Kapelle Dörnschlade mit Klause, Neo-Gothic pilgrimage chapel in Wenden, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany

The Dörnschlade Chapel with Klause is a neo-Gothic church built from 1862 to 1864 to plans by Vincenz Statz on a ridge near Altenhof in Wenden. Its white-stuccoed walls rise from a grey stone base, with a square tower and pointed spire on the left, two tall pointed-arch windows with dark tracery, and a lower porch with a red-framed open gable on two white square pillars. The two-bay hall closes on three sides, its walls divided by buttresses.

A chapel called Mutter Gottes zur Dörnschlade is documented before the Thirty Years' War, and a chapel on the site appears in the Hünsborn baptismal register by 1669. Parish archives record repairs to the "Capelgen" in 1729. The present chapel and its adjoining hermitage were built from 1862 to 1864 to plans by Vincenz Statz.

The neo-Gothic winged altar holds a copy of the late Gothic image of Mary with the infant Jesus, the original of which was already venerated in the small predecessor shrine. The carved crowned figure stands in a gabled niche above a gold crucifix, flanked by painted hinged panels and two lower side niches with standing figures.

The chapel stands on a ridge near Altenhof, a district of Wenden in the Olpe district, close to the Siegerland border. It belongs to the parish of St. Severinus in Wenden and is reached on foot from the surrounding villages. The building is entered through an open porch at the front.

Local communities built this chapel between 1862 and 1864 even though church authorities in Cologne expressed initial doubts. This grassroots determination shows how deeply the pilgrimage site was rooted in regional life.