Muttergotteshäuschen (Wayside Shrine)

The shrine first appears in the records in 1540, when Drutgen Ververs endowed two gardens on the Schmalbroicher Weg whose proceeds were to sustain the eternal light in honour of St Anne and the Virgin Mary. Some two centuries later, on 9 August 1766, Katharina Sittarts enlarged this endowment with a further garden located by the Ellentor gate.

The shrine originally stood between Neustraße and Ellenstraße. When the Möhlenring was widened in 1935, it had to be moved back onto the plot of the Becker family. On 9 August 1935, Provost Oehmen re-consecrated the relocated structure. During the Second World War the shrine was then completely destroyed.

Rebuilt to a design by Friedhelm Sieben, the shrine was consecrated by Provost Lux on 2 February 1960. Built of hand-moulded fieldstone bricks, it carries an exposed-concrete roof clad in copper sheeting; behind the gilded metal wreath at the gable peak sits a small chimney for the smoke to escape. A window with a white frame protects the niche holding the sacred figure. Below it are a flower ledge and an inscription panel reading “St Anna schütze…”, both worked from basalt lava.

The precious depiction of St Anne, holding her daughter on the left side of her lap, dates from the 16th century. It was recovered from the wartime rubble and restored by Josef Lutz of Leutkirch in the Allgäu for the 1960 consecration.