The earliest existing historical records of the church date back to the year 1306, but it was not new at that time. The first church at Kvinnherad, was possibly a wooden post church that was built in the 12th century. During the middle to late 13th century, the wooden church was torn down and a new stone church was built to replace it. In 1678, the church became part of the newly established Barony Rosendal, where many of the Rosenkrantz family are buried.[3][4][5]
In 1814, this church served as an election church (Norwegian: valgkirke).[6][7] 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.[6][8]
In 1910, the church was sold to the municipality. The building has been renovated and refurbished many times over the centuries, the most recent times were in 1913-1914 and in 1955.[5]
