All Saints' Church, Harewood

The present church was built in about 1410 by Elizabeth and Sybil, the daughters of William de Aldburgh of the nearby Harewood Castle, and was originally dedicated to the Holy Cross. It was not the first church on the site. There is a record of a priest here in the 10th century, and some carving from this period has survived. Excavation in 1981 uncovered ninth-century stonework and an eleventh-century cross shaft from earlier burials prior to the Norman Conquest. An inscription on a beam discovered when the roof was replaced in the 18th Century reads "We adore and praise thee thou holy Jesus, because thou hast redeemed us by thy Holy Cross, 1116". In 1739 the estate was acquired by the…

The church is constructed in Millstone Grit, quarried locally, and its roofs are in Westmorland slate. Its plan consists of a four-bay nave with north and south aisles and a south porch, a chancel with a north vestry, and a west tower. At the eastern ends of the aisles are chantry chapels, the Gascoigne chapel on the south and the Redman chapel on the north. Its architectural style is Perpendicular. Around the church are diagonal buttresses. The tower is squat, in two stages, and is embraced by the aisles. The west doorway is arched and over it is a five-light window. The upper stage of the tower contains two-light bell openings in each side with a clock on the south face, and the top is…