Balle church / Balle kirke, Hids herred, Viborg amt.

Balle church, northern suburb of Silkeborg
Balle sogn, Hids herred, Viborg amt.

Northwest of the city Silkeborg in Mid Jutland is the village Balle Kirkeby, in 1418 named Ballow kircke. Upon a hill in the village with a view to the lake Silkeborg Langsø is the Romanesque Balle church. Nave and chorus were built in the 1100s and later extended in the Middle Ages. The porch is late Gothic and restored in recent times. In the late 1700s the little bell tower in the gable was added. The church bell is one of the earliest in Denmark, from 1250.

The Romanesque sections are built in granite ashlars. The south door has two halfpillars and two free pillars and a thympanum with a cross between birds. The north door has double half pillars. The nave inside has vaulting arches and in the chorus a star vault. The medieval communion table is built in stone. The altar piece, the pulpit and the sounding-board are Renaissance from the 1600s. In the porch is a Romanesque grave stone with a carved cross.


Balle church from the north.


The north door with double halfpillars

Names in the Middle Ages and 1600s:
Balle Kirkeby (*1418 Ballow kircke); Balle by (*1426 Rieballe, Ryebalge, *1469 Balle); Hvinningdal (*1418 Hunningdal, 1664 Huindingdal); Øster Bording (*1483 Øster Borring); Vester Bording (*1483 Vester Borring); Overgårde (1610 Offuergaardtt); Skægkær (1683 Skær Kier); Vester Kejlstrup (*1406 Vester Kelstrup).

In 1446 Erik and Lars Hvas sold Hvinningdal to bishop Ulrik in Århus; they possibly inherited it from hr. Elef Elefsen (Bild).

Two villages in the parish have disappeared: Bellerup (* 1511 Biellerup) at the hillside Bellerup east of Gubsø, and Vognstrup (* 1501 Wogenstrop) at Vester Bording. In 1683 is mentioned a small heath named Wogenstrup.

In 'Skovbakken' west of Balle was earlier a sacred spring.

In the northeast corner of the small wood 'Hestehaven' is a natural embankment by the beach of the almost dried out lake Gubsø , which undoubtly was a fortification place. Rests of walls built in granite boulder and monk-bricks were found here in 1893. In the lake itself is a tongue of land which is still named 'Dronningeholmen' ('The Queen's Islet'). Here was said to be a fortification bank and rests of bricks, but there are no visible traces today.

Listed prehistorics: 17 hills, a hill north of Hvinningdal is large, here was a group of 10 hills, of which only two are left.
Demolished or destroyed: 79 hills. In the hill-group north of Hvinningdal was found a house site from Iron Age.

Source: Trap Danmark, Viborg amt, 1962


photo Balle kirke October 2002: grethe bachmann