St Mary's Church in the village of

Gosforth Gosforth is an area of Newcastle upon Tyne, England, situated north of the Newcastle City Centre, City Centre. It constituted a separate Urban district (Great Britain and Ireland), urban district of Northumberland from 1895 until 1974 before of ...

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, 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 deanery of Calder, the archdeaconry of West Cumberland, 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 ...

. Its

benefice A benefice () or living is a reward received in exchange for services rendered and as a retainer for future services. The Roman Empire used the Latin term as a benefit to an individual from the Empire for services rendered. Its use was adopted by ...

is united with those of St Olaf, Wasdale Head, and St Michael, Nether Wasdale. The church 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 ...

. It is associated with "a unique Viking-age assemblage" of carved stones.

History

This has been a

Christian A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...

site since the 8th century. The oldest fabric in the present church dates from the 12th century. The church was reconstructed in 1789, but most of the fabric currently present is the result of a virtual rebuilding by C. J. Ferguson between 1896 and 1899.

Architecture

St Mary's is constructed in stone with a

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 ...

roof. Its plan consists of a

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 ...

, a north

aisle An aisle is a linear space for walking with rows of non-walking spaces on both sides. Aisles with seating on both sides can be seen in airplanes, in buildings such as churches, cathedrals, synagogues, meeting halls, parliaments, courtrooms, ...

, a south porch, a

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 ...

and north

vestries A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government of a parish in England, Wales and some English colonies. At their height, the vestries were the only form of local government in many places and spent nearly one-fi ...

. The 19th-century rebuilding is in Decorated style. At the west end is a

corbel In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal keyed into and projecting from a wall to carry a wikt:superincumbent, bearing weight, a type of bracket (architecture), bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in t ...

led-out

bellcote A bellcote, bell-cote or bell-cot is a small framework and shelter for one or more bells. Bellcotes are most common in church architecture but are also seen on institutions such as schools. The bellcote may be carried on brackets projecting from ...

. The

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

d porch leads to the south door, to the right of which is a blocked

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 9th and 10th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norma ...

doorway, formerly on the north side of the church. There is a monument dated 1834 on the exterior of the north wall of the chancel. Inside the church is a four-

bay A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a ''gulf'', ''sea'', ''sound'', or ''bight''. A ''cove'' is a small, ci ...

north

arcade Arcade most often refers to: * Arcade game, a coin-operated video, pinball, electro-mechanical, redemption, etc., game ** Arcade video game, a coin-operated video game ** Arcade cabinet, housing which holds an arcade video game's hardware ** Arcad ...

, consisting of pointed arches carried on columns with octagonal

capitals Capital and its variations may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** Capital region, a metropolitan region containing the capital ** List of national capitals * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Econom ...

. The 14th-century chancel arch is set on richly carved Norman capitals. In a

niche Niche may refer to: Science *Developmental niche, a concept for understanding the cultural context of child development and growth *Ecological niche, a term describing the relational position of an organism's species *Niche differentiation, in ec ...

at the east end of the aisle are two carved Viking hogback stones. These are very rare pre-Norman tomb markers that were found under the foundations of a 12th-century wall of the church during restoration in 1896–97. The early 11th century is the latest possible date. The hogbacks are each in the shape of a house. The larger tomb has on its sides humans astride smaller serpents battling with larger serpents. The smaller stone has two armies thought to be concluding a truce. In and around the niche and in the porch are other fragments of

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 ...

stones. The small octagonal

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 ...

dates from the 19th century. Also in the church is a Chinese bell dating from 1839, which was captured from the Anunghoy Fort in the

Battle of the Bogue The Battle of the Bogue () was fought between British and Chinese forces in the Pearl River Delta, Guangdong province, China, on 23–26 February 1841 during the First Opium War. The British launched an amphibious attack at the Humen strait ...

(1841) on the

Canton River The Pearl River (, or ) is an extensive river system in southern China. "Pearl River" is often also used as a catch-all for the watersheds of the Pearl tributaries within Guangdong, specifically the Xi ('west'), Bei ('north'), and Dong (' ...

. It was donated to the church in 1844. One of the stone slabs outside the church is the so-called Gosforth fishing stone, which is believed to be the same artist who carved the cross. It represents

Thor Thor (from ) is a prominent list of thunder gods, god in Germanic paganism. In Norse mythology, he is a hammer-wielding æsir, god associated with lightning, thunder, storms, sacred trees and groves in Germanic paganism and mythology, sacred g ...

and the giant

Hymir Hymir (Old Norse: ) is a jötunn in Norse mythology, and the owner of a brewing- cauldron fetched by the thunder god Thor for Ægir, who wants to hold a feast for the Æsir (gods). In ''Hymiskviða'', Hymir is portrayed as the father of Týr, ...

fishing for

Jörmungandr In Norse mythology, Jörmungandr (, see Etymology), also known as the Midgard Serpent or World Serpent (, "worm of Midgard"), is an unfathomably large and monstrous sea serpent or worm who dwells in the world sea, encircling the Earth ( Midga ...

, the serpent which encircles the world, below a scene of a

hart Hart often refers to: * Hart (deer) * Hart (surname) Hart may also refer to: Organizations * Hart Racing Engines, a former Formula One engine manufacturer * Hart Skis, US ski manufacturer * Hart Stores, a Canadian chain of department store ...

struggling with a serpent. It is possibly a remnant of another cross. The stained glass, most of which is by

Ward and Hughes Ward and Hughes (formerly Ward and Nixon) was the name of an English company producing stained-glass windows. History Ward and Hughes was preceded by the company Ward and Nixon, whose studio was at 67 Frith Street, Soho. They created a large w ...

, dates mainly from the late 19th century. The two- manual

pipe organ The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurised air (called ''wind'') through the organ pipes selected from a Musical keyboard, keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single tone and pitch, the pipes are provide ...

was made by Conacher and Company of

Huddersfield Huddersfield is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees in West Yorkshire, England. It is the administrative centre and largest settlement in the Kirklees district. The town is in the foothills of the Pennines. The River Holme's confl ...

, and rebuilt and expanded in 1984 by Sixsmith.

External features

The most important feature in the churchyard is the

Gosforth Cross The Gosforth Cross is a large stone monument in St Mary's churchyard at Gosforth in the English county of Cumbria, dating to the first half of the 10th century AD. Formerly part of the kingdom of Northumbria, the area was settled by Scandinavi ...

, a

Viking Vikings were seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway, and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded, and settled throughout parts of Europe.Roesdahl, pp. 9� ...

stone cross dating from the early part of the 10th century. It is a

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

structure standing high, and is elaborately carved with human figures and beasts, mainly depicting scenes from Scandinavian mythology. This is the tallest Viking cross in the country. It is designated as a

scheduled monument In the United Kingdom, a scheduled monument is a nationally important archaeological site or historic building, given protection against unauthorised change. The various pieces of legislation that legally protect heritage assets from damage, visu ...

. Another cross of similar age has been cut down to form a

sundial A sundial is a horology, horological device that tells the time of day (referred to as civil time in modern usage) when direct sunlight shines by the position of the Sun, apparent position of the Sun in the sky. In the narrowest sense of the ...

. In the northeast corner of the churchyard is a hut or shed that has been constructed from left-over stones, including 13th-century grave-covers, pieces of stone carved with zigzags, and a

. The structure is listed at Grade II. Also in the churchyard are three tombstones bearing dates between 1711 and 1729, each of which has been listed at Grade II.

Gallery

File:St Mary's church gosforth cumbria.jpg, Interior view of St Mary's church, Gosforth, Cumbria. File:Gosforth hogsback tombs.jpg, Hogback tombs in the church File:Gosforth cross.jpg,

Gosforth cross The Gosforth Cross is a large stone monument in St Mary's churchyard at Gosforth in the English county of Cumbria, dating to the first half of the 10th century AD. Formerly part of the kingdom of Northumbria, the area was settled by Scandinavi ...

from the NW File:Gosforth capital.JPG, Norman capital with three faces File:Gosforth fishing.jpg, The "fishing stone" in the church; possibly remnant of a second cross, showing Thor fishing. File:Tombs in Gosforth.JPG, Tombs in the porch File:Gosforth cross SW.JPG, View of the Viking Cross and church, from the SW File:Second Gosforth cross.JPG, The stump of the second cross File:Humphrey senhouse gosforth.jpg, Memorial to Humphrey Senhouse, Gosforth, Cumbria File:C A Parker grave gosforth cumbria.jpg, The grave of local antiquarian and historian, Charles Arundel Parker.

References

External links