Nore Stave Church

The chancel was originally smaller and was enlarged to its present size in 1683. The surrounding covered gallery was removed when the transepts were rebuilt in 1709 and 1714. The exterior walls were then clad in boards, and windows replaced the small openings that had previously admitted daylight. Investigations show that the original transepts were built in the fifteenth century. Each ended in a semicircular apse. A beam spanned the opening into the apse, with a St Andrew’s cross fitted between the beam and the wall plate above. The alterations of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were undertaken to accommodate a growing population, and fixed pews were installed. The altarpiece and pulpit also date from this period. Niels Bragernæs painted the altarpiece in 1704, copying the old altar painting from 1633 in Kongsberg Church. One panel of the pulpit retains decoration from 1655, while the others feature painted depictions of the Evangelists from the eighteenth century. The medieval baptismal font survives, with its soapstone bowl. The two carved crucifixes probably date from the thirteenth century. Along the south wall of the nave, beneath the pulpit, are remnants of the church’s original medieval seating. The wall paintings date from several periods. In 1655, the nave and chancel were extensively decorated with painted arcades along the lower walls, bands of Old Testament texts across the middle, and leaves, flowers and fruit above. Beneath the gallery floor, the panelling in the north and south transepts features painted rebuses—picture puzzles—taken from an illustrated Bible printed in Copenhagen in 1710.