Tortuna kyrka

The church's earliest history is uncertain. Sources disagree on when the present building was constructed: an eighteenth-century account suggested a rebuilding after 1320, an inventory from the 1800s pointed to 1468, while archaeological investigation and most modern assessments favour a date around 1285–1310. Excavated graves near the church wall, radiocarbon-dated to the early thirteenth century, suggest a church may already have stood on the site by then, possibly succeeding an even earlier wooden chapel recorded in local tradition.

The building was originally a simple hall church, later given brick star vaults in the late 1400s. Early in the following century an unknown artist, now known only as the Tortuna Master, decorated the vaults and walls with lime paintings depicting saints, prophets and unusual scenes including the Last Judgement and the martyrdom of Saint Erasmus. Because the vault paintings were never limewashed over, they remain exceptionally well preserved, while those on the walls were covered in the 1700s and 1800s and only uncovered and conserved in 1932.

The church's external appearance changed considerably around 1800. A storm damaged the steep roof, which was repaired with a shallower pitch, and the tower was added in 1824–1826 to designs by architect C. D. Björk. Further remodelling in 1932 gave the interior much of its present form, including the open pews on varnished board flooring and the uncovering of the medieval paintings. The chancel window, with stained glass by Per Månsson depicting nine scenes from salvation history intended to be read from the bottom upward, dates from 1934 and now serves as the main altar decoration.

Several notable furnishings survive. The pulpit, made locally in 1643–1644, carries carved figures of Christ, Paul and the four evangelists. The altar, altar rail and altar surround were all made in 1791 by the sculptor Jonas Holmin. The oldest of the three church bells dates from 1578, though it was later recast; the others were cast in 1665 and 1767. The nineteenth-century organ, installed in 1854 by Gustaf Andersson (who was born in the parish) and rebuilt in 1957, is still in use.

In the 1860s, needing funds for renovation, the parish sold a number of medieval furnishings to the Swedish History Museum, including carved figures, an altar cabinet and a rare surviving series of panel paintings depicting the Passion, used in Lenten devotions and now considered the only complete medieval set of its kind in Sweden. The sale was controversial at the time, and the parish has since sought their return; copies of the paintings now hang in the church's chancel. Nearby, nineteenth-century marker stones known as ringarstenar, unique to eastern Västmanland, once indicated how far a funeral procession had to travel before the church bells began to toll, according to the fee paid.