Styrstads kyrka

Runestones in the churchyard suggest Christianity had reached Styrstad as early as the eleventh century, and a stone church is thought to have followed in the century after, quite possibly replacing an earlier timber building, as was common elsewhere in Östergötland. Traces of that first stone church survive in the south wall, along with parts of a later medieval chancel and, in the north wall, remnants of a north transept. A medieval west tower is recorded on a seventeenth-century plan, but it collapsed in a storm in January 1604 and its ruins were later cleared away.

The medieval building was largely demolished in 1782, though some sections of old masonry were retained within the new church built in 1782–1783 to a design associated with master builder Måns Månsson Lindgren, with the work carried out by Norrköping builders Johan Fredric Fehmer and A. Pousette. The resulting Gustavian character has defined the church ever since, with only modest alterations in the years since, including work in 1895 and again in 1958.

Late medieval wall paintings, said to date from around 1430 and depicting saints, biblical scenes and the seven deadly sins, once decorated the brick vaults, but they were limewashed over in 1675 and none are thought to survive after the eighteenth-century rebuilding.

Despite the losses, a notable number of medieval fittings remain. Two medieval iron-clad doors survive, one leading to the sacristy and one to a wall niche. The most valued items are a thirteenth-century triumphal crucifix and a font of the same period, the latter carved in limestone and thought to originate from Gotland. An eighteenth-century description recorded a large late-medieval altarpiece depicting the Crucifixion with some thirty accompanying figures; only fragments of its crest ornament survive today. Two late fifteenth-century chasubles, a paten and chalice of similar date (the chalice bowl remade in 1738), and church bells dating from the seventeenth century add further depth to the collection. As with many Swedish parish churches, silver treasures were lost to the Crown during Gustav Vasa's confiscations of church property in the sixteenth century.

The church's furnishings were reworked at various points: new pews and an altar rail were added during an 1895 renovation, which also brought repainting and new iron-barred windows. A more substantial restoration in 1965–1966 gave the church much of its present appearance, including a partly relaid limestone floor and a reorganised chancel with a new baptismal area; pews beneath the gallery were removed at the same time. Further changes followed, with the space under the gallery fitted out in 1986, and the walled altar in the chancel replaced by a freestanding altar table in 2004. The current mechanical organ, built in 1971, incorporates a façade from an earlier 1828 instrument, continuing a long line of organs recorded at Styrstad since at least the 1770s.