A former parish cemetery in Bełk with 39 historic gravestones, entered in the register together with the wooden church.
The old cemetery in Bełk is a historic area around the wooden Church of St Mary Magdalene, surrounded by a fence with a shingled cap. It preserves 39 historic gravestones from the 19th and early 20th centuries, mostly Neo-Gothic.
The origins of the cemetery are linked with the founding of the first parish church in Bełk. The parish probably dates from the 14th century, and the oldest written mentions are from the 15th century. The present wooden church was begun in 1753 on the site of an earlier church that had burned down. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries a second, new cemetery was established in the village, and the old one fell out of use. The cemetery, together with the church, is entered in the heritage register under number A/558/66.
The cemetery covers about 1,900 m² and is roughly oval in shape, surrounded by a stone and partly wooden fence. The wealthiest residents lie on the south side of the church. The gravestones take various forms: stone slabs with bas-reliefs, crosses on pedestals and graves with steles. Notable are the symbolic grave of Johann Friedrich Holtze, administrator of the Bełk estate, in the form of a broken column with a German inscription, and the grave of Johann Menzel with symbols of death and resurrection. Cast-iron crosses from 1845 and 1848 stand by the south wall of the church. Ancient lime trees and maples grow here, as well as an oak designated a natural monument.
Buried here are, among others, the landowner Johann Menzel (d. 1825), the children of the Scottish industrialist John Baildon, and priests who led the Bełk parish, including Fr Ludwig Błaszczyk (d. 1868) and Fr Henryk Kańczyk (d. 1908). In 2019 the cemetery was tidied up and the gravestones were identified as part of educational projects run by a local association.
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