Church Of St. Oswald

The Church of St. Oswald is a parish church dating from around 1300, with later additions from the 15th century and significant renovations in 1857 by Maughan and Fowler, along with a chancel added in 1874 by Ewan Christian. It is constructed of red brick and banded greenstone, featuring ashlar dressings and both plain and decorative tiled roofs. The church includes a nave with a western bellcote, a south aisle, a porch, a chancel, and a vestry.

All windows are designed with cusped ogee heads, panel tracery, and chamfered surrounds with hoods. The west wall of the south aisle has a two-light window, while the nave contains a three-light window. The openwork timber bellcote is topped with a facetted copper spirelet. The north wall features four two-light windows, and the gabled vestry has a lancet window. The east chancel window is a three-light design with reticulated tracery. The south wall includes a two-light window and an earlier two-light window from around 1300 with a cinquefoil in the east wall of the south aisle. Additionally, there are three three-light windows with triangular heads in the south aisle.

The gabled south porch has a pointed outer arch and a continuously moulded and hooded inner doorway. Inside, the church features a 15th-century four-bay south arcade with octagonal piers and double chamfered arches, while the chancel arch is from the 19th century. Most fittings date to the 19th century, but the octagonal font is a 15th-century piece adorned with tracery patterns.

Notable monuments include an early 14th-century headless effigy of a civilian located in the chancel, set under a nodding ogee arch. In the nave, there is a small tablet commemorating William Ballett, who died in 1648 at the age of 99, of Woodthorpe Hall. The tablet depicts him and his two wives in Elizabethan dress, kneeling opposite each other across a prayer desk, with the figures of his children above them against the back wall.