Alt St. Pankratius (Cologne-Worringen)

The church is first documented shortly after 1300 in the Liber valoris, with the Cologne cathedral provost holding the right of patronage. In 1474, the building suffered damage during the Neuss War. When a new parish church dedicated to Saint Pancras was completed further west in 1838, the older structure was abandoned. A fire on 6 November 1859 destroyed the interior; the building was subsequently converted into a school, during which the northern aisle was removed.

The dating of the west tower remains a matter of scholarly debate. Paul Clemen as well as Becker-Huberti and Menne classify it as a Romanesque structure from the 12th century. Dagmar Hötzel, however, interprets the interplay of basalt and brick as a counterpart to the nearby Zons fortress (1373/80), dating the all-brick upper storeys to around 1484; in her reading, the biforate windows would not be Romanesque at all, but rather Late Gothic work executed in a Romanesque idiom. The nave and its polygonal choir are unambiguously Gothic in origin.

The buttresses of the nave have been preserved — double-stepped on the north side, single-stepped on the south. The choir, which terminates on three sides with octagonal edges, is supported by two-part buttresses. Since a survey from 1757 makes no mention of a northern aisle, it was most likely added after that date.