Novelty Saturday – Stave Churches

A stave church is a medieval wooden church with a post and beam construction related to timber framing. The wall frames are filled with vertical planks. The load-bearing posts (stafr in Old Norse, stav in Norwegian) have lent their name to the building technique. Related church types are post churches and churches with palisade walls. All of the surviving stave churches except one are or were in Norway, but related church types were once common all over northwestern Europe.