In the late 18th century, renovation work was carried out on the nave and the tower. The tower was given an octagonal lantern with high rectangular sound openings on all sides with a glazed bonnet with knob and weather vane. In the late 18th century, the window openings on the south side in the nave were broken into the wall.
In 1940, various reconstruction works were carried out, the church pews also date from this time, the altar was newly made in brick and received an almost life-size crucifix. The old organ was removed and replaced by a new one.
In 2004, the church was repainted, the altar area was given a sandstone floor, the former pulpit was removed and replaced by a new pulpit-style reading desk and a matching base for the baptismal font.
Of course, this church will require another visit (which we will have to prepare accordingly) in order to be able to view and document the interior, although it is probably not very spectacular.