Havnbjerg Church
Like so many of the country's churches, there are tales associated with this one too, so who commissioned the Cistercians to build the church on the hilltop at Havnbjerg?
Romanesque church, built around 1140 of fieldstone with corners and other details in carved granite. The 15-metre-high tower with spire was added in 1857.
The altarpiece is a painting by C.W.Eckersberg, showing Jesus in the Garden og Gethsemane. In the wall of the choir is a so-called piscina - a basin designed for liturgigal handwashing.
The pulpit is late Renaissance and the baptismal font has a Romanesque top. The organ has 20 stops.
The cemetery contains war graves from 1848 and 1864, as well as a memorial stone for the parish's fallen soldiers in World War I in the form of a stone column with 40 names. The stone for a single fallen soldier next to it was placed there by the deceased's father, who, in despair over the loss of his son, did not want his son's name to appear on the column alongside those of the pro-German soldiers.
The mentioned opening hours can deviate at some days, if both the gravedigger and the assistant is of duty; in this case, the church will be closed. The gravediggers phone hours are Monday-Thursday 8-17.
The church will be open one hour before and after religious ceremonies.
A tale tells,
that Knight Svend and Knight Hagen, who were both pirates, had sent their ships on a joint expedition from which they did not return. Knight Svend then had a dream in which he saw two churches located where his and Hagen's castles had stood, and heard a voice proclaim: Build houses to the glory of God, and your people will return.
When Hagen heard Svend's account of the dream, they both promised to build a church, and at that very moment, the missing ships were seen heading for the beach at full sail. Work on demolishing the castles began that very day, and the two churches of Hagenbjerg and Svenstrup were built in their place.