Grindløse Church – a beautiful old village church
Grindløse Church is located in the heart of the village of Grindløse and dates back to the 12th century. Built of granite ashlar, the church has been extended with several architectural elements over the centuries – each telling part of the region’s history.
Today, the church stands with a red tiled roof and exposed brickwork that reveals its long construction history. A walk around the building shows the robust 19th-century buttresses that were added to stabilise the walls – a clear sign of the care taken to preserve the church over time.
Romanesque origins and Gothic additions
The oldest parts of the church – the chancel and nave – are from the Romanesque period. Several original features are still visible, including a tympanum embedded in the southern wall of the nave, which originally sat above the church’s south door. During the Gothic period, the church was expanded with a porch, a tower and a chapel.
The tower was built of monk bricks with stepped gables, while the chapel served as the burial chapel for the noble Rosenørn family from the nearby manor, Jerstrup.
The church interior
Inside, the church is characterised by whitewashed walls and vaulted ceilings. Much of the interior dates from the Renaissance and the Historicist period – with rich red-brown tones and decorative detail.
A highlight is the pulpit from 1604, adorned with Evangelist figures and carved wood ornamentation.
Another remarkable feature is the old baptismal bowl from the 16th century, made in Nuremberg and showing the Fall of Man.
Portal and churchyard
The entrance to the churchyard leads through a beautiful monk brick portal – a rare and well-preserved example of late medieval brickwork.
The churchyard is surrounded by a fieldstone wall and has been extended several times throughout its history.
Worth seeing in Grindløse Church
- The pulpit from 1604 with Evangelist figures
- Romanesque granite baptismal font – decorated with rounded arcades, smooth columns, a twisted rope pattern and an inverted cube capital. It is part of a group of North Funen fonts from the 12th century also found in Lunde, Klinte and Marslev churches
- Altarpiece “The Women at the Tomb” by Christoffer Faber (1849)
- 16th-century baptismal bowl with the Fall of Man
- Memorials of noble and local families from the 16th to 19th centuries
- Embedded tympanum from the original south door
