St Oswald's Church, Dean

St Oswald's Church at Dean in Cumberland is one of those elderly ladies; though old (dating to the twelfth century), she has had some remedial work done since her youth and still retains an air of beauty and elegance, no matter how faded. Rounded arches, a Norman font and even some prehistoric rock art brought in for safe keeping, combine to lend St Oswald’s an air of antiquity.

Yet it was an external window that caught my eye in the external north side. Although the wall, below, is from the 1100s, twin rounded windows like that are often Elizabethan. Yet the builders took what appears to be a fifteenth century gravestone with an elaborate cross to make their lintel. A little cheeky and a tad disrespectful, one might think, but a fitting picture: the darkness of the grave is broken by Christ’s resurrection light. He breaks the rock, shifts the stone and shatters the grave. An old message, but still as relevant and as exciting as ever!

For thou hast delivered my soul from death: wilt not thou deliver my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of the living? Psalm 56:13

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