Ytterjärna kyrka

The oldest parts of the church, the western section of the nave and its attached tower, are thought to date from the 1100s, when the building was probably a small church with a narrower, straight-ended chancel. In the early 1300s much of this original structure was demolished and the church was extended eastward, roughly doubling in size, with a new chancel of similar width to the nave and a vaulted sacristy beside it.

Around 1460 the so-called Dåderökapellet was added on the south side, named after the nearby Dåderö estate. Built as two vaulted bays running east-west, it was probably intended as a kind of side chapel for devotion to saints, and it preserves medieval ceiling paintings. Around 1640 the chancel was lengthened again, gaining its present polygonal east end with windows on each of its three walls; the work was commissioned by the councillor Lars Eriksson Sparre, who also had a burial vault built beneath the new chancel for himself and his family.

The building's silhouette owes much to later alterations: a new spire was raised in the mid-1600s, replaced by the present curved tower cap with lantern and spire in 1740–41. In 1819 a new main entrance was cut through the tower's west wall and the old south porch, probably medieval in origin, was demolished. A thorough restoration in 1896–97 under Agi Lindegren regularised the window openings and added Renaissance-style vault decoration, while a further restoration in 1948–49 uncovered older medieval wall paintings beneath later overpainting.

Among the furnishings, the limestone font is thought to have been carved in Gotland in the late 1200s, and several medieval wood sculptures survive, including a seated Madonna from the 1200s in the Dåderökapellet and a later Madonna near the font. The pulpit, an accomplished piece of wood mosaic work, was given to the church in 1652 by Katarina Bååt. A former altarpiece depicting Mary Magdalene receiving a vision from two angels is said to share details with a painting in Padua attributed to Guido Reni, though this connection rests on stylistic comparison rather than documented provenance.

The church walls carry memorials to the Sparre family, who held the Dåderö estate, including a marble epitaph to Lars Eriksson Sparre and his two wives, and funerary hatchments for several of his descendants who died young. Two bells hang in the tower, one said by its inscription to have been cast in 1442, the other in 1791 for a school in Arboga. The church also has a pneumatic organ built in 1928 by Åkerman & Lund, replacing an earlier instrument from 1817.