St Lawrence's Church, Crosby Ravensworth

St Lawrence’s Church stands in the quiet village of Crosby Ravensworth in Cumbria’s Eden Valley. Built mainly of local stone under slate roofs, the church has a four-bay nave with aisles, transepts, a three-bay chancel and a three-stage west tower topped by a battlemented parapet. The oldest fabric, at the crossing, dates from about 1190–1200, while the south doorway and arcades belong to the 13th century. The church was remodelled twice in the 19th century, once by Robert Smirke or his associate George Gibson in 1811–12 and again from 1848 to 1887 under Revd George F. Weston and architect J. S. Crowther. The building is Grade I listed and contains work by notable craftsmen. The stone pulpit, altar, communion rail and choir stalls date from about 1850, and the Minton encaustic tiles in the Threlkeld Chapel are contemporary. The octagonal font bowl is from 1662, and its cover came from an 1818 font now in the northwest corner. Stained glass includes windows by Clayton and Bell, Shrigley and Hunt, and William Warrington, while the two-manual pipe organ was built in 1852–53 by Wilkinson and rebuilt in 1903. Outside, the churchyard holds a Grade II memorial to the Gibson family, a tall stone pinnacle with iron urns set on a plinth. Nearby stands the weathered base of a medieval cross, a scheduled monument also Grade II listed. The transepts have dormers to light the interior, and both porches are richly decorated. The tower’s three bells, cast in 1823 by Thomas Mears II, are no longer rung, but the church remains an active parish church in The Leith-Lyvennet Group of Parishes.