Kannaland, Calitzdorp, Lutheran Church

Abstract

Calitzdorp, Lutheran Church

Next to the Lutheran Church stands a simple bell tower in which hangs a beautiful bell. On one side of the bell is the inscription:

Komt want alle dingen sijn nu gereed.

This text comes from Lucas, 14, 17. Exactly the same text appears on an equally beautiful bell in the Moravian Mission in Genadendal. The bell there was cast by the Friedrich Gruhl Foundry in Kleinwelka, a very tiny village in the Eastern side of Germany. There is also another similarity between this bell and the one in Genadendal in that the canons (where the bell is fixed on the crown) are made of 6 beautifully carved angel heads, something that was like the signature of the Gruhl Foundry.

On the other side of the bell one can read

Gustav Collier in Zehlendorf 1899

Zehlendorf is another small village in Germany, close to Berlin. We have been able to find one other bell by Collier, namely in the St Petri Lutheran Church in Paarl. That bell has similar decorations and the angel heads as the one in the church in Calitzdorp. Collier was born in 1845 and died in 1908. As other decorations on the bell there is a flowery band on the crown. On the sound bow below three moulding rings and above the knee is another band with leaves all around the bell.