Ornunga gamla kyrka

The church was probably built in the thirteenth century, with a nave in grey stone and a later three-sided chancel. A local legend holds that it was built for the parish by two wealthy sisters from the Sällerhög estate, though this cannot be verified. The building was extended and doubled in size in 1720, when the chancel and window openings took their present form, and two timber porches - one for women, one for men - were added; a sacristy was added north of the chancel in 1794.

During the nineteenth century the church received little upkeep because plans were under way to replace it. Its walls were further damaged by an earthquake in 1904, and, according to one account, this occurred while a service was in progress - said to have been the last held there before the new parish church opened in 1905. A crack above the right-hand chancel window is pointed to as evidence of this event. A decision was then taken to demolish the old building.

Demolition was prevented through the efforts of the Asklanda curate Gustaf Sandzén and his brother, the artist Birger Sandzén, who was based in the United States. They helped found the Svältornas fornminnesförening (antiquarian society), which purchased the church and restored it with some financial support from the Swedish Tourist Association. From the 1920s until the 1970s the church interior served as a museum for the society's collections, before conservation work in the early 1970s renewed the roof and rendered the exterior walls. The churchyard has retained its medieval meadow character and is mown only once a year, with a scattering of old gravestones visible among the grass - much as rural churchyards generally appeared in the early twentieth century.

Inside, the unpainted box pews fill most of the church, their surfaces worn smooth by generations of worshippers, giving what is described as an authentic impression of an eighteenth-century Västergötland church interior. The rustic Renaissance-style ceiling paintings date from the seventeenth century and are sometimes compared with those at Torpa stenhus; above them the original crossed timber roof structure survives intact.

Among the furnishings, the pulpit bears the date 1720 along with the names of the priest and craftsmen responsible, and is decorated with carved figures of Christ and three evangelists. The altarpiece, from the 1720s or, by another account, 1744, depicts the Crucifixion against a blue ground within black-and-gold columns and foliage. A wooden Madonna figure in the choir dates from the later thirteenth century; other medieval wooden sculptures, including further Madonna figures, are now held elsewhere, some at the Museum of National Antiquities in Stockholm and some at the Gothenburg City Museum. A whipping post and a triumphal crucifix, both said to originate from Kvinnestad church, are kept in the church. The medieval stone font was removed to the Museum of National Antiquities in Stockholm, with sources differing on whether this happened in 1878 or 1879. A freestanding wooden bell tower from the 1670s stands near the church and is still rung by hand; the bell it once held now hangs in the new parish church, replaced here since 1995 by a newly acquired bell.