Skede kyrka

For years, local clergy had pressed for a new church, arguing that the small, deteriorating medieval building it succeeded was no longer fit for purpose. That earlier stone church, which stood slightly further north but shared part of its foundation with the present building's north wall, had no tower of its own. Early plans to extend rather than replace it, drawn up in 1817, were eventually abandoned in favour of building afresh in the architectural style of the day.

The new church was designed by Carl Robert Palmér, a county master builder who had himself been born in Skede parish. Construction was completed in 1834, though the king only approved the plans retrospectively once the building was finished. The consecration took place in 1837, led by the bishop and poet Esaias Tegnér.

Built in the Empire style, the church has whitewashed, roughcast stone walls, a nave with a semicircular chancel to the east, and a west tower with round-arched, triple-grouped openings and an open lantern topped by a globe and cross. Inside, the hall-like nave is covered by a barrel-vaulted ceiling, giving an impression of light and space, with no structural arch marking the division between nave and chancel.

Since the medieval church had lacked a tower, its three bells had hung in a separate wooden bell frame; all three were later moved into the new tower's belfry. The middle bell is said to date from medieval casting, while the largest and smallest bells were recast during the nineteenth century.

Among the church's furnishings are several notably early objects: a Madonna figure said to date from the thirteenth century, a carved crucifix attributed to the fourteenth century, a sculpture of Saint Erasmus placed in the fifteenth century, and an altar cabinet believed to have been made in the early sixteenth century. The current altarpiece, depicting the Last Supper, was painted in 1846 by Sven Gustaf Lindblom, while two further paintings between the chancel windows were added later in the century by Axel Lindholm. The church also has an organ with a case dating back to 1835, rebuilt and altered more than once since.