St. Oswald's Church

St. Oswald’s church dates from 1839, the Catholic mission from 1794. The church is a lancet Gothic design by Ignatius Bonomi and is a valuable ‘full-stop’ to the village settlement, taking full advantage of its corner site and forming a group with the presbytery and school. The interest is primarily external, the interior plain and simple.

From at least the early eighteenth century, Benedictines served the Catholics of a wide area around Bellingham from Hesleyside Hall, about two miles west of the village and home of the Charlton family since the Middle Ages; or Tone Hall about five miles east. The mission is documented as being founded in 1794 and a chapel was created but abandoned by 1808.

The last Benedictine chaplain left Hesleyside Hall in 1833 and a priest only came to live in Bellingham after the church and presbytery were built in 1839. The £1,250 cost was mainly funded by the Charlton family but £300 was raised from public subscription by the first priest, Fr Brown. It was opened and blessed by Bishop Briggs on 26 June 1839, but not consecrated until 10 May 1950. The church was built to the designs of Ignatius Bonomi, architect of Durham and is one of six Catholic churches attributed to him – the grandest being St. Paulinus at Brough Park, North Yorkshire. He was a distant relative of the Charlton family and worked at Hesleyside in 1847.