Sorunda kyrka

The church's building history is unusually complex, and without archaeological excavation some phases remain uncertain. The earliest stone church, built with a west tower in the 1100s, survives in part in the tower's northern walls. A carved stone relief of a head and a reptile-like creature, dated to the later 12th century, is set into the exterior of the south wall near the original entrance.

During the high medieval period, possibly around 1410, the building was extended eastward and southward, becoming a hall church with a straight altar wall. The vaulted sacristy and porch may also date from the 15th century. Around 1500 the church took on its present layout, with ring vaults added to nave and chancel. The north chapel became a burial chapel for the Bååt family, later remodelled with a star vault for the Fleming family, while the tower gained a vaulted chapel and, a few decades later, a further burial chapel for the Bååts to the south.

A notable survival is the scheme of wall paintings from 1549, signed by Urian Olofson, among the few such works known from the reign of Gustav Vasa. Rediscovered in 1897 and uncovered the following year, they were retouched according to the taste of the time. The gables carry blind arcading and painted coats of arms, and around 1600 the north burial chapel was remodelled for the Fleming family with further paintings attributed to a probably German master.

Fire damaged the whole church in 1689, destroying an earlier tower spire; the current spire was not completed until the 1720s. Later restorations, including work in 1897 after a vault collapse and again in 1963–1964, altered the interior decoration, though some earlier decorative painting remains visible on the vaults and piers. A fragment of a 17th-century organ gallery, said by its inscription to have been donated in 1642, was reinstalled on the north nave wall during the 1960s restoration.

Among the furnishings, visitors may notice a mid-13th-century limestone font, two carved oak altar shrines of North German workmanship from the 15th century, a late-15th-century triumphal crucifix, and a pulpit of 1667 by Carl Hebel. A marble memorial to Erik Fleming, attributed to the Dutch sculptor Nicolaes Millich and probably made in the 1670s, is also of note. The church has had several organs over the centuries, the earliest positive organ of 1739 eventually sold onward and replaced by later instruments, reflecting a long and layered history of musical furnishing.