Liebfrauenkirche, Koblenz, Germany

The Liebfrauenkirche (Church of Our Beloved Lady) has always been the parish church of Koblenz. It dates back to the 5th century when the Franks erected a place of prayer within the Roman walls. The church has been converted and extended several times using the original foundations. The gothic chancel was built around 1404 but the Baroque dome towers date from 1693. The twin-tower façade in the west corresponds to the effect of the west façades of the former monastery churches of St. Castor and St. Florin in Koblenz.

Liebfrauenkirche has 4 bells in the bell tower. In commemoration of the closing of the town gates and the related curfew, the ringing of the Barbara bell, the so-called 'reveller bell', has been kept going over the years. The 'reveller bell“ still rings at 22.00 every evening. The chimes and the hourly bells then remain silent until the early morning.

References:

Koblenz Tourism

User Reviews

Alby Augustine (5 months ago)
It was a typical german church with a nice ambience. The good thing is we didn't had to get an appointment in advance.

Bin Sanad (BinSanad) (11 months ago)
Nice religious place & culture

ncku16howard (13 months ago)
A church is in center of downtown and surround by ice cream stores. Hard to miss it when you are hanging round.

Uzair Khaskheli (2 years ago)
The symbolic church of koblenz.

Anthony Munns (3 years ago)
Pretty, historic church that has woven the Star of David into its stained glass windows as a tribute to the Jews of Koblenz treatment in Ww2. Look upper right side of the altar. Currently undergoing some interior renovations which was loud and restrictive but worth seeing. Historic Hewish gravestones were used bbn in construction in earlier history.

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Broch of Gurness

The Broch of Gurness is an Iron Age broch village. Settlement here began sometime between 500 and 200 BC. At the centre of the settlement is a stone tower or broch, which once probably reached a height of around 10 metres. Its interior is divided into sections by upright slabs. The tower features two skins of drystone walls, with stone-floored galleries in between. These are accessed by steps. Stone ledges suggest that there was once an upper storey with a timber floor. The roof would have been thatched, surrounded by a wall walk linked by stairs to the ground floor. The broch features two hearths and a subterranean stone cistern with steps leading down into it. It is thought to have some religious significance, relating to an Iron Age cult of the underground.

The remains of the central tower are up to 3.6 metres high, and the stone walls are up to 4.1 metres thick. The tower was likely inhabited by the principal family or clan of the area but also served as a last resort for the village in case of an attack.

The broch continued to be inhabited while it began to collapse and the original structures were altered. The cistern was filled in and the interior was repartitioned. The ruin visible today reflects this secondary phase of the broch's use.

The site is surrounded by three ditches cut out of the rock with stone ramparts, encircling an area of around 45 metres diameter. The remains of numerous small stone dwellings with small yards and sheds can be found between the inner ditch and the tower. These were built after the tower, but were a part of the settlement's initial conception. A 'main street' connects the outer entrance to the broch. The settlement is the best-preserved of all broch villages.

Pieces of a Roman amphora dating to before 60 AD were found here, lending weight to the record that a 'King of Orkney' submitted to Emperor Claudius at Colchester in 43 AD.

At some point after 100 AD the broch was abandoned and the ditches filled in. It is thought that settlement at the broch continued into the 5th century AD, the period known as Pictish times. By that time the broch was not used anymore and some of its stones were reused to build smaller dwellings on top of the earlier buildings. Until about the 8th century, the site was just a single farmstead.

In the 9th century, a Norse woman was buried at the site in a stone-lined grave with two bronze brooches and a sickle and knife made from iron. Other finds suggest that Norse men were buried here too.

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