Church Of St Oswald

The Church of St. Oswald in Hartlepool was built between 1897 and 1904, designed by W.S. Hicks. It is constructed of dressed, snecked limestone with quoins, covered by a Lakeland slate roof, and built in a quasi-Perpendicular style. The church comprises a clearstoried nave and chancel with aisles, transepts, and a west tower with north and south porches.

The four-stage tower features set-back buttresses, a two-centred window with reticulated tracery on the west face, louvred two-centred belfry windows with pointed openings under ogee-arched hoodmoulds having grotesque stops, and an embattled parapet with crocketed pinnacles. The flat-roofed porches have straight parapets, diagonal buttresses, and two-centred doorways with three moulded planes and blind rectilinear traceries in the tympana. Trefoil-headed ogee-arched niches above the doorways contain figures of St. Oswald. The four-bay nave and three-bay chancel (five bays and two bays internally) have gabled buttresses between two-centred clearstorey and east windows with reticulated tracery and stopped hoodmoulds. Octagonal turrets mark the external division between the nave and chancel.

The buttressed aisles have paired trefoil-headed lights in chamfered rectangular openings, and similar three-light windows are present in the south transept. A tall tower arch with quadruple chamfer separates the nave. The five-bay nave arcades are double-chamfered and feature octagonal, round, and compound piers with stiff-leaf and moulded capitals, with a similar single arch to each side of the chancel; the north side arch leads to a full-height gabled transept housing an organ from 1928.

The sanctuary features Italian and French marble altar steps. An enriched, pinnacled, carved oak reredos by R. Hedley (Newcastle), containing figures of saints and the Resurrected Christ sculpted by J. Eadie Reid, is located at the east end. A carved oak rood beam with vine brattishing, groining, traceries, a crucifix, and pendants, also by Hedley, is also present. The roof is of coupled rafters with iron collars.

The south transept, a Lady Chapel, incorporates a gilded, carved oak reredos with figures of angels and oil paintings of the Crucifixion, alongside a wrought iron screen and gates by J.R. Crimson (Gateshead). A chamfered octagonal drum font of pink alabaster, on an octagonal stone step, has crocketed ogee niches holding figures of saints and angels; a broad plinth is carved and inscribed by R. Beall (Newcastle). The enriched oak font cover, supported on four angle shafts, features a heavily carved and ornamented turret by R. Hedley. Stained glass exists in the east window and south transept, designed by H.W. Bryams (London), with additional good stained glass from 1918 and 1931 within the south aisle.