Bygdeå

Bygdeå was an early parish centre on the coast of northern Sweden. Its church stood on a rise above a sheltered inlet, near the old coastal road; land rising after the Ice Age gradually turned the inlet into a small stream. A tax list of 1314 records Bygdeå as an independent parish, then the northernmost in Sweden with its own church.

The first church was probably a small wooden building. A stone church replaced it in the late Middle Ages, and its vaults were finished by 1539. During the seventeenth century a church town grew on the slope above it, providing lodging for parishioners who came from distant farms. The church site also served as a market, while a military company was based in the parish and its captain's residence was built nearby in 1691.