Church Of St Wilfrid

The Church of St Wilfrid is a church dating from 1873-4, designed by G. Fowler Jones. It is constructed of coursed squared stone with a Welsh slate roof. The building comprises a three-bay nave with an entrance under a south-west tower, and a lower three-bay chancel with a north vestry. The design is in the Early English style. Features include a chamfered plinth, offset buttresses between bays, and lancet windows, with those to the nave arranged in stepped groups of three. The lower, outer lancets feature quatrefoils above, with relieving arches. There is a continuous cill band and eaves band, along with ashlar gable coping and crosses. Alternately crested ridge tiles adorn the roof. The tower is in two stages and contains paired, louvred belfry openings. The entrance has a traceried wooden double door within a pointed-arched surround of three orders, set within a gabled, coped projection with a fleur-de-lis finial. The west window is of two lancets incorporating a quatrefoil, with a ball-flower-stopped hoodmould and steps leading to a shouldered-arched basement doorway. A triple lancet window is on the north nave side, flanked by paired lancet windows, and the vestry has a pointed-arched doorway flanked by chamfered square-headed lights. The east window is composed of three lancets under three quatrefoils, with a head-stopped hoodmould. Inside, the stop-chamfered quoined south doorway has a boarded door with decorative iron hinges; a corbelled, chamfered chancel arch is present, along with a nave roof of collared principal rafter trusses featuring corbelled curved braces and decorative spandrels. There is a piscina in the chancel and a hammer-beam roof. Nine brasses are set into the chancel step, commemorating members of the Danby and Rokeby families (of Kirby Knowle Castle) dating from 1676 to 1766, and one from 1841, each displaying arms. A medieval graveslab with a cross (the bottom broken off) and fragments of decorated medieval masonry are positioned on the ledge of the west window. A plaque in the porch acknowledges the financial contribution of the Incorporated Society for Building and Churches in 1872. The church is built on the site of an earlier church.