Margareta Church

The ruins that you are standing next to now are the remains of the Margereta Church, which was probably built around 1100 and was in use until the middle of the 1500s. It was during renovation work in the spring of 1912, that the tenants at Borgund vicarage came across the remains of an old wall. This was reported to the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Norwegian Monuments in Bergen. They sent the architet and archeologist Gerhard Fischer to Borgund. He examined the wall and it was establised that these were the remains of the Church wall. The excavation of the Church started in April of the same year. This was the first archeolgical excavation in Borgund and actually the first Medieval excavation in Norway. Fischer made precise drawings of what he had found. There were many graves around the church. Four people were also buried under the floor of the church. The Church was likely built by foreign stone masons. The walls were clad with marble. It is possible that this stone was from a marble seam on Humla, an island a little further into the fjord. Some of the marble from here was reused when St. Peter’s church was expanded in the 1630s. In recent times there have also been finds in and next to the church walls. Recently, during removal of grass and turf two dice made from bone have been discovered.