Eriksbergs gamla kyrka, Medieval stone church in Herrljunga Municipality, Sweden.
Eriksbergs gamla kyrka is a roofless Romanesque church with a long nave and a narrower chancel ending in an apse. Its walls are mostly local grey stone with sandstone corner chains and round-arched windows set asymmetrically. A wooden sacristy and two wooden porches were added later.
Dendrochronological dating places the timber of Eriksbergs gamla kyrka in the 1150s. Tradition holds that it served as a private chapel for the Erikska ätten at a royal estate, with a sacrificial spring dedicated to Erik den helige nearby. The church was abandoned in 1885 when the new church opened, then restored in the 1920s and again in 1935.
The Romanesque wall paintings from the 1100s were whitewashed until 1949, when they were uncovered; they now survive as fragments on the triumphal arch, the choir walls and the apse vault, and are considered the most important in the Skara diocese. The church also keeps a 1574 pulpit, one of Sweden's oldest, and a 12th-century baptismal font with English models.
The old church is used year-round, while the new church nearby is only used occasionally. The churchyard has not been a burial ground since 1885 and looks like a meadow with scattered gravestones and worn paths. Two 18th-century lychgates stand in the west and south walls.
The apse window, reopened in 1935, has a so-called "heavenly staircase" that had been walled up; it was uncovered to restore the choir's medieval appearance. The medieval reliquary shrine of Eriksberg, a royal gift of gilded copper over oak, was bought out in 1875 for 600 kronor and is now at the Swedish History Museum in Stockholm.
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