Church Of St Oswald

The Church of St Oswald is a building of Anglo-Saxon or early Romanesque origin, dating back to the 11th century, with significant alterations from the 14th, 17th, and 19th centuries. It is constructed of rubble with ashlar details, topped with Welsh slate and lead roofs. The church comprises a nave and chancel, a west porch, and a north vestry. The porch features a re-set early Romanesque south doorway with a single order of vestigial attached shafts and chevrons on the voussoirs, incorporating a First World War memorial within the tympanum. The nave has quoins; on the south side are two windows with two trefoiled lights and a quatrefoil above, set within a label, the one on the right dating to the 14th century, and a late 19th-century copy of the same. To the north is a blocked doorway with interrupted jambs and two lancet windows. The western gable has steeper copings and a double bellcote containing two bells. The chancel also has quoins, a priest's door within a flat-headed chamfered surround, a low side window with a chamfered surround, and a lean-to vestry and heating chamber to the north. A terminating string-course runs around the chancel, with a lead roof. The east wall has a paired lancet window and the outline of what appears to have been a much larger window, with a gable cross to the coping. The interior of the nave reveals jambs of the blocked south doorway, remains of small, round-headed windows at high level, and earlier tall, round-headed chancel arch above a Gothic survival of a four-centred chancel arch on corniced springers. The nave has a flat roof, likely from the 18th century, and the chancel has an almost flat roof with finials, possibly dating from the 17th century. Within the chancel, a 14th-century tomb recess features a richly moulded pointed segmental arch with carved heads at the apex and stops, along with a stone sedile and aumbry with torus moulding. An octagonal font rests on eight shafts with foliated 13th-century capitals and has a Jacobean cover with a ball finial. Above the tower door is a royal coat of arms. The chancel floor contains slabs commemorating Rev George Shillito, vicar for 47 years, who died in 1748, Richard Shillito, Chief Constable, who died in 1781, and a brass inscription for Prudence, wife of Rev George Shillito, who died in 1748. Fragments of Anglo-Scandinavian sculpted crosses are also present. The porch houses two medieval grave covers, one of 13th-century type, displaying the base of a cross, shears and the letters ‘M G’.