Church Of St Augustine

The Church of St. Augustine is a parish church dating to the late 12th century. The west tower was rebuilt in the 18th century, and the remainder of the church was extensively rebuilt in 1865 by John Norton. It is constructed of squared and coursed sandstone with freestone dressings, with the tower utilizing alternating bands of red and grey sandstone and rock-faced pennant sandstone for the rest of the building. Slate roofs cover the nave, chancel, north and south aisles, west tower, and south porch.

The main body of the church, excluding the tower, features crude neo-Early English windows of two and three lights with plate tracery and quatrefoils or rosettes at the apex. The east window is further embellished with nook shafts and stiff-leaf capitals. A bracketed eaves cornice runs along the building. The three-stage tower has a stair turret in the south-east corner. Diagonal buttresses rise to the second stage, terminating in crocketted pinnacles. Moulded string courses and embattled parapets, also with crocketted pinnacles, add to the tower’s height. The west facade has a round-arched doorway with a keyed classical surround and a 19th-century plank door. Above this is a tall three-light window with a straight head and round-headed lights. A rebuilding date plaque is visible below a two-light window on the second stage. Round-headed bell openings, pierced with dense quatrefoils, are present on the other sides of the tower. A late 18th-century railed tomb enclosure with urn finials and a gate is set against the south wall. The gabled 19th-century south porch has a Transitional style round-headed doorway with roll moulding, nook shafts, and stiff-leaf capitals, mirroring the detail of the 12th-century south door.

Inside, the nave has 19th-century four-bay arcades with various leaf and flower capitals. The tower arch is double-chamfered. The original Transitional chancel arch features a diagonal fret and stiff-leaf capitals, with an outer order of roll moulding. Open rafter roofs are found in the nave and aisles. The chancel incorporates an aumbry recess on the north wall and has a barrel roof. Fittings include a 19th-century stone pulpit with trefoil arcading and sgraffito depictions of saints, and an octagonal Perpendicular font with quatrefoil panels in the south aisle, which was recut in the 19th century.