Stamnes is situated between two headlands, old landing places for people who came from the north and west. Earlier on there were several burial mounds here, two of them were where the church is now situated- stone from the mounds is still to be found in the stone wall around the church. On these burial mounds there were large oaks, Håreikjæ and Kolleikjæ. They were thought to be old sacrificial places, and the first stave church at Stamnes was erected here. Later on a new church was built here in 1861.
The cultural landscape has changed; the settlement has developed at the fjord, the sandpits have cut into the hills. Around farms without roads at Veafjorden there is also well-kept cultural landscape, as at Kårstad, Vedå and Bukkastein.
