Kyrkoköpinge kyrka

The church was probably built in the later 1100s in Romanesque style, originally consisting of a nave, chancel and apse beneath a flat wooden roof. Later in the Middle Ages this was replaced with cross vaults, and a tower was added to the west along with a porch to the south. The new vaults were decorated with paintings, which were whitewashed over at the Reformation. Rediscovered during an 1894 restoration, they were initially covered with modern decoration instead of being conserved; it was only in a 1960s restoration that the medieval paintings were uncovered again, as far as this proved possible.

Because of its proximity to Gylle church, Kyrkoköpinge long shared a vicar with its neighbour, and in 1555 the building was even threatened with demolition, on the grounds that parishioners could simply attend church at Gylle instead.

The church originally had separate entrances for men and women, with men using the south porch and women a doorway on the northwest side of the nave. This custom fell out of use, the women's entrance was eventually bricked up, and when the porch itself was demolished in 1834 a window took its place. The present main entrance, on the west side of the tower, dates from this period.

Outside, the building is modestly decorated, with a Romanesque round-arch frieze running along the eaves of the nave and chancel, and Gothic stepped gables on the tower and the eastern end of the nave. A carved stone face wearing a helmet, a medieval feature, sits above the apse roof on the chancel's east gable.

Inside, notable furnishings include a late sixteenth-century Renaissance pulpit with a canopy, decorated with reliefs of the four evangelists at work on their gospels, each accompanied by biblical text and their traditional symbols. The stone font in the northeast corner of the nave is, like the church itself, thought to date from the 1100s, making it the oldest furnishing, its bowl carved with palmette scrolls and grape clusters and its base shaped as a lion; the brass font dish dates from the early 1600s. The altarpiece of 1631, also Renaissance in style, depicts the Crucifixion flanked by wooden figures of the four evangelists, with figures of Peter and Paul above and a figure of Christ at the very top. A medieval wooden crucifix hangs in the roof, though its original colours have not survived, and the pale medieval vault paintings, damaged during the 1894 restoration, depict biblical scenes and several saints, including St Lawrence, St Catherine, St Christopher and St Barbara.