Vilsted church / Vilsted kirke, Slet herred, Aalborg amt.

Vilsted Church, 10 km south of Løgstør
Vilsted sogn, Slet herred, Aalborg amt.


Two Chessboard patterns

Vilsted Church has a Romanesque choir and nave, a Gothic western addition, a styltetårn (open bell tower), stairway house and a porch from 1750 on the south side of the addition. A medieval chapel was demolished. The Romanesque part is in granite ashlars ,but strongly re-walled. In the south walls of the choir and nave are two ashlars with chessboard patterns. In the north wall of the nave is a walled door and an original round-arched window preserved.

In the 1400s the choir got one and the nave two cross vaults. The tower is narrow and open to the west. It has two heavy pillars connected by a high pointed arch with the bell-work. In the eastern part of the south wall of the nave is a point-arched walled archade from the disappeared chapel. The porch is partly rural Baroque with a fine curved gable. Tower and porch are white-washed while the other parts of the church are blank granite walls. Upon the tower is a weather vane from 1773.

The Communion table is granite, covered in a "Renaissance"-panel from 1934. The decoration upon the altarpiece is since 1934 a medieval choir crucifix from ab. 1475. From a Renaissance altar piece from 1615 is preserved a part of the large field's painting upon wood. The granite font is Romanesque. The baptismal basin is South German from ab. 1575. The pulpit from ab. 1675.


Flowers by the church dike

Names in the Middle Ages and 1600s:
Vilsted (1338 Wælst, 1342 Wilsteth); Haldrup Gårde (ab. 1525 Haldrvp); Troldbjerg Gårde
(1542 Troelberiig); Hyllestedgård (*1504 Høllestet); Grønninggård (ab.1525 Grønen, 1579 Grenning, 1611 Grønenn); Vester Strett (1407 Strætæ, 1573 Vesterstret).

In the village Vilsted's western outskirt was in the Middle Ages a fortificated farm which possibly belonged to the famous drost Laurids Jonsen Panter , + 1340; his son Peder Lauridsen Panter, + ab. 1360, who owed 140 mark silver to king Valdemar IV Atterdag because of his estate in Vilsted. In 1407 the estate was bought by queen Margrethe I and the fortification was probably demolished after that, while the estate itself was endowed to Poul Stigsen Hvide who still was there in 1438. In 1597 the vasalry was placed at Aalborghus Castle.


Vilsted Sø

Vilsted Sø (Nørresø) (lake) was dried out in the 1900s, but is now re-created and has become a Nature Reserve.

Vilsted Sø

Source: Trap Danmark, Aalborg amt, 1961.


photo Vilsted kirke/Vilsted Sø 2006: grethe bachmann