The small stone church at Hosby — known in Swedish as Hösby — is one of the oldest buildings in Noarootsi. Medieval in origin, it served the Swedish-speaking community of the parish for centuries before the mass exodus of 1944 emptied the pews almost overnight. The church has been maintained and is still used for occasional services, but its surroundings — a quiet churchyard with Swedish-language gravestones slowly being reclaimed by grass — tell the melancholy story of a community that disappeared in a matter of days.
Walking the churchyard is a strangely moving experience. The inscriptions are in Swedish, the dates cluster in the 18th and 19th centuries, and many of the family names — Blom, Ekström, Lindqvist — are common in Sweden today among the descendants of those who fled. The village around the church is tiny, but the landscape of the western Estonian coast — flat, reedy, with the Baltic visible in the distance — makes the walk worth it.