The Beautiful Borgund Stave Church, Norway

Church of the Borgund Stave is a previous ward church of the Congregation of Norway in Lærdal Region in Vestland province, Norway. It was built around 1200 as the village church of Borgund.

Until 1868, it was part of the Lrdal parish, which is a part of the Sogn prosti (deanery) in the Diocese of Björgvin. In 1868, the “new” Borgund Church, which was built nearby, took over its religious duties. A museum was created and the old church was restored and preserved. It is a triple-nave stave church of the Sogn type and is owned and operated by the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Norwegian Monuments. The only surviving stave-built freestanding bell tower in Norway can be found on its grounds.

The Borgund Stave Church was constructed between 1180 and 1250 AD, with subsequent renovations and additions. The name “stave church” refers to the vertical wooden boards that make up its walls. Ground sills connect the four corner posts, which are supported by a stone foundation. The ground sills are the source of the intervening staves; Each is tongued and grooved to join with the others to make a strong wall. The outside wood surfaces are obscured by defensive layers of tar, refined from pine.

With fewer side aisles and an additional chancel and apse, Borgund is constructed according to a basilica plan. It has a raised focal nave differentiated on four sides by an arcade. This platform is surrounded by an ambulatory that leads into the chancel and apse, which were both added in the 14th century. Under the overhanging shingled roof, an additional ambulatory in the form of a porch wraps around the building’s exterior. This church has a floor plan that looks like a central, double-shelled Greek cross with an apse at one end instead of a fourth arm. The three shorter arms of the cross form the entrances to the church.

The structure of the building has been described as an independent “cube within a cube.” Continuous columns that rise from the ground to support the roof create the inner “cube.” Arched buttresses joined at the knee to the columns form the top of the arcade. Cross-shaped, diagonal trusses, also known as “Saint Andrew’s crosses,” connect the columns above the arcade; These have supports with arches, giving the appearance of a “second storey.”

This is similar to modern second-story galleries found in large stone churches across Europe, despite not being a functional gallery. The upper supporting columns are held together by smaller beams that run between them. By supporting the roof’s weight with buttresses and columns, the stave walls are prevented from moving downward or outward.

Scissor trusses that form an “X” shape and are tied by a bottom truss to prevent collapse support the roof beams. The top span is narrow and the bottom span is wider. A truss that cuts across the “X” below the crossing point but above the bottom truss provides additional support. Shingles cover the roof, which has a steep pitch and is boarded horizontally. Instead of shingles, the original outer roof would have been weatherproofed with boards laid in a long line. In later years wooden shingles turned out to be more normal. The majority of stave churches have roofs made of scissor beams.

Due to the limited amount of daylight that enters the church, the interior is dark. Examples of daylighting are the slender, circular windows on the roof, which provide some of the few natural light sources. It was believed that the small openings would keep evil spirits out. Three entrances are only wide enough for one person to enter and heavily decorated with snakes and foliage, supposedly to prevent evil spirits from joining the churchgoers. The majority of the internal fittings have been removed, and the portals were originally painted green, red, black, and white.

A soapstone font, an altar with a 17th-century altarpiece, a 16th-century lectern, and a 16th-century cupboard for storing altar vessels are the only things in the building. The row of benches that are installed along the wall inside the church in the ambulatory outside of the arcade and raised platform are the only other things. Pews, a pulpit, and other common church furnishings were included in the church’s conversion to Protestant worship following the Reformation; however, these have been removed now that the building is protected by the society for the preservation of Norwegian Ancient Monuments).

A free-standing stave-work bell tower covers the remains of the medieval foundry used to cast the church bell and is located south of the church. It probably went up in the middle of the 13th century. It is Norway’s only freestanding stave-work bell tower that is still in use. It had a new door around the year 1700, but the door was taken out and never replaced between the 1920s and 1940s, leaving the foundry pit exposed. In the 1990s, new walls were constructed as exterior cladding for the stave walls to preserve the interior. One of the medieval bells is on display in the new Borgund church.

The building became a museum after it was converted from a church in 1868; this saved it from the ordinary destruction of fight places of worship in that period. In 1868, a brand-new Borgund Church was constructed to the south of the old one. Since that year, the old church has not been officially used for religious purposes. In 1877, the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Norwegian Monuments purchased Borgund Stave Church. In 1898, the first English-language guidebook for the stave church was released. A program to study, restore, preserve, and maintain stave churches has received funding from the Norwegian Directorate for Cultural Heritage since 2001.