Dorpskerk
Santpoort-Noord, NL
The village church was also the first 'real' church in Santpoort in terms of size. Dutch Reformed, now PKN. Nowadays the church also offers shelter to all kinds of cultural activities. The first version of the village church dates from 1844. A slender and charming building that was created on the initiative of the miller. In 1916 the church burned down. The story goes that a drunken homeless person, who was looking for shelter from the cold, accidentally knocked over one of the two stoves, after which the church caught fire. There was almost nothing left. A year later, in 1917, the current church could be consecrated on the same spot. With money from the insurance, collections and generous gifts from wealthy Santpoorters from North and South. The contours of the burnt down church were adopted: a hall church with a tower in the middle, the roofs covered with slates. But the style that the Bloemendaal architects J. Mulder and JA van Asdonk gave the building was no longer light and charming but solid, quasi-Romanesque. The church got a sturdy square tower with a matching spire and semi-circular arch spans of windows, sound holes and portal. Funny thing is that the clock, which at that time still served as a watch for ordinary people, is not placed in the middle of the tower but on a corner.