Hammarby kapell

The chapel's distinctive silhouette comes from its tower spire, topped with a weathervane, and an eye-catching hood over the entrance with its fanciful woodwork. The spire carries four clock faces, one for each compass direction, and the hand-wound clock mechanism is thought to date from the chapel's earliest years.

Hammarby was originally an ironworks community with roots going back centuries; a forge is recorded here as early as 1568, and the ironworks received royal privileges in 1659. The estate passed through several owners, including the Macheij family and, from 1818 to 1880, the Petre family. It was the ironmaster Hjalmar Petre and his wife Helena who had the chapel built in 1865, on a hill near Hammarby manor, as a combined schoolroom and place of worship for the works community.

The building soon proved too small for its dual role, so in 1875 a schoolroom was added at an angle to the chapel; this annexe still serves as a parish meeting room today. After the Petre family left in 1880 and the ironworks closed, a sulphite pulp mill was established in 1888, and responsibility for the chapel passed first to Storviks Sulfit AB and later to Kopparfors AB.

Only in 1900, once teaching had moved to a newly built village school, was the former schoolroom properly fitted out as a church interior. The mill's manager at the time, Victor Folin, donated the pulpit and altarpiece, the latter painted by the artist Erik (Ecke) Hedberg of Kungsfors, depicting Christ preaching from a boat. In 1945 the chapel was formally handed over to Ovansjö parish, finally becoming a purely ecclesiastical building.

Among the furnishings, the two cast ceiling chandeliers are the oldest surviving items, with one said to have already hung in the schoolroom in 1871. The font, carved in 1938 by the sculptor Erik Sand of Strängnäs from Swedish, German and Russian oak, shows Christ blessing the children and is accompanied by a copper christening dish.