Gravlev church / Gravlev kirke, Hornum herred, Aalborg amt.

Gravlev Church, 22 km south of Aalborg
Gravlev sogn, Hornum herred, Aalborg amt

Gravlev church was built 1150-1200. Tower and porch from 1450-1500. Restored 1873 and 1919-20. The Romanesque choir and nave is in granite ashlars. The choir gable and the south walls are rather re-worked. Two Romanesque windows are preserved in the north side, one in the choir with a profiled cover stone. In a main repair in 1919-20 the north door was marked by placing a thympanum, which was found outside the church yard. The preserved choir arch has profiled kragbånd (oblong relief stones). The nave has a beamed ceiling, in the choir was in the Gothic period built a cross vault. The tower with a pyramid roof was added in the late Middle Ages, in the bottom are granite ashlars and at the top monk bricks. It was restored in 1873. A tall pointed arch connects the vaulted tower room with the nave. The porch is in the same material and from the same period as the tower.



The walled Communion table is in granite ashlars. The altar piece from 1774 was given by Ide Cathrine Lassen of Buderupholm. An earlier altar picture is on the south wall of the nave and upon the north wall is an altar piece from 1908. The granite font is Romanesque and the brass baptismal bowl is Nürnberg type from the end of the 1500s. The pulpit with small evangelist-paintings was given by parish priest Claus Christensen Worde and wife in 1663 and made by the Aalborg- cabinetmaker Thomas Nielsen.



Names in the Middle Ages and 1600s:
Gravlev (1268 Grawelhøu, Graflef); Flø (1497 Fløø); Borupgårde (1268 Barthæthorp, Bahrthorp, Barthorp); Oplev Tved ( 1664 Opløuff Lund, ); Skillingbro (* 1490 Skiuffling b(ro mølle), * 1513 Skiølingsbro mølle); Tinbæk (1610 Tingbeck mølle).

At Klokkebakken by the church was a sacred well.

Ove Ovesen Kaas (Mur-Kaas) was endowed with Gravlevgård in 1416 by the Viborg bishop. His son Lange Jens Ovesen Kaas has Gravlevgård in 1424-30, and his son Thomas Jensen Kaas was the owner in 1461 and 1464.


Lindenborg Ådal opposite Gravlev Church

Listed prehistorics: 25 grave hills, of which the large Aalborghøj, a large hill at Gravlev and another at Oplev.
Demolished or destroyed: 3 large stone cists, where were found flint daggers, clay pots etc., one of the stone cists has been moved to the garden of the National Museum in Copenhagen. 56 hills of which two were long dolmens situated together with ten other hills north of Oplev.

When digging Jordbakken at Gravlev in 1904 a clay pot was found with partly broken silver things ( bracelets, necklaces, broches, thorshammer etc) and silver bars and 263 broken parts of Arabic coins, kufiske dirhemer from the 900s.

In Thingbæk Kalkminer is a museum with several casts of sculptor Anders Bundgårds works. among others "Cimbrertyren". ( "The Cimbric Bull", the original sculpture is in Aalborg)

Source: Trap Danmark, Aalborg amt, 1961


photo Gravlev kirke 2003, 2008: grethe bachmann