Bjällerups kyrka

The church was probably built towards the end of the 11th century or the beginning of the 12th, in Romanesque style, with the tower added slightly later in the 1100s. The chancel is narrow and originally ended in an apse, which was removed in the 19th century. The sturdy tower has been suggested as having served a defensive purpose, though this remains a matter of interpretation. Inside, the nave and chancel were at first open-roofed, before cross-vaults were inserted later in the medieval period.

During the 14th and 15th centuries the vaults were decorated with multicoloured lime paintings depicting biblical scenes. In the nave these include figures of saints such as Paul and Peter, shown with their traditional attributes of sword and key, along with images of St Lawrence, St Catherine, St James and Mary Magdalene. The chancel paintings depict Mary and Elizabeth, the Annunciation and the Nativity. The paintings were whitewashed over for a long period; those in the chancel were uncovered in the late 1950s, and the nave paintings followed in restoration work of 1976–77.

The church retains other medieval furnishings, including a sandstone font with a round basin, and a carved oak crucifix and Madonna figure, both attributed to the 15th century. Much of the present interior character, however, dates from a mid-19th-century restoration overseen by the architect C. G. Brunius, when the pews and pulpit were installed and the walls given decorative masonry-pattern paintwork around the chancel arch.

The current pulpit dates from 1891, designed by A. W. Lundberg and painted by Fredrik Krebs, with scenes showing Moses, Christ and Paul. One panel is said to include an unexpected figure: a Hindu dancing Shiva, a detail also noted, with some uncertainty over its precise origin, in other accounts of the church. Sources differ slightly on whether this Shiva figure belongs to the pulpit or to a later altarpiece, so the exact context of this curiosity is not entirely settled.

The altarpiece, a triptych installed in 1934, has a central image copied from Raphael's Sistine Madonna. In the chancel is a well-preserved gravestone commemorating Gabriel Swale, owner of the Bjällerup manor, and his wife Katarina Gagge. The three large stained-glass windows on the south side were acquired in 1936 by the vicar Emil Ahrendt, having originally been intended for replacement windows at Lund Cathedral.