The earliest existing historical records of the Svarstad church date back to the year 1359, but the church was not built that year. It is said that the first church was a wooden stave church and it may have been built around the year 1200. That church was dedicated to St. Olav. Two of the decorative portal planks from this church have been preserved at the Museum of Cultural History, Oslo for a long time. The old church had a fire in 1392 and it was either repaired or completely rebuilt in 1395. By the end of the 17th century, the church was considered to be far too small for the parish. In 1651, a builder was hired to enlarge the church, but it was ultimately decided to build a new building on the same site. The new church was consecrated in 1657. The new building was a wooden long church with a rectangular nave and a smaller chancel on the east end. The church was owned by the Count of Larvik until it was sold to the congregation in 1764.
In 1814, this church served as an election church (valgkirke). Together with more than 300 other parish churches across Norway, it was a polling station for elections to the 1814 Norwegian Constituent Assembly which wrote the Constitution of Norway. This was Norway's first national elections. Each church parish was a constituency that elected people called 'electors' who later met together in each county to elect the representatives for the assembly that was to meet in Eidsvoll later that year.
In 1866-1867, the church was renovated. The whole roof was rebuilt and a new tower on the nave roof was built. This renovation also included the construction of a small sacristy built on the east end of the chancel and a church porch on the west end of the nave.
References:The Jan Hus Memorial stands at one end of Old Town Square. The huge monument depicts victorious Hussite warriors and Protestants who were forced into exile 200 years after Hus, and a young mother who symbolises national rebirth. The monument was so large that the sculptor designed and built his own villa and studio where the work could be carried out. It was unveiled in 1915 to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Jan Hus' martyrdom. The memorial was designed by Ladislav Šaloun and paid for solely by public donations.
Born in 1369, Hus became an influential religious thinker, philosopher, and reformer in Prague. He was a key predecessor to the Protestant movement of the sixteenth century. In his works he criticized religious moral decay of the Catholic Church. Accordingly, the Czech patriot Hus believed that mass should be given in the vernacular, or local language, rather than in Latin. He was inspired by the teachings of John Wycliffe.