Herrestads kyrka

Tree-ring analysis of the oak roof timbers in the nave, carried out in 1990, suggests the wood was felled around 1112, supporting the church's reputation as one of the earliest stone churches in the diocese of Linköping. One roof beam, however, proved much older, grown from around 867 and probably felled in the mid-900s; its shape suggests it was reused from an earlier wooden stave church that once stood on the same site, alongside early Christian grave monuments (Eskilstuna cists) found nearby.

The building is a simple early Romanesque structure with a rectangular nave, narrower chancel with an apse, a west tower and a sacristy on the north side of the chancel. The tower was raised in stages towards the end of the 1100s, and brick vaulting was added throughout the church in the early 1400s, probably by builders connected with the nearby Vadstena monastery. Traces of medieval leaf-and-band ornament were later uncovered on these vaults.

Inside, the medieval altarpiece is the most striking survival, carved around the early 1400s by a Lübeck workshop associated with Vadstena monastery; it depicts the coronation of the Virgin Mary with saints and apostles. A triumphal crucifix and a fifteenth-century pietà group, both attributed to the same circle of craftsmen, also survive, along with a copy of a medieval bishop's chair (the damaged original is held at the Swedish History Museum in Stockholm).The carved pulpit, made in 1688 by Lars Gabrielsson of Vadstena, shows reliefs of Christ, the evangelists and John the Baptist.

The church underwent significant change over the centuries: royal confiscation of silver in 1540, enlarged windows and altered entrances in the 1700s and 1800s, and a major remodelling in 1881 that thickened the walls with plaster and altered the tower. A substantial restoration in 1946, led by professor Erik Lundberg, attempted to reverse many of these changes, revealing earlier decoration and reconstructing the medieval altarpiece; a new limestone font designed by Lundberg dates from this period. Later work in 1972 removed a deteriorating nineteenth-century addition to the tower and restored its earlier height.

The church also retains a pair of decorated medieval doors with ironwork of Romanesque and dragon motifs, and a wrought-iron grille door from a medieval sacrament cupboard, decorated with lilies.