HET 'OL KERKHOF' TE SCHEEMDA (GR.); TUSSENTIJDS VERSLAG VAN EEN OPGRAVING
Samenvatting
In or around 1510, the village of Scheemda, lying in a raised bog region, was swallowed by the Dollard and covered with a layer of clay. The village was rebuilt about 1 km south of the former one, on a boulder clay ridge. Road construction brought the necessity of excavating part of the former village, known as the 'Ol Kerkhof' (old churchyard). During the autumn of 1988 and in 1989 the remains of two churches with a cruciform groundplan were uncovered. The oldest one had been built around 1200 and had already been demolished and replaced in the third quarter of the 13th century. The new church was surrounded by a brick wall and a ditch. Its tower was built free-standing as was common during the late Middle Ages in the Dollard area. The tower of the first church had atmost certainly been a variation of a so-called 'Westwerk' or western blok: In the north of the Netherlands the western block has only one tower instead of the usual pair. The space enclosed by a north-south running wall inside the nave af the second church probably had the same function as its counterpart in a western block, being the architectural consequence of a free-standing tower.
