HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Old Bø Church ( no, Bø gamle kyrkje) is a former parish church of the
Church of Norway The Church of Norway ( nb, Den norske kirke, nn, Den norske kyrkja, se, Norgga girku, sma, Nöörjen gærhkoe) is an evangelical Lutheran denomination of Protestant Christianity and by far the largest Christian church in Norway. The church b ...
in
Midt-Telemark Municipality Midt-Telemark is a municipality in the traditional and electoral district Telemark in Vestfold og Telemark county, Norway. The municipality was established on 1 January 2020 when the former municipalities of Bø and Sauherad combined. There are ...
in Vestfold og Telemark county, Norway. It is located in the village of Bø. It used to be the main church for the Bø parish which is part of the
Øvre Telemark prosti This list of churches in Agder og Telemark is a list of the Church of Norway churches in the Diocese of Agder og Telemark in Agder and Vestfold og Telemark counties in southern Norway. The diocese is based at the Kristiansand Cathedral in the cit ...
(
deanery A deanery (or decanate) is an ecclesiastical entity in the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Anglican Communion, the Evangelical Church in Germany, and the Church of Norway. A deanery is either the jurisdiction or residenc ...
) in the Diocese of Agder og Telemark. The white, stone church was built in a
long church Church building in Norway began when Christianity was established there around the year 1000. The first buildings may have been post churches erected in the 10th or 11th century, but the evidence is inconclusive. For instance under Urnes Stave C ...
design around the year 1179 using plans drawn up by an unknown architect. The church seats about 150 people. This church was closed in 1875 when the new Bø Church was opened. This church is now preserved as a museum.


History

The first church in Bø was likely a small wooden post church that was built during the 12th century. This church stood on the same site as the present building. The remains of this church were found during some archaeological excavations during the 1980s. That building was torn down during the mid-1100s so that a stone church could be built to replace it. The stone building initially consisted of just a chancel (built around 1150) with the nave being built closer to 1180. The woodwork in the nave's roof construction is said to date from 1179 to 1180 after dendrochronological dating. The church has a rectangular nave with a smaller chancel with a lower roof line. Later, a semi-circular apse was added on the end of the chancel. The church was built on a hill called Bøhaugen, but it was built quite near the edge of the steep side of the hill. This area was prone to landslides and settling, so over the centuries, the foundations of the church became unstable causing settling in the walls. During the 1600s, a church porch was added to the main entry. Originally, the church itself did not have a bell tower, but instead the bells hung in a pillar in the churchyard. In the 16th century, the church had as many as seven bells on the pillar. In the early 1800s, a small bell tower on the roof of the nave was built. In 1814, this church served as an election church ( no, valgkirke). Together with more than 300 other parish churches across Norway, it was a polling station for elections to the 1814
Norwegian Constituent Assembly The Norwegian Constituent Assembly (in Norwegian ''Grunnlovsforsamlingen'', also known as ''Riksforsamlingen'') is the name given to the 1814 constitutional assembly at Eidsvoll in Norway, that adopted the Norwegian Constitution and formalised th ...
which wrote the
Constitution of Norway nb, Kongeriket Norges Grunnlov nn, Kongeriket Noregs Grunnlov , jurisdiction =Kingdom of Norway , date_created =10 April - 16 May 1814 , date_ratified =16 May 1814 , system =Constitutional monarchy , b ...
. This was Norway's first national elections. Each church parish was a constituency that elected people called "electors" who later met together in each county to elect the representatives for the assembly that was to meet in Eidsvoll later that year. By the mid-1800s, the old church was in seriously bad shape. There were structural problems that were threatening the building, in addition to the fact that the old church was much smaller than it should be for the size of the parish. It was then decided to build a new Bø Church to replace the old building. Designs for the new church were drawn up and it was decided to build the new church on the west side of the present churchyard, about to the northwest of the old church. The new church was built in 1874-1875 and it was consecrated in 1875. After this, the Old Bø Church was closed and no longer used. Later, the old church was restored and preserved for history after some fundraising by the local villagers. The old church is one of the few medieval stone churches still in existence that had not been changed much over the centuries.


Media gallery

Bø gamle kirke.jpg Bø gamle kirke, Bø kommune, Telemark.jpg Bø gamle kirkeA001.jpg Bø gamle kirke - valgkirke 1.jpg Bø gamle kirke, med kirkegården.jpg Gamle Bø Kirkes apside.jpg Genmuret indgang Bø Gamle Kirke.jpg Indgang Bø Gamle Kirke.jpg Døbefont i Bø Gamle Kirke.jpg,
Baptismal font A baptismal font is an article of church furniture used for baptism. Aspersion and affusion fonts The fonts of many Christian denominations are for baptisms using a non-immersive method, such as aspersion (sprinkling) or affusion (pouring). ...


See also

* List of churches in Agder og Telemark


References

{{use dmy dates, date=November 2022 Midt-Telemark Churches in Vestfold og Telemark Long churches in Norway Stone churches in Norway 12th-century churches in Norway Churches completed in 1179 11th-century establishments in Norway Norwegian election church