Hillareds kyrka

The church's most striking feature is its font, carved from sandstone in two parts around the 1100s by the stonemason Andreas, who is known to have signed similar fonts elsewhere. Its cup is decorated with seven scenes including the Crucifixion, the Nativity, and the Lamb of God, separated by fluted columns—an unusually rich piece of Romanesque carving for a small rural church.

Beneath the chancel floor lies the burial vault of the Lilliehöök family, whose weakened foundations reportedly caused structural damage that led to the chancel being demolished and rebuilt in 1816, when it was widened to match the nave. A separate bell tower nearby dates from the 15th century and houses a great bell of that period, cast without an inscription.

Inside, visitors can see a crucifix dated to the 13th or 14th century, a 17th-century pulpit, and a pair of mid-17th-century brass chandeliers. The so-called Gälared pew, given to the church in 1649 by Nils Lilliehök and Virginia Hand, once seated the gentry of the nearby Gälared estate; the same donors are said to have given the church silver and a pulpit after Danish troops raided the area in the 1670s. According to local tradition, the church silver was hidden in the woods during the unrest and never recovered. The old church door still bears several holes said to be bullet marks from these conflicts. Coats of arms of the Lilliehöök and von Schedwin families hang in the church, and the vault beneath the floor is said to contain fifteen coffins. During a 1930s restoration of the vault, the remains of Virginia Hand were reportedly found remarkably well preserved.

The painted ceiling, resembling an open sky with clouds, and an altarpiece by Reinhold Callmander both date from restoration work in the early 20th century, when Callmander also added decorative painting elsewhere in the church. A stone tablet outside the chancel commemorates a mediaeval land donation tied to conditions for holding certain services—one of several local stories linking the church to its surrounding parish history.

The present organ, built in 1975 by Anders Persson, incorporates the façade of an earlier 1883 instrument by Salomon Molander, itself a replacement for an organ by Josef Johansson.