The Bovenkerk (English: Upper Church; also known as the Church of St. Nicholas) is a large, Gothic church and the most striking element on the skyline of

Kampen, Overijssel Kampen () is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of Overijssel, Netherlands. A member of the former Hanseatic League, it is ...

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

. The interior of the church contains an early-Renaissance choir screen, a stone

pulpit A pulpit is a raised stand for preachers in a Christian church. The origin of the word is the Latin ''pulpitum'' (platform or staging). The traditional pulpit is raised well above the surrounding floor for audibility and visibility, accesse ...

and a monumental

organ Organ and organs may refer to: Biology * Organ (biology), a group of tissues organized to serve a common function * Organ system, a collection of organs that function together to carry out specific functions within the body. Musical instruments ...

. The church has 1,250 seats. It is a Reformed church.Official website
(in Dutch).

The Construction

The construction of the church took place in several phases: * Construction of a Romanesque church (12th century) * Construction of

Early Gothic Early Gothic is the term for the first period of Gothic architecture which lasted from about 1120 until about 1200. The early Gothic builders used innovative technologies to resolve the problem of masonry ceilings which were too heavy for the t ...

church (last quarter of 13th century) * Church gets a basilica choir (last quarter of 14th century) * Plan for a basilica

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

fails (early 15th century) * The construction is completed (second half 15th century)

Graves

A common practice for old historic churches was to bury the dead under the Church. The Bovenkerk is no exception to this practice, where famous Dutch persons originating from Kampen are buried. One of them is

Hendrick Avercamp Hendrick Avercamp (January 27, 1585 (bapt.) – May 15, 1634 (buried)) was a Dutch painter during the Dutch Golden Age of painting. He was one of the earliest landscape painters of the 17th-century Dutch school, he specialized in painting t ...

(1585-1634), one of the first landscape painters of the 17th-century Dutch school, specialized in painting the Netherlands in winter. Another is Jan Bantjes (1700-1779) and Jacomina Leussen (1707-1770) who were wealthy landowners, shipowners, financiers of Berbice plantations and privateers. Their eldest son Gerrit (Jan Geerts) Bantjes (1734-1782) who left for the

Cape of Good Hope The Cape of Good Hope ( ) is a rocky headland on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa. A List of common misconceptions#Geography, common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Afri ...

in Nov.1754 started a line of descendants who laid down prominent South African history such as the exploratory Kommissitrek of 1834 to Port Natal to find a new homeland for the Cape Boers, the Natal-land Report which started The

Great Trek The Great Trek (, ) was a northward migration of Dutch-speaking settlers who travelled by wagon trains from the Cape Colony into the interior of modern South Africa from 1836 onwards, seeking to live beyond the Cape's British colonial adminis ...

(1837–38) and the battles that followed, the Discovery of the Witwatersrand Gold Reef in 1884 and the founding of Johannesburg in 1886. This same Bantjes line gave South Africa's first two presidents their grounding education and were instrumental in influencing the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) setting Germany and Great Britain on a collision course. Back to the church, the

transept A transept (with two semitransepts) is a transverse part of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In cruciform ("cross-shaped") cruciform plan, churches, in particular within the Romanesque architecture, Romanesque a ...

contains a small ornament of red

marble Marble is a metamorphic rock consisting of carbonate minerals (most commonly calcite (CaCO3) or Dolomite (mineral), dolomite (CaMg(CO3)2) that have recrystallized under the influence of heat and pressure. It has a crystalline texture, and is ty ...

with a green marble

urn An urn is a vase, often with a cover, with a typically narrowed neck above a rounded body and a footed pedestal. Describing a vessel as an "urn", as opposed to a vase or other terms, generally reflects its use rather than any particular shape ...

in memory of Vice Admiral Jan Willem de Winter (1761-1812). The heart of Vice Admiral De Winter is enclosed in this urn, while his body is buried in the

Panthéon The Panthéon (, ), is a monument in the 5th arrondissement of Paris, France. It stands in the Latin Quarter, Paris, Latin Quarter (Quartier latin), atop the , in the centre of the , which was named after it. The edifice was built between 1758 ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

Gallery

File:Kampen, toren van de Bovenkerk RM23053 vanaf de Vloeddijk ter hoogte van Prinsenstraat-Burgwal foto3 2016-02-17 11.39.jpg, The Bovenkerk from the Prinsenstraat-Burgwal File:Kampen, toren van de Bovenkerk RM23053 vanaf Vloeddijk-Venestraat foto8 2016-02-17 11.49.jpg, The Bovenkerk from the Vloeddijk-Venestraat File:Kampen, toren van de Bovenkerk RM23053 vanaf Vloeddijk-Muntsteeg foto5 2016-02-17 12.05.jpg, The Bovenkerk from the Vloeddijk-Muntsteeg

References

;Attribution *

External links

De Bovenkerk website (Dutch)

Some 90 pictures of the church
{{Authority control Reformed church buildings in the Netherlands Churches in Overijssel Kampen, Overijssel Protestant churches converted from Roman Catholicism