page_title: St Kentigern's Church, Crosthwaite
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: St Kentigern's Church, Crosthwaite / History
caption_attribution_description: English: St Kentigern's Parish Church, Crosthwaite, Keswick, Interior
context_page_description: Crosthwaite Parish Church is a church at Great Crosthwaite on the outskirts of Keswick in Cumbria, England. It is dedicated to St Kentigern and is the Anglican church of the parish of Crosthwaite. Since 1951 it has been a Grade II* listed building. The church has an evangelical tradition.
  There has been a church on the site since the 6th century. The present building is largely medieval, with some Victorian internal alterations. Among the vicars of the parish was Hardwicke Rawnsley, co-founder of the National Trust.
context_section_description: The first church at Crosthwaite is believed to have been built in 553 AD under the direction of St Kentigern, who preached the Gospel in the area before moving on to Wales. No records survive of this building, or of its Saxon successor. Both were probably wooden structures. In 1181 Jocelyn of Furness wrote of a new church at Crosthwaite recently built for Alice de Romilly, the Lady of Allerdale. The new church was built of stone and consisted of the nave, a north aisle and a chancel with a chancel arch. There was neither a south aisle nor a tower. The foundations of this structure still exist. In 1189 Richard I gave the rectory of Crosthwaite to the Cistercians of Fountains Abbey. Monks from the abbey worked the parish for the next three hundred years from their base at Monks Hall, which later became the site of Keswick hospital.
  During the 14th century (the historians of the church, Tom Wilson and J W Kaye estimate the date to have been about 1340) a chapel was added to the north side of the chancel, and later a south aisle. In the early 16th century there were major changes to the building; the chancel arch was removed, a clerestory was added and existing side chapels were reconstructed. The last important change during the medieval period was the erection of the present tower; the exact date is not recorded.
  The church was little changed, and was evidently neglected, in the 17th and 18th centuries. In the 19th century there was extensive internal work, some of which, in Wilson and Kaye's word, was "unfortunate".  Among those responsible was George Gilbert Scott, who restored the church in 1844. The work was funded by a local benefactor as part of the memorial to the poet Robert Southey, who is buried in the churchyard. In addition to Scott's internal alterations, the church was re-roofed and re-seated. The altar designed by Scott was moved to St John's in the Vale church in 1893. In 1909 the western end of the south aisle was converted into a baptistry to mark Hardwicke Rawnsley's 25 years of service as vicar. The font, moved to its new site, had been given to the church about 1400. The font ewer was made at the Keswick School of Industrial Art, which was co-founded by Rawnsley's wife, Edith.
caption: interior looking to the east
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