The current Fole church was preceded by a Romanesque stone church. Of this church, the tower remains and is thus the oldest part of Fole Church, dating from ca. 1200. The Romanesque church was gradually replaced with the current, more Gothic church. During the middle of the 13th century, the choir and about half of the nave were rebuilt, and a few decades later, the rest of the nave. The rebuilt church was inaugurated in 1280.
The church has remained relatively intact since. The sacristy was redecorated in 1707, and minor alterations to the interior have been made occasionally throughout the centuries.
The church exterior have both Gothic and Romanesque elements. The tower is in its entirety Romanesque, reminiscent of the tower of nearby Bro Church. A portal, originally the choir portal, has been re-used from the earlier Romanesque stone church and now functions as the sacristy portal. The nave and the choir are however Gothic. The church lacks an apse and has a straight eastern wall with three vertical windows. One of the walls is inscribed with runes made by the locals as a sort of permanent record about their right to use a road through part of Fole.
The interior of the church has been decorated with frescos, of which fragments remain. The church does however still contain several medieval items. The baptismal font dates from the early 13th century, with the upper part painted over during the 18th century. It contains on the upper part reliefs depicting the flight into Egypt and the apostles, and on the base sculpted heads and beasts. The church also has a triumphal cross from the middle of the 13th century (painted over in the 1840s), and contains several medieval tombstones. Other furnishings are later, including the Neo-Gothic gallery (1870s), one of only a few such pieces on Gotland.
References:Château de Niort is a medieval castle in the French town of Niort. It consists of two square towers, linked by a 15th-century building and dominates the Sèvre Niortaise valley.
The two donjons are the only remaining part of the castle. The castle was started by Henry II Plantagenet in the 12th century and completed by Richard the Lionheart. It was defended by a rectangular curtain wall and was damaged during the Wars of Religion. In the 18th century, the castle served as a prison.
The present keeps were the central point of a massive fortress. The southern keep is 28m tall, reinforced with turrets. The northern tower is slightly shorter at 23m. Both are flanked with circular turrets at the corners as well as semicircular buttresses. Each of the towers has a spiral staircase serving the upper floors. The Romanesque architecture is of a high quality with the dressed stones closely jointed.