The present building replaced an earlier stone church, thought to date from the 1200s, on the same site. It was constructed in neoclassical style by master builder Peter Eriksson to designs by Jacob Wilhelm Gerss, work beginning in 1823 and the building being completed by 1826, though the sources differ slightly on the exact consecration date, with the formal inauguration recorded as taking place in spring 1828 under Bishop Marcus Wallenberg.
The church consists of a nave with a tower and porch to the south-east, and a chancel to the north of equal width to the nave, with a sacristy behind it. The walls are of rendered masonry finished in white roughcast, and the roofs are covered in black-painted sheet metal, giving the building the plain, dignified look typical of Swedish neoclassical parish churches of the period.
Several older fittings survived the rebuilding and offer a link to the medieval church that once stood here, including an incense burner believed to date from the 1200s, a wooden triumphal crucifix from the mid-1300s, and a chasuble from the 1400s. The altarpiece depicting the Crown of Thorns was painted in 1856 by P. M. Kindberg of Vimmerby, and the eight-sided pulpit is contemporary with the current building, having been moved to the west side in 1829.
The church organ has a layered history: an earlier instrument built in 1762 by the organist and amateur organ-builder Lars Wistrand was succeeded in 1826 by a new mechanical organ from Nils Ahlstrand of Norra Solberga, later altered by other builders during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries before being restored in 1969 with the intention of returning it closer to Ahlstrand's original design.
Outside the church stands a memorial stone to Ivar Wideén, who composed the music for the well-known song of Småland, 'Smålandssången'. His sister wrote the lyrics, and the siblings are said to have spent much time as children with their grandfather, who served as cantor in Bellö and lived in Klockaregården, the red cottage still standing beside the church.