Gladhammars kyrka

The present church was built between 1883 and 1886, replacing an earlier timber church on a nearby site that dated back to the medieval period and was demolished around 1889. Unusually, the new building is arranged as a centralised church on a north-south axis, with the choir to the north and the tower and porch to the south, a layout quite different from the traditional east-west orientation of most Swedish parish churches.

A thorough renovation in 1949–50 altered the interior considerably: the church was repainted in a grey-white scheme, several pews were removed, and a large crown chandelier that had hung from the ceiling was taken down. The chandelier subsequently went missing and its whereabouts were unknown for decades, until a further renovation in 1999–2001 uncovered it in a sealed-off space. It now hangs once again at the centre of the church, which was restored during that same project to something closer to its original appearance, including a warmer, earth-toned colour scheme.

Among the church's furnishings is a wooden sculpture from the fifteenth century known as the Throne of Mercy (Nådastolen), a traditional way of depicting the Trinity showing the Father, Son and Holy Spirit together; much of its original medieval painted decoration survives. The font is of limestone and dates from 1677, and the altar decoration is a nineteenth-century copy of Thorvaldsen's figure of Christ. The octagonal pulpit is contemporary with the present church building.

A mortuary chapel stands a short distance south of the church, close to the site of the earlier medieval church it replaced. Built in 1938, it was given a similar form and scale to the older chapel it succeeded, and it preserves the altarpiece rescued from that earlier, demolished building.

The church's organ history reflects several stages of Swedish organ-building: an eighteenth-century instrument was brought here from another local church in 1760, replaced by a new organ in 1886, and again rebuilt in 1960–61 by the Mårtensson organ workshop in Lund, which gave the instrument a new mechanical action and facade.