Discover Havdhem: Church, Cultural History and Kistänge

If you are looking for a hotel in Havdhem, historic buildings, cultural history and Kistänge Nature Reserve can help guide your choice of destination. The area brings together different themes: medieval church architecture, an 18th-century vicarage, the history of an internment camp and a natural landscape surrounded by farmland. This gives you a chance to consider whether architectural history, nature or history is especially important to your stay.

Havdhem Church: Building Phases and a Romanesque Relief

The church offers a chance to trace its development through successive building phases. Its oldest part is the choir, dating from the late 12th century. The nave was built around 1200, and an apse was added to the eastern end of the choir at the same time. The choir and nave therefore belong to different building phases. For architecture enthusiasts, this chronological relationship offers a concrete way to explore the building’s history.

Another detail is the Romanesque sandstone tympanum relief. It depicts Christ and four apostles. Its style, material and subject make the relief a distinctive feature of Havdhem’s church art. The cultural landscape around the church and its churchyard is also of national heritage conservation interest. This means the focus is not only on individual building elements, but also on the historical relationship between the church and the churchyard.

The 18th-century Vicarage

The well-preserved Havdhem vicarage and its outbuildings stand immediately next to the church. The two-storey main building was built from limestone and sandstone in 1763. It is a large-scale example of mid-18th-century architecture on Gotland. Its immediate proximity to the church makes it possible to compare different periods: on one side is the building history of the medieval choir and nave, and on the other, a main building from the 18th century. If you are considering Havdhem for its architecture, these different building periods provide a clear focus for your stay.

Kistänge and the Landscape East of the Area

Kistänge Nature Reserve lies just over a kilometre east of Havdhem. It covers 4.3 hectares and is a remnant of a once much larger wet meadow area. Today, it is isolated and surrounded by farmland. Its present size, former extent and location in an agricultural landscape give a concrete picture of the reserve, without equating it with an expansive natural landscape.

Kistänge is especially worth visiting in early summer, when the flowers are at their most abundant. If your travel dates are flexible and you would like to include nature in your plans, this seasonal detail sets it apart from the stories of buildings and the area, which can be explored year-round. Its location east of Havdhem also provides a clear geographical reference point for this part of the destination.

Cultural Centre and Local History

Gotlands Lantbruksmuseum is a cultural centre in Havdhem, in the south of Gotland. It adds another cultural point of interest to the area’s historic buildings. The local history also includes “Lagerlingen”: in the 1940s, it was an internment camp for German political prisoners on the site of Havdhem’s present-day sports ground.

The camp closed in October 1945, after which the prisoners were transferred to mainland Sweden. This sequence places the history in context and distinguishes the site’s former use from its present-day designation as a sports ground. Havdhem’s story therefore encompasses events of the 20th century as well as the history of its church and buildings.

Different themes can guide your choice of destination: the church and vicarage take you from medieval building history to the mid-18th century, while Lagerlingen adds the 1940s to the area’s history. Kistänge, by contrast, is all about the landscape, with early summer highlighted as a particularly good time to visit. This lets you choose Havdhem according to the themes that matter to your stay.

Discover more destinations: Klintehamn, Kappelshamn, Katthammarsvik, Stånga, Tingstäde, Lojsta, Fröjel, Fleringe.

View the main travel guide: Gotland.