Föra Church, Lutheran church in Borgholm Municipality, Sweden
Föra Church consists of a thick medieval west tower and a Neoclassical nave added in 1828–1837 to designs by C. Blom-Carlsson. The tower, a well-preserved defensive structure, retains vaulted rooms, storage spaces and a privy; the nave has a wooden barrel vault and an eastern sacristy. The tower carries an octagonal roof lantern for the bells.
A stave church from the 11th century, whose planks survive in the west tower, was replaced in the 1160s by a stone church, soon fortified with two towers and a fighting platform. The congregation decided in 1825 to rebuild; the medieval nave was demolished in 1828 and a Neoclassical church by C. Blom-Carlsson was inaugurated in 1837, keeping the old west tower.
The tower's vaulted rooms, storage facilities and privy were probably used as a shelter in peace and war. Excavations there have yielded scraps of food, fragments of clothing and gaming tokens, traces of daily life in the medieval fortified church.
The church belongs to the Föra-Alböke-Löts parish of the Diocese of Växjö. The southern stiglucka, a roofed gate built in 1787, faces the direction where the medieval porch stood before 1828. The Neoclassical nave, by architect Carl-Gustaf Blom-Carlsson, was built by master builder Petter Ekholm of Borgholm in 1827–28.
The tower's privy is possibly the oldest in Sweden. Inside the tower, scraps of food, fragments of clothing and gaming tokens were also found, showing that it served as a shelter in peace and war.
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