Church of Saint Oswald, King and Martyr, Oswaldkirk

St Oswald's Church, Oswaldkirk
The church, viewed from the south
St Oswald's Church, Oswaldkirk Location in North Yorkshire
Coordinates: 54°12′8″N 1°02′59″W / 54.20222°N 1.04972°W / 54.20222; -1.04972
OS grid reference	SE 620 789
Location	Oswaldkirk, North Yorkshire
Country	England
Denomination	Church of England
History
Founded	11th century
Dedication	Saint Oswald
Architecture
Status	Parish church
Functional status	Active
Heritage designation	Grade II*
Designated	4 January 1955
Architectural type	Church
Administration
Parish	Oswaldkirk
Deanery	Northern Ryedale
Archdeaconry	Cleveland
Diocese	Diocese of York
Province	Province of York
Clergy
Rector	Reverend Susan Bond

The Church of Saint Oswald, King and Martyr is a Church of England church serving the village and parish of Oswaldkirk, North Yorkshire, England. It is located along the main road passing through the village (Oswaldkirk Main Street), 1.5 miles (2.4 km) east of Ampleforth Abbey.

Dedicated to the Christian saint Saint Oswald, it is over 900 years old and run by the Church of England. It is part of a four-parish benefice, and is in the archdeaconry of Cleveland, and the diocese of York. Notably, the future Archbishop of Canterbury and chaplain to King Charles II, John Tillotson, preached his first sermon at the church in 1661. Major restoration work was done to the church in 1886, and a large amount of the Chancel woodwork dates from this period. The church has been a Grade II* listed building since 1955, and is the oldest building in the village by more than six centuries.

The word "kirk" means church, so the village is literally called "Oswald's church", after the church, which is dedicated to Saint Oswald of Northumbria, a Christian king who spread Christianity throughout Northumbria in the 7th century AD.

Almost nothing of the original church—built on the site of a wooden Saxon church—remains, apart from unique examples of Celtic stonework, including a plait interweave and a bas-relief of the Virgin and Child, which was carved around 1000 AD. The current building still has a quoin, which was probably a re-cycled Anglo-Saxon cross shaft. The stone southern entrance to the church still stands; it was built in the 12th century and is a typical example of Norman stonework. The church was re-consecrated in 1287 by the bishop of Candida Casa under the direction of John le Romeyn, Archbishop of York. The tall windows set in the church wall both north and south of the nave can be dated to approximately 1320 to 1330, and in the top sections of two of the windows, small fragments of medieval glass can be found. A sideways orientated tombstone can be found under a low arch on the inside of the southern wall, generally believed to be that of Sir Richard Pickering (d. 1441), a member of the Pickering family who ruled the village of Oswaldkirk from the 14th century into the 16th century.