Saxon-era church stakes claim as East Yorkshire's oldest building

The find was made last summer but has only just been announced by the Diocese of York.

It occurred when the Rev Fran Wakefield, vicar of St Peter and St Paul, Scrayingham, invited specialist Peter Ryder, who has worked on many old churches in the North of England, to inspect the building.

Mrs Wakefield said: "Peter is an old friend, and dropped by one evening last June. "As I'd just moved into the area, he was eager to visit the lovely churches to which I had recently been licensed. His jaw literally dropped open when he saw the north wall of the church. It was so different from the 13th century building he had been led to expect."

Further research confirmed Mr Ryder's first impressions that the church, although thought to be a medieval building, was actually Saxon in origin, probably dating to the 10th century.

Mr Ryder said: "The church was originally thought to be a Victorian rebuild of a medieval building – it was remodelled and extended in 1853 – but parts of its nave show distinctive Anglo-Saxon features.

"Its walls, although thin, are built of massive blocks of gritstone re-used from some nearby Roman building, and two original windows survive. The roof-line of what is called a porticus, is exactly paralleled in famously early churches at Escomb and Bywell on the River Tyne.

"Further evidence for an early date comes in part from a carved figure, probably of an early-Saxon Christ in Majesty, found by the Victorian restorers and now built into the vestry wall."