[MR] History Blog: Leaning Spire of Delbrück

[Garth Groff and Sally Sanford]

Noble friends,

Yesterday the History Blog hosted an interesting article on the "famous"
leaning spire of Delbrück. I put "famous" in quotes because the Wikipedia
page about the town has nothing to say about this church and its spire. The
only other references I could find are all in German.

The church of St. Johannes Baptist is a building in Delbrück, Westphalia,
Germany, thought to date to at least the 15th century. It features a tall
oaken spire, which due to warping has a decided lean. Recently core samples
were taken from the tower's beams which proved the wood for the spire was
harvested during the winter of 1479-1480. Yah! Das ist alt.

Likely much of the current building also dates from that time. Although the
town is known to have existed as early 1219, most of it was burned down in
1410 during a war between the rival prince-bishops of Paderborn and Cologne.

The History Blog piece is at https://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/68737 .

Crooked spires are not uncommon atop old churches and other buildings.
Wikipedia offers an article on such spires, and many are more extreme than
Delbrück's:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crooked_spire . A crooked spire above the
town gatehouse in Dunderstadt, Germany, was actually built that way on
purpose.

Yours Aye,


Mungo Napier, Laird of Mallard Lodge  🦆
Continuing a crusade to keep Merry Rose relevant and in business.