A gilded figure of St John stood in the church until 1706 but was buried in the churchyard by the priest as it was attracting undue attention from Catholic prisoners during the Great Northern War.
The oldest remaining sections are the choir and apse and the lower parts of the nave, all characterized by greenish sandstone and rust-brown shale from nearby Grødby Stream.
[2] The tower was originally narrower on the western side but was already widened to its current dimensions of 13 by 11 metres during the Romanesque period.
The porch of Nexø sandstone, the oldest on Bornholm, is slightly more recent than the tower but still dates to the Romanesque period around 1200–1235.
During major restoration work in 1874, the arcade walls were torn down giving the church its present shape.