Kostel svatého Kiliána, Romanesque church in Davle, Czech Republic

The Church of St. Kilian in Davle has a single rectangular nave and a three-sided presbytery covered by a barrel vault with lunettes. A separate bell tower from 1768 stands beside it, topped by a small statue of St. Kilian. The nave is vaulted with a imitation barrel vault, and a gallery was inserted into its western part in 1842.

The church was built by Benedictines around 1160, and its Romanesque masonry was found in the 1980s. In 1278 the Brandenburg invasion damaged it and the nearby craft settlement Sekanka, leading to an early Gothic rebuild; further Gothic work followed in the second half of the 14th century. A 1692 fire caused major damage, restoration came only in 1775, and the west gallery was inserted in 1842.

The single-nave interior is dominated by a Baroque main altar with a painting of the Virgin Mary and Saint Kilian, made around 1725. Flanking it are the altars of Saint Barbara (1741) and Saint John of Nepomuk (1770), and a 1724 painting of Saint Benedict shows the Ostrov monastery. A Renaissance tin baptismal font from 1556 also survives.

The church stands in the grounds of a walled former cemetery on the left bank of the Vltava in Davle, with the separately standing bell tower of 1768 on its west side and the Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre to the south. The whole complex, including the former parish house now used as a restaurant, is enclosed by a wall.

Excavations uncovered Romanesque masonry from around the 12th century that predates the earliest written records about the church. This discovery reveals that the building is older than anyone expected from the historical documents alone.