Gothenburg Cathedral - The First Cathedral

The First Cathedral

When construction of a new church was announced on the site, King Gustavus Adolphus created a tax in 1627, the proceeds of which would be used for the construction of the church. The initial demand was for a barrel (just over 125 litres) of wheat, oats, barley or rye from each church-owned property (kyrkohemman) in Västergötland for a three-year period. In a letter to Gothenburg's town council (13 December 1629) the impost was continued for three more years.

By 1633, the stave church had been torn down to make way for the new church building, although its tower remained in use as a guard tower.

The construction of the church was led by the master mason Lars Nilsson. The foundation stone for the new church was laid by Gothenburg's justitiepresident (judge) Nils Börjesson Drakenberg, on 19 June 1626, and in 1633 the new main building was complete. During the construction period and for some time subsequently, the church was called stora kyrkan (the "great church").

On August 10–11 of the same year, superintendent Andreas Prytz consecrated the church with two sermons Om kyrkors rätta bruk ("The right use of churches") and Om kyrkors invigning ("The consecration of churches"). The inauguration has been commemorated at the cathedral with an annual sermon on August 10.

The old tower remained standing for nine more years before a new tower replaced it the following year, in January 1643. With the demolition of the old tower, the "stave church" period was finally over.

No contemporary documents relating to the installation of the church bells have been found. The bells are mentioned retrospectively by Eric Cederbourg (1739):

"In the tower were hung three large and beautiful bells, whose strong and harmonious sound could be heard for 3/4 of a mile (over 8 km); on the north wall of the tower a large, well-founded bell of 6 skeppspund (1,020 kg.) weight was erected to chime the hour."

The first tower clock mechanism, made by clockmaker Per Larsson in 1648, was replaced in 1670 by another one made by Jacob Hertingk of Stralsund.

The church was built of granite faced with Dutch bricks and was adorned with 18 iron-trimmed Palladian windows placed between buttressing supports, and an ornate arched entry door with iron fittings. The building was 48.1 meters long, 20.2 meters wide and 26.5 meters high at the pediment roof, built without a transept. The tower wall was 27.6 feet high, not counting the tower spire. The church roof was clad with oaken shingles and topped with copper plates, at the eastern end of the roof hip was a weather vane in the form of a large copper-gilded sun, which, in 1700, had been so weakened that it was replaced with a wooden cap.

From 1625 to 1634, the construction cost increased to 8,387 Swedish riksdaler. The church is referred to in the accounting records as the stora kyrkan (the "great church"), as mentioned previously. The rectory had been completed as early as 1624. The church was not designated as a "cathedral" (domkyrke) until the 1680s.