Särestad-Bjärby kyrka

The medieval church that preceded today's building was a Romanesque structure of finely cut sandstone, known largely through a 17th-century drawing recorded by antiquarian Johan Peringskiöld. It had a rectangular nave, a narrower chancel, a porch and a tower thought to have been added in the 1200s or early 1300s. Fragments survive in the historical record: a decorative gothic keystone from a vaulted ceiling over the chancel, and reports from 17th-century episcopal visitations noting worrying cracks in both chancel and tower.

The old church suffered further blows over the centuries. During the Kalmar War, Danish forces burned it in 1612; one bell was destroyed, though the larger bell reportedly survived because villagers buried it, later returning to the tower in 1772. Rebuilding and enlargement followed in 1728–29, but by the 1830s the structure was judged too small, damp and dilapidated for the growing congregation, prompting the decision to demolish it entirely.

The current church, designed by architect Abraham Rafael Ulric Pettersson, was consecrated on 7 December 1851. It has a broad, elongated nave with the chancel to the east and tower to the west, a sacristy behind the chancel, and an archive room added in 1923. A serious fire in 1927, which began in the neighbouring rectory, spread to the church tower and destroyed the spire, bells and organ, along with communion vessels and an eighteenth-century hourglass; the rectory itself had to be entirely rebuilt.

Among the furnishings is an altarpiece donated in the 1670s by Magnus Gabriel De la Gardie of Läckö, originally featuring twelve apostle figures; it later passed to the Swedish Museum of Natural History, with the apostle figures returned to the church in 1951. The present altarpiece, depicting the Resurrection, is by J. Z. Blackstadius. A brass christening basin from 1645, a gift from Bryngel Andersson of Bjärby, also survives, as does the church organ, built in 1927 by Herman Nordfors of Lidköping and substantially renovated around 1950. A medieval wooden Madonna sculpture from the 1520s, once part of an altar shrine, is now held at the Swedish History Museum rather than in the church itself.

In the churchyard stands a runestone dating from the 1100s. Nearby, Bjärby's own church was burned by Danish troops in the summer of 1612 and never rebuilt; its parish has shared Särestad's church ever since, and a memorial stone was raised on the old Bjärby church site in 1940.