Sparlösa kyrka

The present church occupies a site used for worship since the Middle Ages, when a Romanesque church of hewn sandstone stood here with a narrower chancel to the east. In 1656 a burial chapel was added to the north by Jöran Ulfsparre of Ulfstorp, and between 1683 and 1685 the medieval church was extended with a straight-ended chancel matching the width of the nave.

The medieval building was eventually demolished and replaced by the current neoclassical hall church, built of natural stone to designs by the architect Fredrik Blom and consecrated in 1848. Structural problems soon followed: the roof proved poorly built and cracks appeared in the walls, requiring reinforcement with tie irons in 1856. A thorough renovation in 1949–1950 removed the old stoves and chimneys in favour of electric heating and lighting. Today the church consists of a nave with a straight chancel to the north-east, a lower semicircular sacristy behind it, and a west tower housing the main entrance. The parish was originally shared between Sparlösa and Slädene and was then known as Salems kyrka.

The church's mechanical organ dates from 1957, built by Nordfors & Co of Lidköping, and followed two earlier instruments on the site — a six-stop organ of 1848 by Johan Nikolaus Söderling of Gothenburg and a five-stop Nordfors organ of 1925.

The most celebrated object associated with the church is the Sparlösa Stone, a richly carved runestone rediscovered in 1669 built into the wall of the medieval church's chancel. Early antiquarians recorded and sketched it before a fire in 1684 split the stone in two; the pieces were re-mortared into the new church wall in 1685. It remained hidden until 1937, when local testimony about a stone once built into the church prompted its extraction, though by then the damage was considerable. The fragments were rejoined and the stone later moved from the churchyard, reportedly because air pollution was causing it to deteriorate, before receiving a purpose-built outdoor setting beside the churchyard in 1982.

Scholars regard the Sparlösa Stone as one of Sweden's most unusual runestones, carved with imagery on all four sides that may include a stave-built temple building. Its runic inscriptions are thought to combine an older layer of runes with later additions, and some researchers have suggested possible echoes of early Christian imagery from Ravenna. Given the stone's damage, much of the inscription remains difficult to interpret with confidence, though it is understood to reference belief in the protective and fertility-granting power of runes.