Picture Day Friday: Heddal Stave Church of Norway

Heddal Stave Church of Notodden, Telemark is the largest stave church in Norway. It is also a living church and has been in continuous use since it was first built in 1200.

A stave church is a medieval wooden building once common in northwestern Europe. The name derives from the post and lintel construction structure of the buildings, a type of timber framing with the load-bearing posts called stav in modern Norwegian. The stave design are descended from the post design and palisade design of churches. At one point, closer to 2000 such stave churches were built in Norway alone. The numbers elsewhere in Scandinavia are unknown.