Sundborns Kyrka

Sundborns Kyrka has a cruciform floor plan with exterior walls of solid, horizontal logs clad in wooden shingles and painted in classic Swedish red. The roof is covered with tarred wooden shingles, most of which still come from the previous church, which was demolished at the same time as the current church was built in the 1750s.

Right next to the church is a massive wooden belfry, which can more accurately be called a bell tower due to its architectural design with full cladding and an elaborate spire. In 2002, Sundborns Kyrka was one of the motifs for a Christmas stamp series by the Swedish postal service entitled Romantic Churches at Christmas Time.

The interior of Sundborns Kyrka

The interior of Sundborns Kyrka appears quite bright, which is partly due to the size of the windows still existing in their original form, but also to the light-coloured design of the church interior. The ceiling is a barrel vault and covered with white painted wooden panels. The walls are painted in a pale green base colour and decorated with moss green floral ornaments in stencil painting. The pews in a shade of blue tinted green form a pleasant contrast to the light shade of the wooden floors.

It is no coincidence that a certain sense of foreboding comes to mind when looking at the design, because it was in fact none other than the painter Carl Larsson, who lived about a kilometre away on his farm Lilla Hyttnäs, who oversaw the major renovation of the church in 1905. In the process, he radically redesigned the church and left his unmistakable artistic footprint on the colour scheme and decoration of the church. He also immortalised Sundborns Kyrka in many of his paintings and watercolours.

In the neighbouring parish hall there is an extensive collection of portraits by Carl Larsson. They show mainly residents of Sundborn, whom Larsson portrayed at the time and he gave the entire collection to the local church community in 1916. The collection is open to the public free of charge on weekday afternoons in July.