TP25 The Stephen's Church was built around 1250 as a building with a rectangular surface. The windows were small and with rounded arches. In the 16th century the church was enlarged and the choir (where the altar stood) expanded and rounded. The yellow-green floor tiles, which are common in many Groningen churches, come from Utrecht. The windows also got bigger. This was an aspect that became fashionable through Gothic architecture. The underlying idea was that the play of light through the larger windows (possibly with stained glass) created even more amazement.
The tower was built in 1648 and in 1660 the church bells were put into use while enjoying a pitcher of Groninger Cluynbier. (The Groninger Cluynbier has always been for sale, with the exception of a few decades, and can therefore be called by far the oldest type of beer in the Netherlands).
Pieter Boeles, of Frisian descent, was a minister in Noorddijk from 1827 to 1870. He is also the author of the first dictionary in the Groninger language. The family relationships of Pieter Boeles clearly show how, 200 years after the Reformation (ca. 1600), pastors from Germany are strongly present in the pastoral network in the Northern Netherlands. Pieter Boeles is married to the vicar's daughter Alberdina Speckman. Her father, Reverend Petrus Speckman, whose father was from Lingen (D), was married to Reverend's daughter Christina Grootholdman. Her father, Rev. Conrad Grootholtman, came from Ladbergen (D).