Vendels kyrka

The church was probably begun in the later thirteenth century as a Romanesque brick building with a nave, a narrower chancel and a sacristy that survives to this day. Tradition holds that the completed church was consecrated in 1310, when it had a wooden barrel-vaulted ceiling; a porch was added in the fourteenth century, along with early painted decoration, fragments of which can still be seen in a niche near the chancel and on the porch walls.

Around 1450 the church was given brick vaulting, and in 1451–52 the noted Uppland artist Johannes Iwan painted the vaults with scenes including Saint George and the Dragon and Saint Catherine. These murals were later whitewashed over in the eighteenth century, when the medieval windows were enlarged to bring more light into the interior, and were only gradually rediscovered and restored from 1930 onwards, a process said to be still ongoing.

Among the furnishings, the fifteenth-century font with its stone bowl is the oldest surviving piece, and is notable for having been used historically for baptism by full immersion, a practice recorded as having been revived in recent times. An unusual pulpit dates from 1685, a gift from a local benefactor and his wife, and an altarpiece was installed in 1752, by which time the present bell tower had also been built. Since the Catholic era the church has been dedicated to Mary, and the sacristy has more recently been reordered as a small place of devotion centred on her.

The churchyard was originally enclosed by a medieval boundary wall with three covered gateways, one of the largest in Sweden. When part of this wall was demolished in 1881 to enlarge the churchyard, fourteen boat graves dating from roughly 500–800 AD were discovered nearby. It was this find that gave the surrounding period its name, the Vendel era, and a small local museum near the wall, along with a modest exhibition in the surviving southern gateway, tells more of that story.

The church has had organs since at least 1637; the present main organ was built in 1997, while an older instrument from the 1890s, retaining an eighteenth-century façade, remains on the gallery, and a small positive organ from the 1980s is now housed in the side chapel dedicated to Mary.