Dønnes Church

Wednesday and Thursday this week I finally played whole services by myself. Modesty aside I wasn’t worried about how I would play but I was terrified about playing in the wrong places.

Yesterday’s funeral was at Nordvik church while today’s was in Dønnes church.

Two very different instruments - a modern 3 manual plus pedals in Nordvik while Dønnes has a historic instrument with one manual, no pedals and only goes to top C.

As you will have noted in previous blog posts, “kaffe and kake” is an important part of church life (which is obviously excellent) but can have negative effects on one’s calorie intake. Over the various lockdowns I had managed to lose 3 stone and was in danger of rapidly putting it back on in only a couple of weeks in Norway so decided to walk to the church and back (subject to weather conditions obviously). It’s an hour’s walk each way to the church and as can hopefully be seen in some of the pictures it was a gorgeous day with some spectacular views.

Petter, the minister had very kindly gone through the service very clearly with me so I knew exactly where to play and all seemed to go well.

Thought I’d write a bit about the church.

The church iseems to have been built in the 13th century and until 1796 was owned privately as it was used a private church for the owner of the Dønnes estate. There are three levels in the church which is apparently very unusual for Norwegian churches. Under the chancel is a burial chamber for the builder and his family; the main body of the church obviously takes up the ground floor while the upper floor (accessed by the stone staircase in the wall) has an unclear purpose.

The 2 wooden sculptures - Madonna with child and St Laurentius - date from the 13th/14th century.

The church and estate was bought by Preben von Ahnen in 1651 and as well as restoring the church he added a pulpit, an altarpiece and the paintings of the Nine Virtues. These are now on the front on the gallery which can be seen in a picture on an earlier post.

When Peder Tønder purchased the estate a few years later he added a mausoleum which contains 22 free standing coffins.

The church was restored between 1966 and 1974 to almost its original appearance.