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:The Church of St Donatus name refers to Donatus of Zadar, who began construction on this church in the 9th century and ended it on the northeastern part of the Roman forum. It is the largest Pre-Romanesque building in Croatia.
The beginning of the building of the church was placed to the second half of the 8th century, and it is supposed to have been completed in the 9th century. The Zadar bishop and diplomat Donat (8th and 9th centuries) is credited with the building of the church. He led the representations of the Dalmatian cities to Constantinople and Charles the Great, which is why this church bears slight resemblance to Charlemagne's court chapels, especially the one in Aachen, and also to the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna. It belongs to the Pre-Romanesque architectural period.
The circular church, formerly domed, is 27 m high and is characterised by simplicity and technical primitivism.