Størdal

Stordal lies in a valley opening onto Storfjord in Sunnmøre. Its church has served the farming community since the Middle Ages, when a wooden stave church stood on the valley floor. The farmers acquired that old church in the eighteenth century, but its condition eventually made replacement necessary.

In 1789 local farmers built an octagonal timber church, reusing material from its predecessor, including old fittings that had already served generations of worshippers. Ten years later the painters Vebjørn Hamarsbøen and Andreas Reinholdt decorated its interior with vines, roses and biblical scenes on the walls and ceiling. The richly coloured work gave the building its familiar name, the Rose Church, and joined the religious life of the valley to the painting traditions of rural Norway.