Church Of Holy Trinity And St Oswald

The Church of the Holy Trinity and St. Oswald is a largely medieval parish church, with late 11th-century origins, substantial 12th-century additions, and further development in the 14th and 15th centuries. It was restored in 1885 by C. Hodgson Fowler. The church is constructed of rubble stone with a Welsh slate roof.

The building comprises a west tower, a three-bay nave with a south porch and a north aisle, and a three-bay chancel. The late 11th-century tower has three stages and features quoins, a chamfered plinth, round-headed and rectangular slit windows on its west side, a string course, and louvred belfry openings of two round-headed lights divided by shafts with block capitals in round-arched recesses. An offset string course sits below an embattled ashlar parapet. The nave has a plinth and quoins, with a gabled 19th-century south porch featuring a wooden Tudor-arched entrance. A largely unrestored 12th-century south door has shafted jambs, damaged carved capitals, and a roll-moulded arch with a hoodmould. A restored 1-light Perpendicular window is to the left of the porch’s entrance, and two restored 2-light windows with ogee lights and square heads are to the right. The 15th-century north aisle is of larger rubble, with lower quoins to a blocked north door, and square-headed windows of two and three cusped lights within hollow-chamfered surrounds, set beneath a string course and parapet with moulded copings. The early 14th-century chancel has a small priests’ door with a chamfered, pointed arch and hoodmould, alongside two pointed 2-light windows to the right, each with quatrefoils and a hoodmould. A cusped 3-light east window with wheel tracery sits in the gable, which is topped with moulded copings and a cross. The north chancel window mirrors its southern counterpart, and the aisle continuation features a plain square-headed 3-light window and a Tudor-arched 3-light window with a hoodmould.

Inside, the low 12th-century tower arch has a chamfer, an impost band, and a hoodmould. The north arcade has octagonal piers with moulded capitals to double-chamfered arches, and a round-arched head to a blocked north door. The outstanding nave roof, of five bays, features arch braces rising from short posts to moulded tie beams with rosettes in the mould and bosses beneath king posts. Carved quadrant braces extend from the tie beams to the king posts, also with carved rosettes and cusping. Further features include a brattished wall plate, butt purlins with hollow-chamfered arrises, longitudinal braces from king post to ridge. The chancel arch has trefoiled responds to a cavetto-moulded, pointed arch with a hoodmould, and a string course runs around the east end, forming hoodmoulds to a three-seat sedilia, piscina recess, and the priests' door. The chancel roof includes moulding to arch-braced principal rafters with braces to the ridge from spandrel pieces, various repainted floral bosses, and masks on the wallplates. The font is a plain round tub on a two-step plinth, with a Jacobean wooden cover. The hexagonal pulpit is oak-panelled, with a moulded cornice and the date '1604' carved, attributed to Thomas Partrik. Monuments include one in the north aisle, in an ogee recess, to John Harvey (d.1835), with a brass recording the 1885 restoration below. A marble wall monument to Edmund Harvey (d.1823, erected 1828 by John Harvey), located to the north of the chancel east window, features a cherub beneath a corniced panel with side scrolls and a cartouche.