Skårby kyrka

The church is essentially a medieval structure, largely built between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries, with only the north extension, the so-called 'new church', added in the early eighteenth century. Old masonry, the porch portal and the straight-ended chancel are among its most ancient surviving features. A sturdy west tower with stepped gables and the porch were added in the late Middle Ages.

The church's survival is tied to a local dispute. When Baron Stjernblad of Marsvinsholm sought to replace the churches of Balkåkra, Snårestad and Skårby with a single new church at Marsvinsholm, the parishioners of Skårby resisted. According to the accounts, the baron agreed to spare the building and contribute materials and craftsmen to repair it, on condition that the villagers gave up any claim to the church's tithe and took on responsibility for its future upkeep themselves. The parish accepted, and the church remained in use.

Inside, the atmosphere is notably ancient. The vaults and chancel carry an unusually large set of medieval wall paintings, dated to around 1300–1350 and attributed to the so-called Snårestad group of painters. Rendered in a simple, direct style typical of the pre-Reformation era, they depict scenes such as Christ enthroned as judge of the world, the crowning of the Virgin Mary, the martyrdom of St Laurence, and St Martin of Tours dividing his cloak for beggars. At a time when most people could not read, such images served as visual instruction in the stories of the Christian faith as well as decoration.　The chancel is set slightly askew from the nave, an arrangement sometimes explained as a symbolic reference to Christ's head falling to one side at the moment of death.

A seventeenth-century gallery at the rear of the church once concealed an unexpected survival: fragments of a lectorium, a structure once used to support a crucifix in the chancel arch. Dated to 1485–86, it is believed to be the only such object known in Sweden and has since been moved to the Historical Museum in Lund.

Near the entrance to the 'new church' stands a churching chair, a reminder of the older custom by which a woman was formally received back into church and social life six weeks after childbirth, in a ceremony mixing ideas of ritual purification with thanksgiving for a safe delivery. According to parish sources, the practice was last observed in Skårby in 1916, though this specific claim has not been independently corroborated here.