Lyngsjö kyrka

The church was built of local fieldstone shortly before the mid-1100s, comprising nave, chancel and tower raised together. It originally ended in an apse, removed in 1796 as it had fallen into disrepair; the small high windows in the chancel date from around that time. The chancel's unusually tall proportions and two-tier window openings are considered unusual for an ordinary parish church, suggesting the building once had a special function, possibly linked to a local nobleman's private gallery in the tower, though this older theory has been questioned given the steep, narrow stairs leading to it.

The chancel and triumphal arch retain fragments of wall paintings attributed to the so-called Finja Master, dated to around the 1140s on art-historical grounds. Surviving fragments show the Virgin Mary watching over the infant Jesus's bath, and an angel with outstretched wings on the triumphal arch. A separate, later painting of Saint Christopher, patron of travellers, on the nave's north wall is dated to the 1300s and was painted directly onto the earliest plaster layer, apparently added alongside rather than replacing the Romanesque scheme.

The altar's frontal, or antemensale, is one of the church's principal treasures, created in the 1100s, possibly by Lund craftsmen linked to the cathedral workshops there. It is worked in gilded copper and carries thirteen images: a dominant hexagonal scene of the Virgin and Child, flanked by Moses and Aaron, with the Old Testament kings David and Solomon above and below, and eight further panels of prophets. It remains in its original position, a rarity in Sweden, and drew considerable attention when lent to the Baltic Exhibition in Malmö in 1914.

The sandstone font, attributed to the stonemason Tove, is unusual in Scandinavia for depicting the murder of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, killed at his altar in 1170 by knights acting for King Henry II—an event later dramatised by T. S. Eliot. Alongside conventional scenes from Christ's life, six panels show the king enthroned, the soldiers' approach, the fatal blow, and Becket bearing a cross-staff symbolising his sainthood, conferred within two years of his death. Traces of the font's original red, green and blue paintwork survive, along with carved figures on the base thought to represent evil or chaos.

Other furnishings include an early 1600s Renaissance altarpiece and pulpit, the former incorporating royal monograms of Karl XI and Ulrika Eleonora over an older painting transferred from Köpinge church in 1863. A small blocked doorway in the chancel's north-west wall, known as the 'door of death', is associated with local tradition linking Lyngsjö to the district court and a nearby execution site, said to have been used until the mid-1800s. In the porch, a worn gravestone and a set of wooden burial shovels recall older local customs, the last recorded use of the shovels dated to 1923. The church's two bells are also of note: an unmarked medieval bell, and a smaller one cast in New York in 1889 and gifted by an emigrant parishioner—reportedly inscribed with the neighbouring village's name in error.