Udby church / Udby kirke, Rougsø herred, Randers amt.

Udby Church, 20 km northeast of Randers
Udby sogn, Rougsø herred, Randers amt.


The small white-washed church is placed high upon a hill. The tiled building has a late Romanesque choir and nave - and later added western tower and a porch on the south side.In the choir is preserved a Romanesque window. In the wall of the nave is a small bricked-up Romanesque window , seen as a niche inside. The south door with a granite cover stone is still in use. The tower has a pyramid roof and is built in the late Middle Ages in raw granite and monk bricks. The inside of the church is marked by a main repair in 1960. The choir arch disappeared and the nave and the choir now form one room with a beamed ceiling. Upon the north wall of the nave are frescoes with medaillons oaf biblical pictures dated from ab. 1300. Upon the wall of the tower are the coat of arms from 1682 of Niels Rosenkrantz and Berte Skeel.




The altar piece is a beautiful relief-carved work from 1682 - and a Baroque altar rail and a priest's chair is contemporary with the altar piece. The granite font is simple with a square foot and a smooth basin; the south German baptismal dish is from the end of the 1500 and has the coat of arms from 1682 of Niels Rosenkrantz and Berte Skeel ; these coat of arms are also at the pulpit from 1688. The manor stools with gates also have these founder names with coat of arms and the year 1688. The nave has two church ships, the largest from 1833 landed on the coast from a French ship, the other ship is the corvette "Dagmar".


Coat of arms on the tower wall (Rosenkrantz-Skeel)

Udby in Rougsø was among the estate, which bishop Peder Vognsen in Århus in 1203 gave to his church. Jens Poulsen from Udbyskov, who is mentioned in 1334, was probably the owner of Holbækgård, Holbæk sogn.

A sacred well is on the hill Elkærsbakke by the sea; people still visited it in the 1800s and according to legend the well lost its power because a blind horse was being washed in it. Another sacred well, Søkilden, is found on the hills Storesandsbakkerne by Randers fjord.

Names in the Middle Ages: Udby (* 1203 Utby, 1426 Wdby);

Listed prehistorics: a large hill at Elkærbakke, where once were 3 hills, and a lesser hill, Trindelshøj, in Holbækgård's forest.
Demolished or destroyed: 12 hills and 2 long dolmens, the last south of Ringvang. - At Ringvang was found a kitchen midden with things from early and late Stone Age.

Source: Trap Danmark, Randers amt, 1963


photo 2003: grethe bachmann