From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heddal_stavkirke Heddal Stave Church (Heddal Stave Church), formerly also known as "Hitterdal Stave Church" or "Ryen Church in Hitterdal", [1] is a stave church in Notodden municipality in Telemark . The plan form is a three-armed cross church and is the largest remaining stake church with a length of 20 meters and a height of 26 meters. The church is believed to have been built in the first half of the 13th century and is mentioned in written sources from the year 1315. Remnants of older building material, proven by dendrochronological investigations, suggest that there may have been at least one older church on the site. The choir in the present church may have served as a ship in an older building. Quotation Heiterdals Kirkke is a wooden church very underlight built with 3 small towers, it on the east end of the chorite, it on the chorite and it on the church, which the bells hang out and the largest Quotation - Bishop Jens Nilssøn (visitas in 1595) Heddal Stave Church played an important role in the professional description and preservation of the Norwegian Stave Church. It was the first to be described in a publication when Johannes Flintoe wrote a short chapter on Collections for the Norwegian People's Language and History (Christiania, 1834). The book also featured Flintoe's drawing of the church's facade facing south as well as drawing of the ground floor and floor plan, probably the very first architectural drawing of a stave church. Flintoe's description was published in Norsk Penning-Magazin in 1836 together with description of construction and size. JC Dahl had not seen the church on his travels in Norway in 1826 and 1834. Thomas Fearnleydrew the church as seen from the east in July 1828. The British Thomas Forester surveyed the church around 1848 and described it as one of the finest specimens of the old stake-built god houses in Norway. Forester noted that the pillars that carried the tower were very long and of such dimensions that they do not exist in the forest nowadays. The building was in such poor condition at that time that it was in danger of collapsing. Quotation By examining the Church at Urnæs in Hafslo Priest Debt in the Inner Parish, which has still retained the old interior, which this one now lacks, one could obtain a more complete concept of what this once in its kind of strange Church once was. Also Borgund Church in Leirdal and Hurums in Valdres are very similar. Næs Church in Hallingdal is also of the same building type, but like Urnæs Church more simply and less built. Quotation - Johannes Flintoe (1834) From the history of the church it is known that it was built by five peasants. One of these was Sira Eilif.