A short description of

the monumental Dutch Reformed Church 

in Graft-De Rijp

In 1467 a wooden chapel was built with the approval of the Bishop of Utrecht. When the original chapel was enlarged and renovated in 1529, by which time the chapel already had a brick-built choir, brick was used. A tower was constructed on the west side at the same time.

In the period 1635-1638 a new one replaced the medieval choir of this church (Bavenchurch) and a transept was added. Where the roofs met a wooden steeple was erected. This "new"-all-brick-built church, where the reformists could worship, was a so-called cruciform church with a clock and carillon in its elegant tower.

The greater part of the church, which was consecrated in 1638, was reduced to ashes in the big fire of De Rijp 16 years later (January 1654). The fire also destroyed 430 houses, 160 warehouses, 2 hemp-mills and the chapel of the Mennonites. Fortunately, the "Raadhuis" (municipal hall), built in 1630, was spared. Rebuilding was started almost immediately and the new church, which

still exists, was consecrated in the beginning of 1655.

The church, rebuilt in cruciform after the churches of the Middle Ages as this was the most suited form for the protestant churches, has all the characteristics of medieval Gothic buildings. The windows with their pointed arches and their traceries are distinctive of the Gothic style. The tower was completed in 1661.

There are 23 stained glass windows in the church itself, and two plain leaded windows in the tower, which forms a part of the interior of the church as the east wall of the tower is supported by two columns in the church. In the tower over the entrance there is a stained glass window with the coat of arms of De Rijp: two crowned herrings, chosen in imitation of Enkhuizen (which had three herrings in its coat of arms) when De Rijp became a municipality in 1606.

The Enkhuizen herring-fleet was the largest in Holland. In 1654 De Rijp had eighty herring-boats as weil as a number of ships which were fitted out for whaling near Greenland (1645).

The church has a lot of oak-wood-carvings; especially the choir-screen and the pulpit are worth seeing because of their fine carvings. Also worth noticing are three pews adorned with corner-pillars which are made up of two entwined cables each carved out of one piece of wood, and furthermore a very fine model of a man-of-war as they were in the days of King Stadtholder William III. The six beautiful chandeliers in the church have been fitted with electric lights.

In the tower are two bells: one has a diameter of 1.33 metres and a smaller one measures 1.10 metres across. The bells, which were cast in Enkhuizen by Antonie Wilkes in 1663, are decorated with the coat of arms of De Rijp, some inscriptions and rhymes. (The Germans stole these bells, but they were recovered again).

Both the church and the tower were renovated in 1922-1923. From 1939 to 1947 the church was renovated once more together with the 23 stained glass windows. (The renovation was interrupted by World War II).The tower-clock vas restored in 1974. The entire renovation of the church took many years but was completed in 1980.

Churchwardens of the Dutch Reformed Parish

Graft -De Rijp.