St.-Marien-Kirche, Romanesque church in Esgrus, Germany

St.-Marien-Kirche is a Romanesque fieldstone church on a hill outside Esgrus, built before 1200 with a single nave and a recessed choir. The choir was given a brick 5/8 apse and vaulting in the Gothic style in the 15th century. Around 1500 a massive brick tower with a steep slate-clad pyramidal spire, a north porch and a burial chapel were added.

Built before 1200 as the second church of the Nieharde after Sörup, it lost its parish centre around 1230 when Sterup was founded, leaving it without a church village. The Romanesque nave and recessed fieldstone choir were followed around 1500 by a brick tower, a north porch and a burial chapel for the Brunsholm estate, later demolished. The choir received a Gothic brick 5/8 apse and vault in the 15th century.

The church is dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and before the Second Schleswig War services were held in a mix of Danish and German. In the choir stand floor-level seats for the estate owners of Rundhof and Brunsholm, marked with their coats of arms and among the oldest preserved in Schleswig-Holstein; some were used into the 20th century.

The church stands on a hill outside Esgrus, away from the village, and belongs to the Nieharde parish of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Northern Germany. The nave keeps its flat wooden ceiling and the north wall its restored Romanesque windows; the choir has two vaults. Look for the two portals on the south and north walls.

The tower is brick, not oak: the sources describe a massive brick tower added around 1500, with a hexagonal pyramidal spire and slate roof. The oak-beam bell tower dated to 1441 belongs to a different building and is not part of this church.