Kvernes Stave Church

In this long, rectangular building, the nave and chancel are the same width. At the western end is a small baptismal room, while two entrance porches stand on the south side, one leading into the nave and the other into the chancel. A sacristy has been added on the north side. The roof is crowned by a turret with an onion dome, and the south and east walls have leaded windows with small panes. Little of this resembles a typical stave church; only the nave is original. A commemorative plaque on the north wall records improvements made in 1633. It states that Anders Eriksen, the parish priest at the time, built a new chancel, decorated the interior and installed windows and pews. The church probably received its horizontal weatherboarding around this time. Today, only the chancel’s east wall retains vertical cladding coated with brown tar. No medieval decoration is visible inside the church. The interior is distinctly seventeenth-century. Yellow and grey acanthus scrolls adorn the red-painted walls and ceiling of the long, low church interior. Above the chancel hang a seventeenth-century crucifix and the monogram of King Christian VI. The Baroque pulpit, dating from 1633, stands on the south side of the chancel screen. It was painted in 1652 by the same artist who decorated the walls. The finely crafted enclosed pews date from the same period. The oak altarpiece is a late-medieval shrine dating from 1472, surrounded by a Baroque frame added in 1695. The chancel, built in 1633, once featured beautiful paintings of biblical scenes, but these were later painted over in white. Some of the overpaint has been removed, revealing the Kiss of Judas, Abraham preparing to sacrifice his son, and a few other beautiful panels. A commemorative plaque honouring the priest Anders Eriksen also hangs in the chancel.