Järnboås kyrka

The original church was built in 1658 and consecrated the following year. It began life as a considerably smaller octagonal timber building, quite unlike the cross-shaped structure seen today. In 1795 the church was substantially altered: workers sawed the building apart, moved the rear section and chancel further back, and used the newly created space to add north and south transepts. The tower gained its present appearance, topped with a dome, in 1819.

The exterior has also changed over time. It was originally clad in red-painted wooden shingles, later replaced with white-painted boarding, giving the church the plainer look familiar to visitors now.

One of the more evocative stories concerns the painted ceiling and walls, decorated in 1745 by the Nora artist Lars Anders Larsson Behm with biblical scenes intended for teaching. When the church was cut apart in 1795, boards from the original central section were reused elsewhere, scrambling the painted panels into a confused patchwork, and the ceiling was subsequently painted over. During a 1959 restoration, surviving sections of the original painted ceiling were uncovered in the chancel and the western part of the church, offering a rare glimpse of this earlier decorative scheme.

Several furnishings have interesting provenance. The pulpit, installed in 1680, originally stood in Nora church before being moved here; it was renovated in 1764 by the Nora cabinetmaker and carver Johan Ebbe, who also made the altarpiece and the hymn-number boards. Ebbe is likewise credited with the font, which features a canopy and a carved dove. The church bells in the tower were cast in 1669 at Vassland in Nora parish, and an altarpiece was completed and consecrated in 1764.

The church's organ has been rebuilt more than once. An earlier organ, built in 1792 by the local organ-builder Johan Sundström of Järnboås, left behind a case still used today in the south transept. A later instrument by Olof Hammarberg of Gothenburg was installed in 1910, before the current 18-stop organ, built by Gebrüder Jemlich of Dresden, was installed in 1972.