Durup church / Durup kirke, Gislum herred, Aalborg amt.

Durup Church, ca. 12 km northwest of Hobro
Durup sogn, Gislum herred, Aalborg amt.

The large free-standing church in Durup is a longhouse building with a slender tower to the west and a porch to the north. The church was originally a Romanesque nave with a narrow choir and possibly an apse in granite ashlars. In the re-worked ashlar-walls is only one original window left on the north side , but in the wall-work are placed three smooth monolit cover stones from other Romanesque windows The original north door has a thympanum with a cross in high relief. The longhouse has four flat-stretched star vaults ; they are probably from the second half of the 1500s. The Gothic tower is in granite ashlars in the bottom section, above this in boulder and monk bricks; it seems that it was heightened just before the reformation. To the north of the tower is a free stairway to the upper storey. The tower room with a flat plaster loft is connected to the nave in a broad, point-arched arcade. This room was in the 1700s equipped as a burial chapel for H.C. Rosencrone and divied from the nave with a wrought iron grating. In 1953 the tower room was again brought to the church and the marble sarcophagi were moved to a crypt . The late Gothic porch is in monk bricks and granite boulder; it has a round-arched outer door with a profiled frame and a small low-placed glug ( now bricked-up), which possibly was a leprosy-window. At a main restoration in 1885 the east-vault was re-walled and the walls partly re-worked. On this occasion was found a runestone , which during the restoration was cut to pieces. (!) The preserved piece of the inscription is: ...denne sten efter Toke...en velbyrdig... (...this stone after Toke,.. an honourable...) This piece is now in Nøragergård's garden.


Durup Church is seen from far away.

The altar picture is a fine copy of an Italian Baroque painting. The picture is placed under the organ in a stately altar-structure from the end of the 1700s, which separates the eastern part of the choir. A Baroque altar candelabre. A Romanesque granite font. A baptismal bowl is a Nürnberg-work with engravings and the names of Claus Maltesen Sehested and Anne Lykke and the year 1599. A pulpit in rural Louis XVI-style similar to Overlade Church. A bell from 1869 in a glug(opening) in the north wall of the tower.


Landscape at Durup

Nøragergård was among the estate of Viborg bishopric which came to the Crown at the reformation. In 1542 Jakob Jude got a livsbrev of N. (to stay for life), and in 1547 it was endowed to Jens Mogensen Harbou. After his death N. came to Thomas Svendsen (Orning) who transferred it to Jens Mogensen Harbou's widow Lisbeth (or Kirsten) Juel, and achieved Spangsgård instead. (Tostrup parish, Viborg amt). In 1551 the crown exchanged ot to hans stygge of Holbækgård (+ 1568), who like his son Niels Stygge + 1606 enlarged increased ithe estate. Various owners up til present. (Sehested, v. Pentz, Rosencrone,etc.;Kjeldsen). The main building is listed in class B.


Durup, overgrown gravehill.

Names in the Middle Ages and 1600s:
Durup (*1446 Durup, Durop, 1480 Dwrup); Gammel Nørager (*1393 Nøragher); Ømark
(*1466 Ømarck); Nøragergård ( *1492 Vester Nørager gard); Vøvelholm (1553 Vifvelholm, 1664 Wøffel Hollumb); Torsdals Mølle ( 1558 Thasdal møllested, 1664 Thosdals Mølle).

Listed prehistorics: Northeast of Durup a hill with a small passage grave; 30 hills of which several are large: Stejlehøj to the north, 2 hills at Nørager, to the south Skjoldhøj, at Ømarkgård Storhøj and another hill ; at Torupgård Solhøj and close to the border of Grynderup Store Bovshøj.
Demolished or destroyed: 42 hills. When cultivating the heath at Nøragergård were found several stenrøser (a grave built in stones instead of grass) with clay pot pieces.

Weaved blankets possibly from Iron Age were found at Ømark and in Torup mose.

Source: Trap Danmark, Aalborg amt. 1961.


photo Durup June 2007: grethe bachmann