Church of St Oswald

Church of St Oswald, Church Street

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II*
List Entry Number:: 1054332
Date first listed:: 10-Sep-1951
List Entry Name:: Church of St Oswald
Statutory Address:: Church of St Oswald, Church Street

User submitted image — Uploaded by Bob Kindred This photo may not represent the current condition of the site
View all

Location

Location of this list entry and nearby places that are also listed. Use our map search to find more listed places.

There is a problem

Use of this mapping is subject to terms and conditions.

This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale.

What is the National Heritage List for England?

The National Heritage List for England is a unique register of our country's most significant historic buildings and sites. The places on the list are protected by law and most are not open to the public.

The list includes:

🏠 Buildings
🏰 Scheduled monuments
🌳 Parks and gardens
⚔️ Battlefields
⚓ Shipwrecks

Find out more about listing

Images of England Project

To view this image please use Firefox, Chrome, Safari, or Edge.

Archive image, may not represent current condition of site.

Date:: 2006-04-14
Reference:: IOE01/15392/10
Rights:: © Mr Brian Slater. Source: Historic England Archive

Historic England Archive

Search over 1 million photographs and drawings from the 1850s to the present day using our images archive.

Find Photos

Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II*
List Entry Number:: 1054332
Date first listed:: 10-Sep-1951
List Entry Name:: Church of St Oswald
Statutory Address 1:: Church of St Oswald, Church Street

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: Church of St Oswald, Church Street

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

District:: Shropshire (Unitary Authority)
Parish:: Oswestry
National Grid Reference:: SJ 28869 29368

Details

SJ 2829 SE 15/48

OSWESTRY CP CHURCH STREET (west side) Church of St Oswald

10.9.51

GV II* Parish church. Medieval fabric largely re-modelled after extensive Civil War damage in two phases in late C17, repaired c.1807 and c.1830 and thoroughly restored and slightly extended by G.E Street in 1872-74. Coursed sandstone with ashlar to Street's additions, slate roofs with ornamental cresting and coped verges. Large complicated plan consisting of nave, chancel, south-west tower, wide north aisle, double south aisle, transepts, north and south chancel chapels, south porch and south east vestry; a prominent brown brick and concrete parish room, attached to west side of north transept, was added in late C20.

Tower: late C12/early C13 to bottom three stages, which have prominent stepped angle buttresses and an integral stair turret to south west corner; scattered lancet and narrow round-headed openings either original or C17 with rectangular opening to first stage on south side; below this is a slightly cambered doorway with nail-studded plank and muntin door and lintel recording the names of the church wardens in 1692; this is probably the date of the re-building of the top stage when the balustrade, crocketed corner pinnacles and two-light belfry windows were added; the large window with intersecting tracery on the north face of third stage is also of this period; blocked doorway beneath [obscured by ivy at time of re-survey (1985)] probably c.1662.

Nave: hidden by aisles except for late C19 west window and pointed doorway considerably restored by Street; in angle with tower and actually belonging to south aisle is a late C17 window; the aisle has a gable to south with a late C19 Decorated-style window and has a lean-to roof abutting east face of the tower, gabled ashlar porch by Street has good moulded arch resting on columns with natural leaf capitals; south transept also has a late C19 Decorated-style window, although the stonework like that of south aisle is of medieval or C17 appearance, late C19 vestry projecting to east.

Chancel and flanking chapels probably late C17 and present three gables to Church Street, windows all C19, although east window with its curious mixture of reticulated and panel tracery is said to be an 1861 copy of an earlier window; south chancel chapel much re-built and embattled parapet added c.1830; north transept entirely by Street on east and west sides but north wall is earlier and has a blocked doorway bearing names of four churchwardens in 1715; buttressed north aisle has three late C19 windows with panel tracery on north side and one on west, probably copies of late C17 windows, west bay on north left blind.

INTERIOR: almost entirely of late C19 appearance and dominated by Street's restoration, the most curious feature being the two octagonal piers set very close together at the east end of four bay nave arcades; south aisle and transept arches also by Street but the pointed three bay arcades with octagonal pillars to chancel are either late C14 or C17; arch-braced collar-beam roofs to nave and aisles and panelled wagon roofs to chancel and flanking chapels all by Street, as are transept roofs; round-headed doorway to north side of tower has late C12 appearance but is probably C17.

Most of fittings and furnishings including font by south door, stone pulpit, marble reredos (1880) and wooden parclose screens to chancel by Street but octagonal font with spread-eagle carving to one of sides in north aisle is dated 1662; long oak chest with iron hinges in north transept and chest with traceried decoration in south transept probably both partly medieval; some C16/17 panelling is re-used in one of chancel benches and there is a small panel fixed to east wall of tower; stained glass all mid to late C19 and south transept war memorial and reredos by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott.

Monuments: north aisle: Hugh Yale (died 1616) and wife, large wall monument against north wall with two large kneeling figures in round-arched recess facing each other over mutilated prayer desk, columns with crude acanthus decoration to capitals, the whole surmounted by strapwork achievement with flanking obelisks and coat-of-arms and skull-and-cross-bones to centre; good collection of C17 to C19 commemorative brass plates and wall tablets fixed to north and east sides of tower; further C18 wall memorials in north chancel chapel where there is also a possibly C17 chest.

A church is recorded at Oswestry in Domesday (although it was possibly not on this site) and it is likely to have originated as a minster foundation.

Listing NGR: SJ2886629370

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:: 255518
Legacy System:: LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Cranage, DHS , An Architectural Account of the Churches of Shropshire, (1908), 809-17
Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: Shropshire, (1958), 222-3

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.