SKT. NIKOLAJ KIRKE - Danmarks Kirker - Nationalmuseet

812 KOLDING SKT. NIKOLAJ KIRKE
which are at the western ends of the side aisles.
A further three †chapels were furnished in the
transept chapels.
In 1730-31 the Inspectorate of Churches launched
a registration and transcription of the
church’s sepulchral monuments at the time. This
was carried out by the school principal Jacob Ørsted
and is a primary source for the history of the
sepulchral monuments. The major rebuilding of
the church in 1753-58 meant that most sepulchral
monuments had to be temporarily removed. This
was the case with the coffins and tombstones in
the chapels, which in 1754 were ‘dug up’ and put
aside and then later neatly laid as covering in the
nave passages.
With the cessation of burials in the church
in 1805, respect for the older sepulchral monuments
decreased drastically. In 1823 the burials
in the chancel are said to have been bricked up
and filled with coffins. In the same year there was
an auction of tombstones in the old churchyard
around the church, and in 1846 the chancel floor
was relaid and the tombstones from there were
moved to other places.
In connection with the installation of the present
pews in 1908, the tombstones were taken up
from the floor and at the proposal of the Kolding
antiquarian J. O. Brandorff were set up against the
walls of the church. This arrangement was maintained
until 1976, when the stones, at the suggestion
of the sculptor Vitus Nielsen were given their
present position lying in the side passages and at
the western end of the church, where a few of
them were also raised against the walls; some fragments
were laid in the floor beneath the pews.
The first antiquarian restoration of the sepulchral
monuments was carried out in 1893. Since
then new conservation work has been done in
1938-40, 1968, 1976 and again in 1996 and subsequent
years.