Until
1477 the village of Oelbroeck was part of the Boxmeer parish and only
had a chapel. That year the chapel became a parish church, which also
served the villages of Oploo and Ledeacker, both of which had their own
chapels. The chapel of Oelbroeck was soon rebuilt into a one-aisled
building in Gothic style, while the name Oelbroeck was replaced by Sint
Anthonis in the following decades. As a part of the autonomous and
catholic Boxmeer, religious freedom in Sint Anthonis remained after the
Reformation and the church was always catholic. Old drawings of the
church show a one-aisled building in Gothic style, with a nave of four
traves and a lower and narrower choir. In the 19th century the old
choir was demolished and replaced by a transept with polygonal arms and
a new choir in neo-Gothic style. Despite this, by the 1920's the church
had become too small. In 1929 H.C. van de Leur, who had previously
enlarged the church of nearby Oploo, was commissioned to extend the
church. The neo-Gothic transept and choir were replaced by new ones,
which are much larger and rather distinctive, with towers flanking the
transept-arms. Like in his previous assignment in Oploo, Van
de Leur did not use the Expressionistic style of his former employer
Dom Bellot but chose a neo-Gothic style instead.
Back to Churches in the province of Noord-Brabant