The architecture of the Church may be best understood from the foregoing illustrations, which require little or no description. The Church was built after the usual cruciform plan, having a nave, chancel, transept, side aisles and tower. The first historic record concerning it is in the year 1140, when it was granted to Whitby Abbey. Previous to this time (if it existed) it would merely be a wooden structure, which would then be replaced by a stone one built after the later Norman style of architecture. Part of this original structure is still to be seen in the massive piers supporting the transept arches. Then again in the early part of the thirteenth century it has been partly pulled down and rebuilt in the early English style. Of this character are the columns and arches of the nave. Similar arches have also been erected upon the old piers in the transept. The change is very marked in one instance, where the arch is brought down and placed upon one of the old low columns, considerably to one side of the capital. At that time the Church would assume the character which it still in general retains. The richly moulded doorway belongs to this period, and also some of the windows, removed when last rebuilt, one of which is in the Churchyard wall. Towards the end of the same century the Decorated Style was introduced, to which the two north windows may be considered to belong. The next style introduced was the Perpendicular, which prevailed in the fifteenth century till near the Reformation. To this belongs the east window, which, from being badly proportioned and not in character with the rest of the architecture, is somewhat objectionable. To about the same period also belongs the architecture of the Threlkeld Arch and Chapel. The steeple window is another specimen of this style, but of a later period. There is a traditionary record that this tower was built about the same time as that of Shap Abbey, some time in the latter part of the reign of Henry VII.