St Oswald's Church is an active

Anglican Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the Church (building), church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in com ...

in the village of Grasmere, in the

Lake District The Lake District, also known as ''the Lakes'' or ''Lakeland'', is a mountainous region and National parks of the United Kingdom, national park in Cumbria, North West England. It is famous for its landscape, including its lakes, coast, and mou ...

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial county in North West England. It borders the Scottish council areas of Dumfries and Galloway and Scottish Borders to the north, Northumberland and County Durham to the east, North Yorkshire to the south-east, Lancash ...

, England. It is recorded in the

National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, ...

as a designated Grade I

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

and is notable for associations with the poet

William Wordsworth William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poetry, Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romanticism, Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication ''Lyrical Balla ...

and his family, and for its annual ceremony of rushbearing. The church is in the deanery of Windermere, the archdeaconry of Westmorland and Furness, and the

diocese of Carlisle In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associate ...

History

The church is dedicated to the 7th-century saint

Oswald of Northumbria Oswald (; c 604 – 5 August 641/642Bede gives the year of Oswald's death as 642. However there is some question of whether what Bede considered 642 is the same as what would now be considered 642. R. L. Poole (''Studies in Chronology and H ...

King of Northumbria Northumbria, a kingdom of Angles (tribe), Angles, in what is now northern England and Lothian, south-east Scotland, was initially divided into two kingdoms: Bernicia and Deira. The two were first united by King Æthelfrith around the year 604, an ...

. It is said to have been built on a site visited by Oswald. The present building dates from the 14th century, and was doubled in size by the addition of a parallel

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

to the north of the original nave between 1490 and 1500. The roof was rebuilt in about 1562, which involved adding a second tier of arches to the arcade. The windows and doors were

restored ''Restored'' is the fourth studio album by American contemporary Christian musician Jeremy Camp. It was released on November 16, 2004, by BEC Recordings. Track listing Standard release Enhanced edition Deluxe gold edition Standard Aus ...

in 1840 by George Webster.

Architecture

St Oswald's is constructed in

roughcast Roughcast and pebbledash are durable coarse plaster surfaces used on outside walls. They consists of lime and sometimes cement mixed with sand, small gravel and often pebbles or shells. The materials are mixed into a slurry and are then throw ...

stone with

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous, metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade, regional metamorphism. It is the finest-grained foliated metamorphic ro ...

roofs. Its plan consists of a double nave, with a south porch and a southeast tower. The tower is battered (its walls incline inwards as the tower rises), it has

lancet window A lancet window is a tall, narrow window with a sharp pointed arch at its top. This arch may or may not be a steep lancet arch (in which the compass centres for drawing the arch fall outside the opening). It acquired the "lancet" name from its rese ...

s, and plain corner

pinnacle A pinnacle is an architectural element originally forming the cap or crown of a buttress or small turret, but afterwards used on parapets at the corners of towers and in many other situations. The pinnacle looks like a small spire. It was main ...

s. Inside the church, the arcade has five arches rising from ground level, and four arches above. The arcade does not reach the ridge of the roof, but ends in the upper tie beams of the open timber roof. In the church is a

poor box A poor box, alms box, offertory box, or mite box is a box that is used to collect coins for charitable purposes. They can be found in most Christian churches built before the 19th century and were the main source of funds for poor relief. Conte ...

dated 1648, and a

baluster A baluster () is an upright support, often a vertical moulded shaft, square, or lathe-turned form found in stairways, parapets, and other architectural features. In furniture construction it is known as a spindle. Common materials used in its ...

ed altar rail of 1725. The

pulpit A pulpit is a raised stand for preachers in a Christian church. The origin of the word is the Latin ''pulpitum'' (platform or staging). The traditional pulpit is raised well above the surrounding floor for audibility and visibility, accesse ...

is in Arts and Craft style, and carved with fruits and flowers. The

font In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a ''typeface'', defined as the set of fonts that share an overall design. For instance, the typeface Bauer Bodoni (shown in the figure) includes fonts " Roman" (or "regul ...

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

, and consists of an octagonal bowl on a stepped base. The stained glass includes a window on the north side of the church from about 1926 by Shrigley and Hunt, and two windows on the south side from the 1890s by Henry Holiday. There is medieval glass in windows on the south side of the

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the Choir (architecture), choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may termi ...

Monuments

William Wordsworth lived in Grasmere from 1799, and was buried in the churchyard of St Oswald's. Inside the church, the monuments include one to Wordsworth by

Thomas Woolner Thomas Woolner (17 December 1825 – 7 October 1892) was an English sculptor and poet who was one of the founder-members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. He was the only sculptor among the original members. After participating in the found ...

, with an epitaph by

John Keble John Keble (25 April 1792 – 29 March 1866) was an English Anglican priest and poet who was one of the leaders of the Oxford Movement. Keble College, Oxford, is named after him. Early life Keble was born on 25 April 1792 in Fairford, Glouces ...

. There is also a wall tablet in the chancel in Doric style to the antiquary Daniel Fleming who died in 1701. The church has a sculpture of the Madonna and child by Ophelia Gordon Bell, who lived and worked in Grasmere.

Organ

In the 1870s the church acquired an organ by Wilkinson of Kendal. The instrument was moved to Lancaster after the present organ by

Binns Binns may refer to: * Binns (surname), English surname * Binns (department store), British retailer * Binns Hall, Virginia, United States * House of the Binns, historic estate near Linlithgow, Scotland {{disambig ...

of Leeds, was installed in 1923, and is now in Boltongate. The Binns instrument was commissioned as a memorial to nurse Nellie Taylor who died in France during the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

. The organ was renovated to celebrate its centenary.

Churchyard

Wordsworth graves

In the southeast corner of the churchyard is a group of twelve graves surrounded by railings. These are the graves of members of the Wordsworth and Quillinan families, and are listed at Grade II*.

References

External links

Photographs from Visit CumbriaGrasmere, St Oswald parish records at Cumbria Archive Centre, Kendal
{{DEFAULTSORT:Grasmere, St Oswald's Church Church of England church buildings in Cumbria Grade I listed churches in Cumbria English Gothic architecture in Cumbria Diocese of Carlisle Churchyards in England St Oswald's Church