1. About the fjord and the stave churches
The Sognefjord stretches over 200 kilometres inland, right to the foot of the Jotunheim mountains and the Jostedalsbre glacier. The landscape around the fjord was created by the ice ages and its fertile slopes provide a good basis for agriculture. Settlement beside the fjord and up in the mountains can be traced right back to the early stone age.
Sognefjorden
In former times the fjord was the most important means of transport. The fjord was the way to the city, the ocean and the outside world. Paths and bridleways ran up the valleys from the fjord and people used to journey onward by way of the various mountain passes.
Clustered around the inner part of the Sognefjord we find 5 of the country’s 28 surviving stave churches. The Society for the Preservation of Norwegian Ancient Monuments administers 4 of the most representative stave churches around the Sognefjord: Urnes, Borgund, Kaupanger and Hopperstad. The Society for the Preservation of Norwegian Ancient Monuments was founded in 1844 by some far sighted men who realised that traditional architecture, like the stave churches, was in danger of being lost.
The stave churches are among the oldest conserved wooden buildings in the world and are considered to be unique in world architecture. We believe the stave churches were constructed by skilled craftsmen who specialised in this challenging building technique. Their knowledge and experience enabled them to get the most out of the timber, and also told them where the limits were. With simple tools, they turned round timber into all the various parts of the structure. In an interaction of tradition and innovation, these craftsmen created buildings the like of which had never been seen before. The special structure of our stave churches has withstood rain, wind and sun for many hundreds of years.
What is a stave church?
Stave churches were built all over northern Europe, but only in Norway do we find them still standing. They were built from slow-growing pine, with dense annual rings and heartwood full of resin. In the middle ages, the forests were full of large, old trees. These provided excellent timber.
Stave churches were built for about 200 years, from the early 12th century until the country was struck by the Black Death in 1349. More than a thousand local communities had stave churches at that time. Today only 28 remain.
Stave churches get their name from the staves, or columns, on which the structure depends. The most important structural element of all is the corner stave. A stave church is built upon a framework of beams. These horizontal beams rest on foundation stones, so that they are not in contact with the ground. The planks which form the walls are set in a groove in the base beams and their tops are held by a corresponding groove in the top beam.
The staves are straight-growing pine trunks, with their bases set into the base timbers which in turn rest on the stone foundation. Here you can read more about how a stave church was built.
