Escomb Church

Escomb Church stands in the village of Escomb, about two and a half kilometres west of Bishop Auckland in County Durham. It is one of the oldest surviving Anglo-Saxon churches in England and one of only four complete examples still standing. The building was founded in the early eighth century when the area belonged to the Anglian Kingdom of Northumbria. Its stone walls were constructed largely from reused Roman masonry taken from the nearby fort at Binchester. The church is a Grade I listed building, recognised for its exceptional historical importance. The church’s Anglo-Saxon architecture offers clear evidence of its early date. The nave is narrow and tall, with walls nearly three-quarters of a metre thick and over seven metres high. The chancel is small and square, measuring three metres on each side. Inside, a tall, narrow chancel arch rises more than four and a half metres above the floor, its massive stone jambs and precisely cut radial stones resembling Roman work. A small sundial on the south porch and a reused Roman stone marked ‘LEG VI’ set upside down on the north wall further highlight the building’s Roman connections. Visitors find a simple rectangular church with a steep roof and crow-stepped gables at each end. The small, high-set windows are mostly original, while later Gothic windows and a fourteenth-century south porch show minor medieval changes. Inside, the most striking feature is the tall chancel arch, its Roman-style stones contrasting with the rest of the Anglo-Saxon structure. The church’s interior proportions and masonry recall early Northumbrian work, and fragments of finely carved cross-shafts from the Hexham school were found built into the gables during restorations. From the north side the building appears almost unchanged since the seventh or eighth century.