Bornholm
— — a round church on a granite shoulder.
Not only on a wall.
“Granite at the north end, sand at the south, a coastline that turns four times in a day's drive. Four round whitewashed churches from the twelfth century still stand, built thick enough to double as keeps. Above the cliffs at Hammeren the ruin of Hammershus runs along the ridge, the largest medieval fortress in northern Europe. Smokehouses send up wood-smoke along the harbours and the herring comes out gold. — from the studio
Bornholm, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Bornholm is a Danish island in the Baltic Sea, about a hundred and fifty kilometres east of the Danish mainland and forty kilometres south-east of the Swedish coast at Skåne. It covers roughly five hundred and eighty-eight square kilometres and holds a population of about thirty-nine thousand. Administratively it forms a single regional municipality within the Capital Region of Denmark. The geology splits the island in two: granite and gneiss bedrock at the north, exposed in sea-cliffs at Hammeren, giving way to glacial sand and forest in the south around Dueodde.
Four round Romanesque churches, the rundkirker, still stand on the island, all built in the twelfth century. The largest, Østerlars Kirke, has walls roughly two metres thick and a central pillar wide enough to enclose a stair to the upper defensive storey; it was as much a refuge as a sanctuary in the Wendish raiding years. On the north coast, the ruin of Hammershus runs along the ridge above the sea, founded in the thirteenth century and, by area, the largest medieval fortress in northern Europe. The walls are local granite.
Bornholm is reached by a combined train and ferry route from Copenhagen through Ystad in Sweden, about three hours door to door, or by a short flight to Rønne, the island's main town and ferry port. The coastal road runs the full perimeter, roughly a hundred and twenty kilometres, and most visitors travel it by bicycle. Smokehouses, the røgerier, are concentrated along the south and east coasts and smoke the season's herring over alder wood. The summer high season runs from late June through August.