Södra Hestra kyrka

A timber church is said to have stood on this site as early as the 1200s, later replaced by a stone building towards the end of that century. The present church was built between 1827 and 1830 by master builders Pehr Eriksson and his son Peter Pettersson, following designs drawn up in 1827 by Johan Abraham Wilelius. It was consecrated in 1835. Interior painting was carried out by Lars Linneroth of Jönköping, while gilding on the gallery front, altar, doors and pew ends was the work of G. Kahnberg.

The church follows a long-nave plan with a saddle roof, a tower to the west topped by a lantern, a semicircular chancel to the east, and a semicircular sacristy to the north. Built of stone and roughcast, it is painted white today, though it was originally pink, with a black plinth. The roofs, now copper, were originally shingled. A clock was added to the tower in 1932. While the exterior has remained largely unchanged, the interior has been altered through several renovations from 1878 onwards; the rectangular interior has a pale blue wooden barrel vault, pale yellow-white walls and a grey-blue cornice, and two inner chancel windows were blocked in 1927.

Among the furnishings, the font is medieval and is the oldest object in the church. A late-medieval altar cabinet, thought to have been made in northern Germany, once stood on the altar; it was sold in 1895 into private hands and later passed to the Swedish History Museum in Stockholm, before being restored and returned to the church in the early 1990s. The current altarpiece and altar painting date only from 1953, the work of Erik Abrahamson, replacing an earlier altar cross with a shroud motif now displayed in the north chancel window.

The pulpit dates from 1704 and originally stood in the old church; it was altered in 1832 and painted blue and gold. The altar rail and gallery feature decorative wooden latticework typical of the region, probably dating from the 1870s, while the original decorative scheme of grey and greyish-yellow with gilded mouldings has since given way to the stronger colours seen today. The enclosed pews, arranged in four blocks with their original screens and doors, along with curved chancel pews, survive from the church's early years.

The organ was originally built in 1844–45 by Johan Nikolaus Söderling of Gothenburg, with a case designed by Carl-Gustaf Blom-Carlsson in 1843. It was rebuilt in 1928, and a new pneumatic organ was installed in 1947–48 by Olof Hammarberg, retaining the historic 1844 façade.