Flesberg

Flesberg lies in Numedal, a Norwegian district where the parish name preserves the connection between a farm and its church. The original church was built on the old Flesberg farm, whose Old Norse name combines words for rock and mountain. The stave church dates from about 1250, placing its foundation within medieval Norway rather than the much later history of municipal government. In 1735 it underwent a reconstruction that gave the building a cruciform plan. The church therefore records two distinct stages: the medieval establishment of a timber sanctuary and an eighteenth-century alteration of its form. Its parish landscape belongs to the wider Numedal country, with Flesberg, Lyngdal and Svene as neighbouring parish names. To the west, the land rises steeply toward Blefjell. Agriculture and woodland frame this setting, while the old farm name explains why the place and the sanctuary share a name.