Svinnegarns kyrka

The original church was a modest Romanesque building, likely serving the old royal estate of Huseby, of which parts of the north wall of the nave survive. Around 1300 it was extended eastward and converted into a hall church, with a sacristy added at the same time; a cross-shaped decorative blind arch on the east gable dates from this phase.

Between about 1450 and 1480, growing numbers of pilgrims visiting the nearby spring prompted a major enlargement to the south and west, more than doubling the church's size to roughly its present form. Brick vaults were built by monks from Pomerania and Mecklenburg, and a pilgrims' hostel was fitted out in the space above the vaulting. The vaults were decorated with wall paintings attributed to Albertus Pictor or one of his pupils, though little of this decoration survives today.

A fire in 1602 destroyed the roof and brought down the medieval vaults, ruining the paintings and much of the older interior fittings. Rather than being rebuilt, the vaulting was replaced with a flat timber ceiling, which still shapes the character of the interior. A thorough refurbishment in the late 1730s introduced much of what visitors see now, including the pews, altarpiece and pulpit, while the tower — begun but left unfinished in the early 1500s — was raised further around the mid-1700s.

Among the older furnishings is a font bowl dating from the 1200s, later decorated with paintings once its original carving had been removed. Three wooden figures survive from a passion altar of around 1500, and a large sculpture near the pulpit, thought to depict Saint Catherine of Alexandria, dates from about 1450. The pulpit itself, given to the church in the late 1730s, incorporates an older pulpit basket from the 1590s. A rune stone is set into the wall of the porch, and two burial vaults beneath the choir hold members of the Falkenberg and Duwall families.

The churchyard is enclosed by a stone wall with two lychgates, probably built in the late medieval period, and the base of a former freestanding bell tower can still be traced on a rise near the old rectory. About a kilometre south of the church lies Svinnegarns källa itself, one of Sweden's best-known sacrificial springs, long connected with the church's history as a pilgrimage site.