Valdemarsviks kyrka

Before the church existed, services in Valdemarsvik were held in a hired room on Storgatan, since the nearest parish church at Ringarum lay a demanding two-mile journey away. From 1870 townspeople raised money for a church of their own through auctions, lotteries and bazaars organised largely by a women's sewing circle, while a local landowner donated the site. Built between 1875 and 1877 to a mixed neoclassical and neo-Gothic design, the brick church with its steep gabled roof was consecrated in 1877, though it initially had no tower and the pulpit stood above the altar rather than in its later position.

A tower was added in 1905, funded by public subscription and designed by Karl Flodin, Norrköping's city architect. Separate men's and women's associations had formed to raise funds for the tower and for church bells respectively, a reminder of how much of the building's fabric depended on local voluntary effort rather than church or state funds.

A substantial donation from a local leather manufacturer financed a thorough remodelling in 1917, overseen by architect Axel Lindegren, which gave the church much of its present character: a new altar, altarpiece and pulpit in a dark, National Romantic style, along with new pews and a marbled decorative scheme by the painter Filip Månsson. The altarpiece, showing Christ rescuing the sinking Peter, was painted by the Östergötland artist David Wallin. Two earlier paintings from 1877, depicting the birth and death of Christ, were retained in the chancel.

Further changes came in 1975–1977, when the chancel was reordered, a new sacristy built onto the south side, and the former sacristy space behind the altar absorbed into the church to resemble the apsed chancels typical of nineteenth-century churches. The pulpit was moved again, this time to the south wall. In 2008, after part of the ceiling collapsed, the church was closed for repairs, receiving a new wooden ceiling, improved lighting and sound, and a repainted interior before reopening later that year.

Among the furnishings, visitors may notice a votive ship modelling the sailing vessel Konstantin, donated in 1962, and stained glass in the tower chamber by the artist Milan Vobruba, added in the 1970s and 1980s. The organ, built in 1917 by the Örebro firm E. A. Setterqvist & Son and later modified, remains in use. A separate burial chapel some 500 metres west of the church, designed by the architect Sigurd Lewerentz and funded by a local benefactor, lies beyond the scope of this guide.