Church of St Lawrence, Warkworth

The Church of St Lawrence stands in the quiet village of Warkworth in Northumberland. It is a Grade I listed building, set beside the tidal River Coquet and close to Warkworth Castle. The church dates from the 12th century but earlier wooden and stone buildings occupied the site. In 737 King Ceolwulf of Northumbria gave the church to the monks of Lindisfarne. Danish raids in 875 destroyed the wooden church, and a stone church was rebuilt in the 9th and 10th centuries. Foundations of this earlier church were found beneath the present floor in 2008. The church is worth visiting for its long history and surviving features. In 1132 building began on the present church as both a place of worship and a refuge. On 13 July 1174, during the Battle of Alnwick, Scottish forces set fire to the town and killed 300 people sheltering inside. A tower was added around 1200, with a belfry and spire in the 14th century. The south aisle and entrance porch were built in the 15th century, and the parvise above the porch once served as a schoolroom. John Wesley preached here in 1761, and the church organ was overhauled in 1983. Inside, the nave is the longest Norman nave in Northumberland at 27.6 metres. The 19th-century scissor-braced roof was restored by John Dobson in 1860. The south aisle, built by the Percy family in the 15th century, contains the only surviving medieval glass. The pulpit features five panels by Alfred Southwick, and the Knight’s Tomb shows a 14th-century knight with the arms of the de Abulyn family. Outside, a distinctive tomb marks the grave of Edward Dodsworth, huntsman to King James, who died in 1630.