To the southeast of the park is Oslo’s oldest building – Aker Kirke, built around 1100, but restored from ruins around 1860, and then again in the 1950s in a more authentic style. Next to the church is the cemetery Vår Frelsers gravlund, created in 1808 as a result of the great famine and cholera epidemic of the Napoleonic Wars. The nearby area around Damstredet and Telthusbakken is interesting since it retains the small town character of Oslo in the first part of the 19th century.