For those interested in church architecture or, more particularly, church architects this church is one of several in the area designed by Temple Lushington Moore (1856–1920) who was one of Victorian England's greatest church architects. In a career spanning five decades, he built more than forty churches.
The Temple Moore Trail gives lovers of architecture and beautiful countryside the chance to get to know Moore and the Moors. There are more than 20 Temple Moore buildings in the Trail, all in or near the North York Moors.
HISTORY
The church of ST. AUGUSTINE was rebuilt in 1815 in the style of the day with chancel, nave, and west tower, the windows all being round-headed with barred sashes, and the tower in a plain Gothic style with west doorway and embattled parapet with angle pinnacles. The church was restored in 1906, when the chancel was entirely rebuilt in the Gothic style with clearstory and north and south aisles, its roof standing well above that of the nave.
The only remaining portion of the former church is the vestry on the south side of the chancel, but some drawings in the possession of the vicar made before 1815 show a very interesting cruciform building with central tower. The plan, however, has been lost, and in the rebuilding of the chancel no traces of the foundations of the older fabric were discovered. The vestry is of late date and probably an addition to the body of the original building. Three fragments of a pre-Conquest cross with interlaced ornament have been found, together with a cross head probably of later date, a 12th-century scalloped capital, and two 12th-century sculptured stones, one with the figure of a Norman knight on horseback with a sword in his right hand, and the other with the figure of a female in long gown with hanging sleeves. There are also two mediaeval grave slabs with crosses, one built into the wall with the earlier stones and the other in the floor of the nave at the east end. The head of another is preserved in the gallery.
The new chancel measures internally 35 ft. by 13 ft. and is open to each aisle by an arcade of three tall pointed arches. It is faced internally with ashlar, and the east window is of three lights placed high up in the wall. The whole is a very good example of modern Gothic work, with a wide middle chancel arch and narrower flanking arches to the aisles facing the older nave. The roof is covered with red tiles. There is a modern oak chancel screen and all the other fittings are modern.
The nave, which measures internally 51 ft. 6 in. by 25 ft. 6 in., preserves all its original features except that the wooden window frames have been replaced by leaded lights. The walls are plastered, and there is an open boarded and slated roof with overhanging eaves. The west gallery is approached from a staircase on the south side of the tower in the angle of the nave. Over the outside doorway to the gallery is a sundial dated 1815 with the motto 'Dum spectro fugio.' The font is ancient and consists of a small octagonal bowl on a plain circular stem. The bowl has the appearance of having been originally circular and may be of 12th-century date. The tower is of three stages, measuring internally 10 ft. 6 in. by 10 ft. and has a round-headed louvred belfry window on each side and a west window in the middle stage. The two lower stages north and south are blank.
In the churchyard on the north side is a mutilated altar tomb with the recumbent effigies of a man and woman supposed to represent members of the family of Eure. The legs of the man below the knees and the head of the woman have disappeared.
There are two bells in the tower.
The plate consists of a secular cup without marks, the bowl richly chased with flowers, leaves, and peacocks, and bearing the crest of Vernon and the date 1821; an oval salver on four feet, made in 1777 by Robert Makepeace and Richard Carter of London, and inscribed 'Ecclesiae Kirbiensi. L.V. Vernon, Rector D. a.d. 1821'; a plated cup inscribed 'Kirkby, 1821'; two plated patens, one similarly inscribed, and a plated flagon. There are also two pewter plates by Edmund Harvey.
The registers begin in 1627.
'Parishes: Kirkby-in-Cleveland', A History of the County of York North Riding: Volume 2 (1923), pp. 253-257.
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