St Olaf's Church, Balestrand

St Olaf's Church The English Church
St Olaf's Church, an Anglican Church in Balestrand, Norway
Country	Norway
Denomination	Church of England
History
Dedication	Saint Olaf
Architecture
Architect(s)	Jens Zetlitz Monrad Kielland
Style	Dragestil Stave church (imitation)
Specifications
Materials	Wood
Administration
Parish	Summer Seasonal Chaplaincy
Diocese	Diocese of Gibraltar in Europe

Coordinates: 61°12′27.25″N 6°32′3.73″E / 61.2075694°N 6.5343694°E / 61.2075694; 6.5343694

St Olaf's Church (The English Church, Nynorsk: St. Olafs kyrkje, Den engelske kyrkja) is an Anglican church in Balestrand in the county of Sogn og Fjordane in Norway. The church was built in 1897 as a stave church imitation and has 95 seats.

St. Olaf's Church is notable as the inspiration for the chapel in Elsa's coronation scene in the 2013 Disney film Frozen.

Balestrand was a popular site for British tourists in the latter half of the 19th century. One of these was the English clergyman's daughter and climbing pioneer, Margaret Sophia Green. She got along very well with the Norwegians and loved the Norwegian mountains. In 1890, Margaret married Knut Kvikne, whose family owned the Kviknes Hotel in Balestrand. Shortly after her marriage, Margaret was diagnosed with tuberculosis; she died in 1894. Before she died, she told her husband that she had a dream of building an English church in Balestrand. As a legacy to his wife, Knut Kvikne separated a plot from the Kviknes Hotel's large plots, and with the help of generous donations from two American women, he began to build. The church was consecrated just three years after Margaret's death.

The church looks from the outside like a stave church and has horizontal paneling. It has two spiers, one of the choir, and a bell tower over the ridge turret in the middle of the nave. The ridge turret is decorated with two dragon heads, as on the ancient stave churches.