Blidö kyrka

The present church was designed by the architect Ludvig Hedin and constructed around an older timber chapel, which was demolished only after the new building was substantially complete. That earlier chapel dated from the 1650s, when Eric Leijonhufvud of Blidö gård obtained permission to build it and establish a curacy. By the mid-1800s the old chapel had fallen into serious disrepair and was judged beyond saving, prompting the decision to build afresh.

The church is a single-nave building running north–south, with a full-width, flat-ended chancel to the north and a low polygonal sacristy behind it. It is built of rendered stone and brick beneath a slate-covered saddle roof. A 1937 renovation left the exterior unchanged but altered the interior considerably: the western entrance was blocked to form a niche housing a christening altar, and the artist Gunnar Torhamn gave the interior a new colour scheme of yellow, grey and blue, replacing an earlier white scheme. Torhamn also designed the stained glass above the altar and a new altarpiece incorporating a frame from 1858.

North of the church stands a red-painted bell tower built in 1744 by the miller Eric Bärk, whose proportions were designed for the earlier chapel rather than the present building. The large church bell was cast the same year; the tower's open frame was later enclosed with boarding and a spire in 1815.

Among the church's furnishings are several votive ships, including one modelled on the barque Celeritas af Furusund, built by a sailor who took part in her final voyage in 1869. The carved and gilded font, marbled in blue-green, survives from the old chapel and is recorded in an inventory from 1776, along with a font basin of tarnished brass thought to date from the 1600s. A pair of chandeliers, also rescued from the old chapel, are said by local tradition to have been hidden underwater during Russian raids in 1719 — though this remains a tale rather than a documented fact. The pulpit dates from the building of the current church, while fragments of an older sounding board, a gift to the previous chapel, were later reassembled and displayed on the south wall.

The church acquired an organ in 1893, built by Anders Victor Lundahl of Stockholm, funded partly by local summer visitors and the proceeds of a concert given by the parish curate.