Lovns church / Lovns kirke, Gislum herred, Aalborg amt

Lovns Church,30 km southwest of Aars.
Lovns sogn, Gislum herred, Aalborg amt.

The highplaced, white-washed church has a choir, nave, a western extension and a northern porch. The walls of the choir and the nave are on the outside built in monk bricks, but inside in granite boulder. The triumphal arch is built in monk bricks. From original details are only preserved the narrow vaguely point-arched choir arch, and the church is in spite of its Romanesque plan from the first Gothic period, in ab. 1300. The north door is retkantet (straight edged) with plankeoverliggere (plank coverstones). There are no traces of the south door. Both south walls of the choir and the nave were recently re-walled in small stones, and the east wall of the choir is completely new-walled. The late medieval extension, which is in granite boulder and with the same outer broadth as the nave, must - considering the heavy walls - have been the beginning of a tower, but it is not known if it was ever built. The church has a beamed ceiling, in the choir are traces from a broken-down Gothic vault. The small porch is new.



A large altar piece from the beginning of the 1600s has a copy of Carl Bloch's Resurrection-painting in the large field, in the top field is an earlier Resurrection-painting. A Romanesque granite font with a smooth basin. Baptismal bowl in Nürnberg-work from ab. 1550. At the choir arch a small crucifix from ab. 1500. Pulpit in early Renaissance with diamond-shaped fields and the year 1576, contemporary staircase to pulpit. Solid, early Gothic pews. In the porch is a pew with simple Renaissance gables with frieze and inscription of the givers from ab. 1640 (Iver Krabbe, vasal at Mariager Kloster). West gallery with openwork facade from the 1700s and well-preserved original pews. A church bell from 1684, it hangs below the small roof of the western gable.


Knudshoved

Names in the Middle Ages and 1600s:
Lovns (1389 Lonnes, 1443 Lowns); Hvalpsund (1449 Hwelpessund, 1688 Hvolpsunds Fergested); Hole (1442 Hwole); Ovenskov (1466 Owenskow); Skovgårde (* 1502 Skougard); Torpgårde (1466 Torpp); Overgårde (1664 Offuergaard); Lingårde (1610 Lindgardt); Hessel (1391 Hesæl); Skamris (1499 Skammeriis).

Hessel, was by Vide Videsen in 1391 pawned to Peder Andersen Munk of Hedegård; hr. Jens Terkelsen of Hessel is mentioned in 1411, Peder Raa in 1470-76, Niels Mortensen 1532.-38. Hr. Jørgen Lykke of Overgård exchanged Hessel in 1567 with the Crown. After 1567 Niels Skram of Urup, + 1601, in 1603 Christen Lykke, + 1614, and 1620 his son Iver Lykke, but in 1647 it belonged to Valdemar Daa, from whom it came (with debt) in 1670 to mayor Chr. Spormann. Various owners/families. Later some outparcelling.

At Knudshoved is a sacred spring, Skt. Knuds Kilde.

At a field in Lovns was in 1870 found 111 coins, Danish, English, German, the earliest from Hardicanute's period.

Listed prehistorics: One longhill, 10 hills and a ringbank of 17 diameters in the hills close to Melbjerg hoved; large hills are Kongshøj and another hill north of Hessel.
Demolished or destroyed: One longhill and 32 hills. At Knudshoved and Hessel Skovhuse were kitchen middens. At Hessel were 4 dolktidsgraves and an Iron Age settlement.

Dolktidsgraves: Dolk = Dagger. Hellekiste = a grave built with and covered by flat stones, it often contains more than one burial. Dolktid is a 700 year long period from 2400 to 1800 b.c.; also named hellekistetid or sen neolitisk tid.

Source: Trap Danmark, Aalborg amt, 1961


photo Lovns kirke/Knudshoved 2003: grethe bachmann