Härjevads kyrka

The present church was built between 1913 and 1915 to designs by the Stockholm architect Ivar Tengbom, using granite quarried locally in the valley of the river Lidan. It replaced a wooden church of 1604, which itself had stood on the site of a medieval stone church dating from the 1100s, located about a kilometre away near the river. After the new granite church was completed, the old wooden building was moved in 1921 to Skara, where it forms part of the open-air museum grounds at the Västergötland Museum; its later-added tower, however, was not moved with it.

The church consists of a rectangular nave with a lower, slightly narrower and sturdy tower to the east, and a narrower, lower chancel with a straight end at the western gable, alongside an attached sacristy. Built into the east tower, some seven metres above the ground, is an older limestone gravestone carved with a wheel cross, a survival from an earlier structure. Inside, the church retains an open timber ceiling in natural wood with visible beams, giving the interior a light, simple character.

Most of the original furnishings from the time of construction survive largely unchanged. A notable exception is the font, a sandstone piece dating from the 1100s and rescued from the earlier medieval church; one source attributes it to a named medieval stonemason, though this detail could not be independently confirmed. Its relief carving depicts a battle between centaurs, an unusual subject for a baptismal font of this age.

The altarpiece was designed by the artist Folke Hoving of Stockholm and combines symbolic and textual elements associated with the Gospel of John. The timber pulpit, contemporary with the church itself, is mounted on the wall and divided into panels, three of which carry painted biblical scenes, including the story of Adam and Eve and the Sermon on the Mount; there is no sounding board above it. A silk brocade chasuble surviving from the early 1500s is among the older textiles associated with the church. The church also has a small pipe organ installed in 1956.

Interior redecoration took place in 1954 under a conservator, when the walls were replastered and limewashed and the altarpiece repainted; later works included updates to heating and, in 2004, a change of roofing material. The churchyard surrounding the building is bordered by a low hedge and a line of trees, with an entrance from the road to the east marked by a wrought-iron double gate.