Engum church / Engum kirke, Hatting Herred, Vejle Kommune.

Engum kirke (foto Nordiske Kirker)

Engum kirke lies 8 km northeast of Vejle


Engum church was built in travertine ab 1150 and proably before. The white washed walls rise directly from the ground.

The church lies in the southern part of the small village with open fields to the south and west and with the vicarage as the nearest neighbour to the east. The church is surrounded by broad, double, granite boulder dikes.
At the main entrance by the main village road is a driving gate + small gate with wrought iron wing-doors, a lesser alike entrance to the west. In 1836 the grass covered church yard was being grazed by geese.

Only few Romanesque details are kept, on the northside are dimly seen the bricked- up round-arched windows and inside is kept the Romanesque choir arch with profiled corbels.

Engum church foto Google earth.

The Gothic vault was built ab. 1400 while the broad west tower and the porch were added in late Gothic period ab. 1500.

The choir's triumph wall and choir arch were decorated with Romanesque frescoes from ab. 1200, especially remarkable are the repainted frescoes on the choir arch.

The church was a manor church for the manor Tirsbæk on the northside of Vejle fjord, and it is strongly marked by the aristocratic church owners. A fine portrait stone in early Renaissance is placed over rigsråd Ove Vincentsen Lunge (+ 1540). He was one of the most important landlords in Denmark and started shortly before his death the building of the present Tirsbæk manor.


 Oldest inventory:
The oldest inventory is the Romanesque font in reddish granite, of a simple type.
The communion table is late medieval in monk bricks, but is covered on three sides with a panel. In the table is a reliquary (found in 1979, contents only a piece of green silk) The reliquary was in the shape of a bærealter (an altar to be carried)


The inventory was new-furnished in 1759-60 into Rococo-style: 

The Rococo inventory is from ab. 1760, the givers were Maren Loss of Tirsbæk  and her second husband, the earlier manager of the estate Jørgen Hvass. He was enobled in 1761 with the pretty name Lindenpalm, which was celebrated by gifts to the parish.

Altarpiece, foto Nordens kirker

The altarpiece is from 1759, made by the Horsens-joiner Jens Jensen the Young. In the big field is a pretty carved crucifix. Jens Jensen is also the master of the other Rococo-piece in the church, the pulpit with a cherub. The pulpit is dated 1765, but behind the flowering Rococo is a simple Renaissance stool. The pulpit is decorated with seven women, symbolizing the cardinal virtues, but they seem  to be not the Christian virtues, considering the seven relaxed challenging graces on the sides of the pulpit.

After a thorough restoration the inventory now stands with the original colours and paintings from 1759-60 (red, blue and much gilding)

Cherub, foto Nordens kirker

Altar rails also from 1759-60 and two cherubs with flaming swords guarding by the choir arch.

Well-preserved pews with 35 interesting  emblem-paintings.

Altar silver from Jørgen N. Brosbøll, Vejle
Wafer box 1778 Matthias Winge, Vejle.

Church ship model: five-masted barque, the school-ship "København",  which disappeared in the South Atlantic 1928-29. 


Church bell: 1765 cast by Michael Carl Treschel, Copenhagen
Church bell 1836 cast by C. Frederik Weiss, Horsens.

Several grave memories ( owners of Tirsbæk )

Source: Danmarks Kirker, Niels Peter stilling, 2000,  Danmarks kirker, National Museet.

Photo: Thanks to Nordens kirker. and Google earth.

Fjelsø kirke / Fjelsø church Himmerland

Fjelsø kirke, Rinds herred, Viborg amt
ab. 20 km north of Viborg 


The Romanesque Fjelsø church is placed high in the northern part of Fjelsø village. The nave and the choir were built in carved ashlars in the 1100s, the whitewashed tower in the 1400s and the porch in 1847.  The north door is bricked up  In the brick-up section is a relief of a Romanesque male head, which turns upside down. In the southern wall of the choir is also a relief of a male head turning upside down. On purpose ? Superstition ? Or a coincidence!

male head upside down

Digitalis by church dike

The altar was originally a large carved granite block. The block has been en-heightened and covered with a wooden panel. The paintings in front of the altar was made in the beginning of the 1700s. Parts of the altar date from the 1500s, but the main part is from the 1700s where it was given to the church as a gift from Christen Sørensen.

Two biblical altar paintings were made in 1895 by the artist Luplau Jansen.

male head upside down

A chalice and a dish for the Holy Communion  were given to the church in the 1600s by the priest Jens Nielsen Brasen, which name is also engraved in the candlesticks with the year 1666. On the foot of the candlesticks is also the name Jens Poulsen. It is said that he gave them to the church as a penance for some damage which happened in a negligent burning of  heaths in Vesterbølle. The present altar jar and wafer box were given by parson Hans Nielsen Højgaard in the years 1916-43.

The granite font is probably as old as the church itself. The baptismal dish is rather new but an earlier dish from the 1700s hangs upon the wall in the choir. The oldest part of the pulpit origins from the 1500s with picture--fields in two storeys. The decorations were made in 1736.
The priest tablet is new and was made in 1944 with names of the priests since the Reformation. The priests before the Reformation are not known.

The ship model "Nordstjernen" hangs in the nave. It is lent out from Gedsted church. The altar gobelin is from November 1981 and was designed by the teacher-couple Ruth and Holger Møllebjerg, Hvalpsund. It was embroidered by local people

The church bell (with no inscription )  is from the late 1200s.

source. Flemming Kloster (Erik Horskjær (red.) De danske kirker Gads forlag 1968. 




photo and text August 2015: grethe bachmann