Gol Stave Church (Norwegian: Gol stavkirke) is a 12th century stave church originally from Gol in the traditional region of Hallingdal in Buskerud county, Norway. The reconstructed church is now a museum and is now located in the Norwegian Museum of Cultural History at Bygdøy in Oslo, Norway.
Description
The church has been dendrochronologically dated to from 1157 to 1216. When the city built a new church around 1880, it was decided to demolish the old stave church. It was saved from destruction by the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Norwegian Monuments (Fortidsminneforeningen), which bought the materials in order to re-erect the church elsewhere. The remains of the original medieval construction were documented before transport. Original murals and medieval artifacts survived. Most of the main construction remained intact and in original form, although practically all of the exterior dates from the 1884–1885 restoration. It was acquired by King Oscar II, who financed its relocation and restoration as the central building of his private open-air museum near Oslo. Architect Waldemar Hansteen assessed the condition of the conserved parts and made a plan for restoration. The restoration was overseen by Waldemar Hansteen and was completed in 1885. In 1907, the early open-air museum, the world's first, was merged with the Norwegian Museum of Cultural History, which now manages the stave church. The church, however, is still nominally the property of the reigning monarch. In the 1980s, a modern replica has been erected in Gol as a tourist attraction in a theme park in central Gol. This replica is located some distance from the original site of the medieval church. There is also a replica in the Scandinavian Heritage Park in Minot, North Dakota and at Epcot Center in Walt Disney World in Florida.
History
The church has many similarities in the construction of the inner erection with Hegge Stave Church in Valdres, and it has been assumed that the same builder was responsible for both. It probably stood in its original form until the 17th century, with a passageway around church and choirs. The choir's walls and apse have remains of murals which is reasonable to assume originate from 1652 (the year is painted on the wall) from the same painter who made decorations in Torpo Stave Church in 1648 (epitaph), Flesberg Stave Church (later overpainted), Rollag Stave Church 1653, Veggli Stave Church and Nore Stave Church 1655 and Uvdal Stave Church 1656. The apse's depiction of the Last Supper originates from the same painter, but the reconstruction of the apse's walls is uncertain. The roof rider was renewed in 1694. At the same time, a ceiling was installed, and during the same period, two windows were installed on the south wall in the central room. Around 1730, a gallery was built on the north side. Some time later, the choir and apse were demolished, and a new half-timbered choir was erected. But the old materials were reused for the ceiling in the new choir, and thus the murals survived and could be restored in connection with the move. In 1802–1803 the church was enlarged so that it "formerly too small a church for such a numerous commons (had become) strangely larger, so that it once holds as many listeners as before". The corridors around the church were demolished, and new outer walls of table-covered trusses were erected approximately where the corridor walls had stood. A porch with a salt roof was erected in front of the west portal. The church then got the look it had when J. N. Prahm designed it in 1846.
Relocation and rebuilding
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