Church Of The Holy Trinity

The Church of the Holy Trinity is a building with origins in the Saxon period, featuring an early 12th-century tower, a mid-12th-century arcade, a 15th-century upper stage to the tower, and substantial restoration and rebuilding of external walls and the chancel in 1863 by G. Fowler Jones. The church is constructed from limestone rubble with hammer-dressed rubble and ashlar facings, and has a Westmorland slate roof. It consists of a west tower, a three-bay aisled nave with a south porch, and a two-bay chancel with an organ chamber to the north. The three-stage tower incorporates a 15th-century two-light window where a blocked round-headed west doorway once stood. A small round-headed window is set into the second stage of the south face, splayed through the full thickness of the wall, the head being formed from a single stone. A later addition forms the third stage with twin square-headed transomed belfry openings to each face, and an embattled parapet with Victorian pinnacles. The tower stands over and against the west wall of the nave, suggesting an earlier date for the nave itself. The remainder of the exterior is in a High Victorian Gothic style, dating from 1863.

Inside, the west doorway of the nave is a plain round-headed opening, exhibiting different proportions and construction on either side of the wall, an anomaly likely caused by a thickening of the wall. The two western bays of the north arcade are supported on massive cylindrical piers with scalloped capitals ornamented with incised medallions, except for the west respond which has a waterleaf capital. The arches are constructed with alternating brown and white voussoirs, with hoodmoulds supported by beakheads. To the south is a later Norman arcade, more massive in design with scalloped and foliate capitals. A 10th-century wheel cross is largely intact, along with several shaft fragments located near the south door. The church contains monuments, including an early 14th-century effigy of a civilian with legs crossed and hands in prayer, and two effigies in a low tomb recess with a canopy, depicting Robert Thornton, who died in 1418, and his wife, both with hands in prayer and wearing pleated gowns. In the chancel are two brass memorials to members of the Comber family, dating from the late 17th and early 18th centuries, and an inscribed slab in the floor memorializing Thomas Comber, Rector of Stonegrave and Dean of Durham, who died in 1699. Above the priest's door hangs a painted memorial to William Thornton, who died in 1668, unusual for being painted on canvas rather than wood. The church is noted in Nikolaus Pevsner's "Yorkshire: The North Riding" (1966), and is also described in "A Short History and Description of The Church of The Holy Trinity, Stonegrave" (no date).