Church of St Hilda

Church of St Hilda

Church dating from around 1200, incorporating remains of an early 12th-century church on the site of a 7th-century monastery. The aisles were partly rebuilt in the 15th century. The building underwent restoration around 1724 and in the mid-19th century by C. Hodgson Fowler. The chancel was partly rebuilt around 1870 by J.B. Pritchett (Darlington) and again between 1925 and 1932 by W.D. Caröe in Early English style, with the whole church restored at that time. The mid-13th-century tower was restored in 1838, 1893, and 1930. The late 13th-century Galilee chapel was restored in 1928; the south porch was built in 1932.

The church is constructed of dressed limestone with roofs of Westmorland slate and stone slates to the porch. It comprises a clerestoried and aisled nave and chancel, Bruce chapel (ambulatory), south porch, west tower with north and south aisles, and Galilee chapel.

The three-stage tower has angle buttresses and massive late 13th-century shoring walls on three sides, with flying buttresses to the south side. A vice at the southwest angle is carried up as a turret. Above the tower aisles, with renewed windows, are blind four-bay arcades. The mid-12th-century west doorway has four chamfered orders, flanked by remains of an earlier doorway with two orders of shafts bearing stiff-leaf capitals and dogtooth moulding between them. The north, south, and west faces of the middle stage have paired lancets behind two-bay arcades with clock faces in the spandrels. The east face of the upper stage has two lancets; other faces have two lancets behind four-bay arcades. The embattled parapet features crocketed angle pinnacles.

The Galilee chapel adjoins the west side of the tower and has a late 13th-century doorway of four chamfered orders. The buttressed six-bay nave and four-bay chancel feature mid-13th-century lancets set behind partly blind three-bay arcades in each bay of the clerestories. The nave aisles have mid-19th-century windows. An altered early 12th-century round-headed south doorway has two lozenge-and-chevron moulded orders with nook shafts below; the orders below have been moved outwards to accommodate a third order of nook shafts. The two-bay chancel aisles are spanned by flying buttresses and have paired lancets.

The single-bay Bruce chapel features tall grouped lancets and octagonal angle turrets. The tower has quadripartite vaulting to the lower stage and tower arches on three sides: the east arch is shouldered with three orders, while the others have two orders; all feature filleted keel and roll mouldings. The north arcade of the nave has five rolled and keeled orders on compound piers with circular abaci and octagonal bases. The south arcade has five keeled orders and compound piers, each with a circular abacus and chamfered circular plinth. Round wall-shafts rise to the clerestories.

The chancel arcades are similar to the nave; the two east bays were rebuilt and are blank except for lancets. The chancel arch, dating from around 1200, has four moulded orders and compound responds of keeled and filleted round shafts with waterleaf capitals and square abaci. A three-bay lancet arcade divides the Bruce chapel from the chancel.

The font dates from around 1728 and features a scalloped marble basin and baluster shaft with a wooden crown cover. The oak rood screen, made in 1894, was designed by C. Hodgson Fowler. A piscina in the south aisle of the chancel is ornamented with nailhead patterns. A late 16th-century brass on the north aisle wall depicts a female figure with an inscription. A late 7th-century grave marker with runic inscription is positioned on the south wall of the chancel. A worn medieval grave slab with an effigy rests on a late 13th-century chest tomb in the Bruce chapel. Many Saxon and medieval architectural fragments are scattered throughout the church.