Wayside chapel from Weyhers

Built: 1643
Dismantled: 1978
Rebuilt: 1991

The wayside chapel measures a mere 13 square metres and is placed within the Eastern Hesse Ensemble as an example for the religious traditions of the Catholic Fuldaer Land region.

This unassuming, weatherboard cladded timber-frame construction stood outside the village of Weyhers alongside the road to Schmalnau. According to legend, the chapel was erected by way of giving thanks for the rescue from looting by Swedish troops during the Thirty Year War (1618 to 1648). And indeed, the date of the building of the Saints Cottage, as it is called by locals, can be traced back to 1643. Since the First World War, every year, the Catholic population of the village of Weyhers would assemble at the chapel on the Friday after Ascension Day to hold a thanksgiving service. This tradition ceased in the 1960s, which marked the onset of the building’s demise. Before the chapel was relocated to the Open Air Museum, its doors had been forced open, the windows smashed and many parts of the Baroque wooden altarpiece stolen. Some parts were retrieved. Already in 1975, a new Seven Sleepers Chapel was built with stone, close to the original site.

At the Open Air Museum, the interior of the chapel is displayed in its state before the First World War. The walls are decorated with stencil painting and the plastered key stone in the ceiling is surrounded by an ochre-tinted aureole design. The altar and its baroque wooden altarpiece date from the 18th century.