Qualla: Ytterlannas Old Church

Ytterlannas Old Church: Introduction

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit David Kettlewell, CC BY-SA 3.0. The iron door fitting is older than the building. Around the keyhole of the Romanesque outer door at Ytterlannas Old Church, an ornamental lion's head stares out from roughly the year 800, forged somewhere within the Byzantine cultural sphere around Constantinople. How it ended up on a church door in northern Sweden's Kramfors Municipality is a question the building answers in layers -- each century adding its own mark to walls that have stood since the early 1200s. This small church between the villages of Nyland and Bollstabruk, on road 333 in Vasternorrland County, contains an unbroken visual record of Scandinavian religious life spanning eight hundred years.

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Image: David Kettlewell | CC BY-SA 3.0

Ytterlannas Old Church: Centuries Written in Stone and Paint

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit MikaelLindmark, CC BY-SA 3.0. The original 13th-century walls still stand, holding a Romanesque doorway that connects medieval Sweden to the trade routes of the wider world. From the 14th century, a marble baptismal font shipped from the island of Gotland and a crucifix mark the church's growing connections t...

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Image: MikaelLindmark | CC BY-SA 3.0

Ytterlannas Old Church: The Archbishop's Gift

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit MikaelLindmark, CC BY-SA 3.0. Around 1507, an altar cabinet arrived from the workshop of Haaken Gulleson in Halsingland. The piece, known as the Ytterlannas Madonna, bears two coats of arms: one belonging to the Archdiocese of Uppsala, to which the parish then belonged, and the personal arms of Archbishop Jak...

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Image: MikaelLindmark | CC BY-SA 3.0

Ytterlannas Old Church: The Speech That Saved a Church

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit David Kettlewell, CC BY-SA 3.0. By the mid-19th century, the growing parish needed a larger church. The practical solution was obvious: tear down the old building and reuse its stones for the new one. The decision seemed settled until magistrate Carl Martin Schonmeyer, owner of the Angsta gard estate, rose to s...

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Image: David Kettlewell | CC BY-SA 3.0

Ytterlannas Old Church: A Living Relic

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Marikande, CC BY-SA 3.0. The church attracted scholarly attention through the 20th century. In 1963, architect Lars Holmer produced detailed measurements and drew elevations from three sides along with plans and cross-sections. A year later, brothers Gosta and Torsten Melin filmed what art historian Corn...

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Image: Marikande | CC BY-SA 3.0