This attractive and significant church now stands in an entirely isolated position beside the Hodge Beck.  It is important especially for its late Saxon nave, datable from the Old English inscription above the S. doorway (and now inside the nineteenth century S. porch). This is arranged in three panels (shown at the foot of the page), of which the central one is occupied by a sundial, and reads, “Orm the son of Gamel acquired St. Gregory’s church when it was completely ruined” [left hand panel] “and collapsed, and he had it built anew from the ground to Christ and St. Gregory, in the days of King Edward and in the days of Earl Tostig” [right hand panel].  Tostig, brother of Harold Godwinson who was briefly Harold I, was Earl of Northumbria only between 1055 and 1065, when Edward the Confessor was  king.

 

Internally the main Saxon feature is the tall and very narrow tower arch (illustrated left) which was once the original entrance to the church, as shown by the shafts on its west face.  The chancel arch up to the height of the abaci, is also Saxon, showing that the nave today remains its original length. The nave windows are all later insertions, and the three-bay N. arcade was apparently built on the foundations of the former Saxon N. wall c. 1200, when an aisle was presumably required to accommodate a growing congregation:  the arches are composed of two pointed orders bearing the narrowest of chamfers, and the piers are circular with octagonal capitals, one of which carries a design that is clearly an elaboration of waterleaf.  The S. doorway must have been inserted at about the same time.

 

As to the rest of the building, the chancel with its tall, steeply-pitched roof was rebuilt in 1881 but it retains some re-used thirteenth century features, namely its two lancet windows to the south, its priest’s doorway, and its group of three lancets to the east.  There is not much else.  The poor little W. tower is an addition of 1827.