Stange Church on a chilly afternoon right at the beginning of May. The church is mentioned in Håkon Håkonssons saga in 1225 and may have been dedicated to St Olav. After a fire in 1620 the church was rebuilt with a baroque interior. There are two portrayals of St James the Elder. EP0503

In 1987 The Directorate for Cultural Heritage and Hedmark Museum launched a competition for architects to make a protective building over the cathedral ruins. Lund and Slaatto won this competition with their proposed  "Poetry of Reason". In its day the cathedral was built as a romanesque basilica with a lofty central nave and lower vaulted side–aisles, and the protective building seeks by its design to unite this with the surrounding Mjøsa landscape. MS0703

Restored section of Hamar Cathedral. MS0703

In the summer of 1152 the English Cardinal Nicholas Brakespear came to Norway. The Pope had commissioned him to organise the Norwegian Church which till then had been administered as a province under the Archbishop of Lund. During his stay in Norway the cardinal arranged for Nidaros to be established as an Archbishopric and for Hamar to become the fifth diocese in the country. We reckon that Hamar cathedral was built in the course of the 50 years from the establishment of the diocese and up to the year 1200. After the reformation the Hamar diocese became a part of Oslo, hereby the church lost influence and fell into decay. JH0703