Älekulla kyrka

The oldest parts of the church date from the Middle Ages. The chancel was added in 1794, and a wooden tower replaced an earlier bell stave in 1877; a sacristy followed in 1935. The result is a building that has grown in stages, blending medieval fabric with later additions.

One of the church's most striking features is its painted wooden ceiling. In 1760 the church painter Ditlof Ross decorated the interior, depicting scenes including the Creation and the Fall of Man. After the chancel was built, its ceiling was painted to match in 1796 by Jacob Magnus Hultgren, with scenes from Genesis. In 1877 these paintings were covered over with white oil paint, along with much of the fittings, but a restoration led by Thorbjörn Engblad in 1938–39 uncovered the original decoration, requiring some boards to be replaced and reconstructed.

Among the furnishings is a soapstone font attributed to the later thirteenth century, part of a group of fonts related to the one in Starrkärr church. It has a distinctive arcaded design with twelve round-arched niches decorated with foliate ornament and palmettes, in the style associated with the so-called Starrkärr school of carvers. The altarpiece, made in 1796 by Johannes Larsson of Brastorp, carries two paintings by Hultgren showing Christ on the Cross and the Last Supper; he also painted the numeral boards. The pulpit, gallery front and possibly the pew doors are attributed to Ross's work from the late eighteenth century, and an older altarpiece from 1867 hangs on the south wall.

The church bells include a late-medieval great bell whose worn inscription has proved impossible to read, and a smaller bell dated 1732.

The church organ has an unusual history: in 1876 a local schoolteacher, sexton and organist, Johan Henrik Torell, built a six-stop organ largely by teaching himself from an instruction manual, assisted by two joiner brothers with no prior organ-building experience. Torell funded the instrument himself, with the parish agreeing to pay him back through voluntary donations if the organ proved successful. A further organ was built in the 1930s, and the current instrument, incorporating some older pipework and the 1876 case, was built in 1978 by Tostareds Kyrkorgelfabrik.