Hangelösa kyrka

A church is thought to have stood at Hangelösa since the early eleventh century, and a stone church from the twelfth or thirteenth century later occupied a site about ten metres south of today's building. That older church, by the nineteenth century in poor repair, was demolished in February 1873, and its replacement was consecrated on the first Sunday of Advent the same year, to designs by the architect Gustaf Dahl.

The present church combines nyclassical and neo-Gothic elements, with a rectangular nave, an eastern chancel, a three-sided sacristy, and a slender west tower topped by an open lantern. Large round-arched windows light an interior that retains much of its original nineteenth-century fitting-out, including a panelled ceiling.

Among the furnishings, the sandstone font is of particular interest: carved, according to researchers, around the mid-twelfth century, its cylindrical bowl is decorated with eleven ornamented panels showing interlace, ring-chains, dragons and foliage, and an inscription recording that it was cut by a mason named Johannes and dedicated to Saint Olof.

Equally striking is a weathered sandstone figure of Saint Olof, missing its head, which some scholars date to around 1100 and regard as possibly the oldest sculpture of its kind in Sweden. Together with the font's dedication, it has been suggested that the whole medieval church here was dedicated to Saint Olof, though this remains a matter of scholarly interpretation rather than settled fact. Two carved stone masks built into the present walls are also said to survive from the earlier church.

The pulpit, in a neo-rococo style, dates from 1873, contemporary with the church itself. The altarpiece was painted in 1915; sources differ over whether the artist should be recorded as Sven Linderoth or Bo Lindroth, so the correct name cannot be confirmed here. The organ, built in 1894 by the Lidköping organ-builder Carl Axel Härngren, is said to survive largely unaltered and to be of considerable value to specialists.