Church St. Mariae Geburt 1960

Originally built in the Romanesque style, the church retains its Romanesque west tower as a reminder of its earliest form.

By the late 15th century, the building was expanded into a three-nave hall church with Gothic ribbed vaults and a choir ambulatory, reflecting the many pilgrims who came to Kempen in the Middle Ages to venerate the relic of Mary’s hair.

Among its precious medieval furnishings, three Flemish carved altars have survived, including the Altar of St. Anne – now the high altar – commissioned in 1513 by the Kempen Brotherhood of St. Anne, a merchants’ guild, and executed by Master Adrian van Overbeck of Antwerp. Numerous sculptures of saints also remain.

In the final days of the Second World War in 1945, the church was almost completely destroyed, but it was rebuilt by 1958. Many valuable treasures, including numerous late-19th-century stained glass windows, had been removed in time and were largely preserved.

The magnificent Marian chandelier above the central aisle, donated by the Anne Brotherhood in 1508, features a Madonna in a halo that marks not only the centre of the church but, symbolically, the heart of the entire town.