Svenneby gamla kyrka

The church was raised in the first half of the 12th century as a modest rectangular nave with a square chancel and straight east wall, its thick grey stone walls originally pierced only by small window slits and, in keeping with contemporary belief, no windows at all on the north side. The timbered porch was added later, in the 18th century. Local tradition wonders whether the site may mark an early place of Christianisation, or whether an even older church once stood here, though this cannot be confirmed.

Inside, the building was substantially reworked from the Reformation onwards. The wall that once separated nave from chancel, pierced by a round triumphal arch, was demolished in 1698, and a vaulted wooden ceiling was added in the late 1720s, when the south-side windows were also enlarged. In 1741 the painter Jonas Ahlstedt of Uddevalla decorated the new ceiling and other furnishings, depicting the Transfiguration in the chancel and the Last Judgement in the nave, along with the four evangelists; the work is said to echo, without quite matching, the manner of the better-regarded painter Christian von Schönfeldt. The gallery front and pews were painted by Ahlstedt too, and the west gallery itself dates from 1724, rebuilt from an earlier structure; a north gallery followed in the 19th century.//It is not stated when the Ahlstedt scheme was last conserved, though sources mention retouching and reconstruction work in the 1960s.

Several striking medieval objects survive. The soapstone font, from the early 13th century, is carved with arcading and stylised foliage and now stands in the chancel, though it originally stood by the entrance. A damaged 13th-century triumphal crucifix, missing its head and arms, and 13th-century figures of the Madonna and St Olaf, are also preserved, along with a medieval image of an apostle in the chancel. The mid-17th-century pulpit, attributed to Hans Swant, was moved to its present position in 1698 and later painted to match Ahlstedt's scheme.

Other furnishings include a medieval chandelier, an oak poor box from the 15th or 16th century, and an 18th-century hourglass stand and votive ship, the latter possibly made by a prisoner held at Marstrand fortress, though this is uncertain. High on the rock above the church stands a separate bell tower housing an early, uninscribed bell thought to date from the 13th century.

The last regular high mass in the old church was held on 5 December 1915, after which the congregation moved to a new church and the building fell into disrepair. It was restored by the Bohuslän Antiquarian Society in 1922, and underwent a further complete renovation between 2015 and 2017 after being found at risk of structural collapse.