Dorfkirche Sankt Niels

The Dorfkirche Sankt Niels stands in Westerland on the island of Sylt, a Lutheran church built in 1634 and consecrated three years later. It is the oldest building in the city, dedicated to Saint Nicholas, whom locals call Niels. Step inside and you find works that reach back further than the building itself.

A crucifix dates from the thirteenth or fourteenth century, its corpus carved in the second half of the fifteenth. The gothic carved triptych shows the coronation of the Virgin Mary at its centre. Bishops stand at its sides, Nicholas or Severin on the right and Dionysius on the left. The altar wings carry figures of the apostles. Light falls from a fourteen-armed chandelier of 1682, set beside an even older brass candlestick with eight arms.

The organ has a story of its own, told in three instalments. An organ by Marcussen & Søn arrived in 1875. When Kemper & Sohn built the replacement in 1965 and 1966, they kept the old pipes. A renovation by Neuthor of Kiel followed in 1987, swapping the Quinte one and one-third stop for a Krummhorn eight. A gothic crucifix, a chandelier from 1682 and pipes that survive from 1875 all share one room here.