In 2002 Jennifer and I joined the Skegness Twinning Association and visited for the first time our twin town of Bad Gandersheim in Germany. That was to be the first of eight visits to that beautiful little town. Each time we have stayed with our friends Liane and Claus Schrader. Every other year we welcome guests from Germany to our house in Skegness. I was vice-chairman of the Twinning Association for ten years. During that time, with Jon’s help, I prepared this leaflet about the Twinning Association.
2016 version
Skegness Twinning Association
Skegness Twinning Association has been in existence since 1979. Members meet several times a year in the North Shore Hotel. The objectives of the association are to promote friendship and understanding between the people of Skegness and Bad Gandersheim.
Normally some of the members go to Bad Gandersheim every other year, with a group of German visitors coming to Skegness the years in between.
The Association has a good social side and raises funds to help towards the costs of the visitors.
Fund-raising events are held from time to time throughout the year.
New Members Welcome:
For additional information please contact the Chairman of the Association:
Brian Chapman:
Tel. 01754 761617
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About Bad Gandersheim
Left: Monastic Church, Clus
Centre: City Hall Rathaus rebuilt to include a tower after a fire in 1580, this building is now a museum
Right: Minster - construction started in 856; the Gothic side chapels date from the fifteenth century
Bad Gandersheim is located in the south western Harz country along the River Gande. The town, part of Lower Saxony, belongs to the district of Northeim.
The town centre with its traditional half-timbered houses and the 1000-year old twin-tower church on the historical market place has managed to preserve its original identity.
The origins of Gandersheim can be traced back to the ninth century. The first convent was founded in 852. The construction of the Minster or Stiftskirche began in 856. In 990 the monastery received the market and tax rights.
During the tenth century, Gandersheim was one of the most important towns of Saxony; Roswitha, the first German poetess, lived and worked here until 973. In 1159, Gandersheim was first mentioned as a town.
In 1240, when a mineral spring was discovered, Pope Gregory IX initiated the building of the Holy Spirit hospital.
Around 1330, the Dukes of Brunswick built a castle as a secular counterbalance to the convent church. This building, converted in 1530, now serves as the District Court and youth correctional facility.
It was not until 1932 that Gandersheim received the official right to call itself a ‘spa town’, on account of these springs, thus becoming ‘Bad Gandersheim’.
Left: Abbey developed in the style of the Renaissance buildings traditional to the Weiser region after a fire in 1597, it contains Roswitha’s Well (Roswithabrunnen), centre, in an open square of the Abbey wings.
Right: One of the oldest half-timbered houses of Lower Saxony (1473) now the location of the North German Landesbank in Bad Gandersheim market