Hove Stone Church

The church, is quite small, but has exquisite forms that bear witness to a wealthy builder and owner. 

Of the medieval interior, the stone altar has been preserved, and in the altar slab there is a reliquary covered by a marble slab. 

The architect Peter Andreas Blix, owned the church when he died in 1901 and is buried under the church floor.

Before Blix got his hand on the church, there was a plan  to sell the church stone by stone. When Blix, was in charge of the restoration of Håkonshallen in Bergen, he received an offer to buy soapstone from Hove church, which was to be demolished. After the new Vik church was completed in 1877, Hove church was no longer needed, they said.

To prevent the demolition, Blix bought the church and restored it according to his own plans and with his own money. The interior is marked by Blix's choices, and the decor and furnishings are as he imagined it might look in the Middle Ages. The church walls are covered in brightly colored decor, and the nave has a painted parapet in imitation ashlar. The chancel is richly decorated; the altar part is framed by ashlar stone and has a dome where the vault is painted in bright blue like a sky with sun and moon. Thank you so much Peter Andreas Blix.

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