The chapel occupies the site of an old earth cellar that once belonged to a smallholding known locally as Espe-Lars's place. By the early 1970s the cottage itself had disappeared, leaving only the cellar. Vicar Åke Levenstam had long wished to create a wayside chapel, and with his wife Karin he brought together a group of young people from the parish to turn the idea into reality. Together they relaid the floor of the cellar, limewashed the walls, and built a simple altar and benches, with the wider local community contributing materials and labour.
The result is a modest building with whitewashed walls and a limestone floor, furnished only with an altar and two roughly hewn benches. A small bell tower with a hand bell stands beside the chapel, and a pilgrim path leads up to it. The simplicity of the building is deliberate: it was dedicated to Francis of Assisi, the twelfth- and thirteenth-century Italian friar who built no great churches and instead preached poverty and closeness to nature, travelling and teaching rather than settling.
The dedication draws a link between Umbria, where Francis grew up, and the landscape around Varv, which is said to share something of its character. Visitors are encouraged to pause at the chapel to take in the view, reflect on biblical texts displayed there, and enjoy the quiet of the setting. A small herb and flower garden beside the chapel is named Sankta Klaras trädgård, after Clare of Assisi, founder of the Poor Clares, the female religious order inspired by Francis's teaching.
Since its creation the chapel has continued to be cared for by lay volunteers rather than serving as a regular place of worship in the ordinary parish sense, reflecting the original spirit in which it was built: a simple, shared undertaking rather than a formal ecclesiastical project.