Dom St. Peter und Paul Bardowick, Gothic church in Lüneburg, Germany.
Dom St. Peter and Paul in Bardowick is a Gothic hall church built of red brick between 1389 and 1485, with a steep orange tiled roof and two squat octagonal towers whose spires barely rise above the roof ridge. Tall brick buttresses divide the side wall into bays with narrow pointed-arch windows, and a small dormer with a clock face sits midway along the roof.
Construction of the church began in 1146 and suffered major damage in 1189 by Henry the Lion. The current Gothic structure was completed between 1389 and 1485.
The church is still commonly called a Dom, though it was never a bishop's seat; it was a collegiate church, and since 1850 the Klosterkammer Hannover has administered it. The oak choir stalls, made in 1487, have 54 seats and are the largest in northern Germany. Above the south portal sits a wooden lion with a gilded lead coat, inscribed Vestigium Leonis.
The building is open daily with varying hours between winter and summer months. Visitors should plan around religious services when access may be limited.
Five of the seven bells date from the Middle Ages, and the two largest, in the north tower, were cast in the first half of the 14th century; the "Sunday bell" bears the inscription "Ulricus fecit me". The south tower holds a Romanesque set of three from the 12th and 13th centuries, two of them still beehive-shaped. The small bell in the roof turret rings three times daily for prayer and strikes the half and full hour.
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