Hudene kyrka

The earliest church here is thought to have been a medieval timber building, possibly dating from around 1050, standing on the hill of Hyberget. It was replaced by a stone church built in the early 1300s a few hundred metres from the present site; that medieval church site is still marked today by a memorial stone. By the early 1800s the stone church had become cramped and dark, and despite repeated alterations, the parish decided in 1846 that rebuilding was preferable to further repair.

A new church, designed in the neoclassical style favoured in Sweden from the mid-1700s to about 1830, was completed remarkably quickly in 1856, with timber reportedly hauled from the Borås area due to local shortages. This building itself was destroyed by fire on the night before the fourth Sunday of Advent in 1927, leaving only the outer walls standing.

Rebuilding began at once on the surviving walls, under the direction of architect Knut Nordenskjöld, with the intention of recreating the lost church as closely as possible. The new church, completed in 1929, kept the neoclassical exterior but received an entirely new interior in the art deco style then fashionable, though rarely used in church design. The furnishings from this period, including the pulpit, font, altarpiece and light fittings, are said to be unusually well preserved and coherent as an ensemble.

Above the chancel is a lunette window depicting a turquoise vine with grape clusters, created along with grisaille paintings of the apostles by the Gothenburg artist Yngve Lundström; the altarpiece is attributed to the artist Ragnhild Nordensten. Several wooden sculptures said to date from the 1250s survived the fire and are mounted on the chancel walls, alongside a fifteenth-century altar cabinet from the earlier church, reportedly left outdoors for a summer after the medieval church was demolished yet undamaged owing to its holly-wood construction. The church bells, cast in 1537 and 1726, melted in the 1927 fire but were recast and rehung, slightly enlarged, in the new tower.