Dalby Church by Sjalen
Dalby is the oldest stone church in all the Nordic countries and one of the loveliest churches I have seen in Sweden. Its official name is the Church of the Holy Cross and its history starts in 1060 when the Danish king Sven Estridsen gave Lund and Dalby their own bishoprics instead of belonging to Roskilde. Bishop Egino of Hildesheim in Germany was invited to build a church and this he did in local Scanian stone. If you enter the church, you will see a stone column from this time which has its equal in Hildesheim Cathedral! The church has since been expanded for centuries and in the 13th century it was a lot bigger than today and resembled many of today's German cathedrals if you are to believe the church leaflets. This kept happening until the 15th century when it also included a monastery. Then came the reformation in the 16th century and the adjacent monastery was closed and the property given to the Crown which lead to the church being short of funds and so it shrunk again until at 1758 it got to what we see today.The interior is incredibly nice and apart from the stone pillar mentioned earlier also has a font made by a 12th century Gotland stonemason. The crypt (fifth pic) is a miniature Lund version with the additional well in a corner and it is this well that was previously used as a local gathering point in times of reckoning (see Dalby Court Hall tip). You can read more about the village on my Dalby page.