Church Of St Oswald

The Church of St Oswald is a Grade II* listed building located in Flamborough, dating back to around 1100 but largely rebuilt in 1864 by R G Smith of Hull. The church features a south porch added in 1893 and a west tower completed in 1896. It is constructed from ashlar stone with cobbles and has slate roofs.

The architectural layout includes a west tower, a four-bay aisled nave, a south porch, and a chancel. The chancel aisles are adorned with three-light flat-headed windows that have trefoils, while the clerestory features circular windows with cusped cross-tracery. The nave aisles contain two-light windows with cusped ogee tracery, and the nave clerestory has plain two-light windows with stone mullions set under square heads.

The three-stage west tower is marked by a plinth and string-courses separating the stages, with clasping buttresses on the lower stage. It has a three-light west window and two-light belfry openings, all showcasing Perpendicular tracery. A sculpted figure is located in a canopied niche on the south wall of the tower at the first floor. The building has coped gables throughout, with a cross finial atop the chancel.

Inside, the nave arcades are supported by octagonal piers and feature pointed arches of two orders with broad chamfers. The 12th-century chancel arch is richly decorated with roll-mouldings, complemented by an additional roll on the nave and scalloped capitals. A 15th-century chancel screen, likely from Bridlington Priory, has a central opening flanked by two two-light openings with fretted tracery. Above it, a rood loft is adorned with 15 canopies featuring crocketed finials, all under a running vine-scroll with a fretted band above. The church also contains a 12th-century font decorated with all-over lozenge ornament and a fragment of an effigy with a toad at the heart beneath a brass inscription to Sir Marmaduke Constable, who died in 1520, located to the north of the altar. Notably, Andrew Marvell, the father of the poet, served as the incumbent here from 1609 to 1612.