Heddal stave church- The Largest Norwegian Medieval Church that according to a legeden was built for three days

A stave church is a medieval wooden Christian church building once common in north-western Europe. The name derives from the buildings’ s...

A stave church is a medieval wooden Christian church building once common in north-western Europe. The name derives from the buildings’ structure of post and lintel construction, a type of timber framing where the load-bearing ore-pine posts are called stafr in Old Norse (stav in modern Norwegian). Two related church building types also named for their structural elements, the post church, and palisade church, are often also called ‘stave churches’.

Originally much more widespread, most of the surviving stave churches are in Norway. The only remaining medieval stave churches outside Norway are those of circa 1500 atHedared in Sweden and one Norwegian stave church relocated in 1842 to the outskirts of Krummhübel, Germany, now Karpacz in the Karkonosze mountains of Poland. (One other church, the Anglo-Saxon Greensted Church in England, exhibits many similarities with a stave church but is generally considered a palisade church.)

Heddal stave church, Notodden is the largest stave church in Norway.The church is a triple nave stave church and is Norway’s largest stave church. It was constructed at the beginning of the 13th century. After the reformation, the church was in a very poor condition, and a restoration took place during 1849–1851. However, because the restorers lacked the necessary knowledge and skills, yet another restoration was necessary in the 1950s. The interior is marked by the period after the Lutheran Reformation in 1536–1537 and is for a great part a result of the restoration that took place in the 1950s.