Gårdby kyrka

The church stands on a site with a long Christian history: a runestone in the churchyard, the Gårdbysten, points to an early Christian presence here, and archaeologists believe the first stone church on the site was built in the 1120s or 1130s, comprising a chancel and apse with a nave entered from the south. A west tower was begun in the early 1200s, though an earlier, abandoned attempt to raise a tower elsewhere on the building was also discovered. When the medieval church eventually became unfit for use, the Bishop of Kalmar suggested sharing a new church with the neighbouring parish of Sandby, but the Crown decided otherwise, granting Gårdby the right to build its own church on the same spot.

The present building dates from 1841, designed by Theodor Edberg in the neoclassical style fashionable at the time, with Peter Isberg as master builder. It has a plain nave with a straight east end, a sacristy by the chancel, and a west tower topped with a lantern and cross. The interior originally received a wooden barrel-vaulted ceiling. The church was consecrated on 3 October 1841.

Several older furnishings survived the rebuilding and offer a link back to the medieval and 18th-century church. The font is carved from Gotland limestone and dates from the 1200s. The altarpiece, painted in 1859 by Sven Gustaf Lindblom, depicts the institution of the Lord's Supper and is a copy of an earlier work in Växjö Cathedral. An older altarpiece from 1777, attributed to Anders Georg Wadsten, remains on display on the south wall of the chancel, showing the Crucifixion flanked by carved figures of Moses and John the Baptist. The current pulpit dates from 1859, while an earlier pulpit from 1702, decorated by Wadsten, is also preserved in the chancel.

A lengthy restoration lasting seven years closed the church from 2010 until its reopening in 2017. During the works, remarkable archaeological discoveries were made beneath the church, including a stone coffin containing a man buried at the centre of the building, who some believe may have been the church's founder — though this remains a matter of local tradition and ongoing research rather than settled fact. The restoration, led by architect Johan Lundé, combined conservation of the historic interior with modern additions, including a waxed pine floor and a glass partition at the rear of the nave patterned on the motifs of the church's chandeliers, designed by artist Linda Wallin.