Lye church, Gotland

Lye (Sv. K. 105) church about 45 km SE of Visby has a spacious gothic chancel with three narrow windows to the east and south door-way with figures of scenes in the capitals (compare Hörsne, Martebo and others). The nave in romanesque style has a south door-way and a straight wooden ceiling. The belfry in west has the same width as the nave. Above the vault is a gallery stretching to the three possible sides. On the same level is a small store-room with two walls of vertical planks, which rest on sills with grooves.

Reinforcement beams stretching in the north-south direction in the gables date the chancel. Sample no 9 from the eastern beam has waney edge and is dated 1324. Sample no 10 from the beam in the west wall also has waney edge and is dated 1323. Samples no 3 and 4 are taken from scaffolding poles in the chancel, have waney edge and are dated 1323.

The belfry is dated by two stumps of beams , fixed to the wall, sample no 11 from a stump of beam in the southern wall of the store-room has waney edge and is dated 1216. Sample no 12 is taken from a scaffolding pole in the space above the store-room, has waney edge and is dated 1212. The reason why there is a difference in these two dates is unknown.

Because of lack of time it has not been possible to take samples in the nave. The truss is secondary but contains re-used pieces of timber. The tie-beams and the capping pieces of the wall plate seem to be originally from the time of erection of the nave but probably lack waney edge.