Skarp Salling church / Skarp Salling kirke, Slet herred, Aalborg amt.

Skarp Salling Church, 7 km east of Løgstør
Skarp Salling sogn, Slet herred, Aalborg amt.




Skarp Salling church is placed high upon a hill and reminds about a miniature cathedral with a well-shaped apse and massive stone walls. A local building master was inspired by Viborg cathedral when it was built in the 1100s, but in 1876 it was demolished and rebuilt in a 'pure' Romanesque style. The original plan is the same, but some section of the nave appears unreliable. Yet it is an advantage that the high placed Romanesque windows have kept their round arched lintels.

The inventory is marked by the restoration ; both the altar piece which is unconventional blue glazed ceramics, the half circular altar rails, the pews, partly with re-used earlier material, the stairway to the gallery and the money block origins from that. The earlier altar piece, which was contemporary to the pulpit, had the coat of arms of Manderup Due. The pulpit is Renaissance from ab. 1600. The heavy arcade columns inside the church are preserved. The master gallery was probably reconstructed, but it is supported by the prettiest column in the church room and decorated with Romanesque reliefs i.e. a snake and a lion in Old Norsestyle below a human head.In the northern wall below the gallery is a picture stone of a lion, and on the north side of the chorus a granite stone with a chessboard pattern.The earliest thing in the church is the baptismal font with a fleur-de-lis relief and a stretched out hand with a cross.





Names in the Middle Ages and 1600s:
Skarp Salling ( 1392 Salyngh, 1688 Scharp Salling); Brøndum ( 1392 Brvnnum); Hemdrup ( 1394 Hemthorp); Brøndumgård ( * 1400s Brønnom gardh); Povtrupgård (1396 Poothorp).

In Brøndum was in the Middle Ages a main farm belonging to Anders Glob who in 1392 pawned it to his wife fru Lene (Helena) Ejlersdatter Porsfeld; in 1394 Anders Glob pawned it again to hr. Jens Due of Torp (Hillerslev herred); in 1390 is mentioned a sister's son hr. Jens Iversen Lykke, + ab. 1411; fru Lene sold the farm to rigsråd Christiern Vendelbo of Trudsholm , + latest 1401. The circumstances around the ownerships were rather complicated . In 1401 fru Eline Bugge of Vosborg and Støvringgård sold Brøndum to queen Margrethe who bought out other owners: rigsråd hr. Peder Nielsen Gyldenstierne of Aagård, + ab. 1409, and hr. Elef Elefsen Bild, + ab. 1408. Various ownerships up till present, some outparcelling. Present name: Brøndumgård.

Povtrupgård belonged in the last half of the 1300s to væbner Anders Glob, from whom it 1396 went to væbner Peder Andersen MunK of Hedegård ( Års herred).

Listed prehistorics: 4 hills, of which one north of the village is unusually large and well-kept.
Abandoned or demolished: 14 hills. In a Roman Iron Age stone grave were found a skeleton and 4 clay pots.

Source:Trap Danmark, Aalborg amt, 1961


photo Skarp Salling kirke 2006: grethe bachmann