Dalums kyrka

The church retains much of its medieval fabric, with the original masonry of the nave, chancel and apse still forming the core of the building. It was built largely of roughly hewn fieldstone in the twelfth century, and the exterior of the apse carries a round-arched frieze supported on pilaster strips. This decorative feature is said to be the only one of its kind in Västergötland, and has been linked by some to Skåne-Danish influences, though this remains a matter of interpretation rather than settled fact.

The present tower is a later addition. According to local tradition, the original tower was destroyed by fire during Danish raids linked to the 1520 battle on the ice of Lake Åsunden, in which the Swedish regent Sten Sture the Younger was fatally wounded; a new tower was subsequently built further west, probably in the 1500s. Its small rectangular openings on all four sides may have served a defensive purpose. A sacristy was added in the 1300s, bringing Gothic features such as ribless vaults, and a Baroque porch followed in 1738.

Inside, the altarpiece and pulpit both date from the seventeenth century, and the sacristy door is set into a notable sandstone surround. The vaulted ceiling was painted in the nineteenth century by Anders Gustaf Ljungström; beneath this later work, fragmentary medieval ceiling paintings, possibly from the 1400s, were partially uncovered in the twentieth century but judged too damaged to preserve on display and were limewashed over again. A free-standing red timber bell-tower, believed to date from the seventeenth century, stands in the churchyard, along with two rune stones and a lily-carved memorial stone.

The church came close to being demolished and replaced in the nineteenth century, when its condition had deteriorated and church authorities discussed building anew; the matter was repeatedly delayed, and the medieval building survived. A fragment of a twelfth-century sandstone font bowl, carved with animal figures and a centaur, was found built into the churchyard wall in the twentieth century and is now recognised as part of a small regional group of related fonts. The church's organ retains a partly-sounding façade from an eighteenth-century instrument, later rebuilt.

More recent changes have altered how the interior is used, including the removal of the fixed altar and altar rail in favour of movable furnishings, and the creation of an open area near the organ loft used for gatherings after services.