Vreta Kloster kyrka

With sweeping views across the Östergötland plains at the entrance to Berg’s locks and the Göta Canal stands Vreta Kloster Church. This church is one of the country’s most intriguing medieval buildings, erected by the Stenkil dynasty as a royal church in the early 1100s.

In the early 1100s, King Inge the Elder and his wife Helena donated the land at Vreta for a monastery, the first in Sweden. King Johan III commissioned grave monuments in the late 1500s. The monastery was dissolved only when the last nuns died in the 1580s.

Today, the monastery church is surrounded by the ruins of the monastery building and the convent house, which served as the nuns’ grain storehouse and has now been renovated, forming part of the church village’s visitor center. In 2019, 70 Christian graves were discovered outside the churchyard. Nineteen of these were examined, revealing that four did not belong to locals but hailed from Gotland, Skåne, northern Germany, and southeastern England. Evidence of postholes indicated the presence of a stave church northeast of this burial ground.

The fascinating history, serenity, and the beautiful surrounding nature attract numerous visitors each year. Guided tours are conducted by the Klosterliv i Vreta association; you can find more information about these tours here.