A large church built of small pieces of local oolitic limestone rubble; it has an unusual transept with no arches on N or S and very wide simple pointed arches to E and W. The lower parts of the W tower are said to be Norman, and a former nave roof line shows on its E face. There is a delicately-incised consecration cross on the R side of the thirteenth-century doorway.

There are two Romanesque capitals with shafts and bases in the tower arch, and a reset capital on the porch gable.

In 1086 land holders were Robert Malet, the Count of Mortain, the Archbishop of York, and Hugh son of Baldric. Later, Robert de Bruis took Mortain’s portion.

‘In (Little) Weighton and Cave (North Cave) Gam had 5 carucates…. Hugh now has… 16 villeins and four ploughs…a church (is there) and a priest and 2 mills...’ Unusually, the value was higher in 1086 than in the time of King Edward (VCH II, 277). A footnote to this text suggests the church mentioned was probably at Rowley; however the more recent VCHER, IV, 151, n.15, says that the church recorded in 1086 was at North Cave. The patronage descended with Cottingham (VCHER IV, 32).

Capital on porch gable

The star pattern is usually on a plain surface not a curved one. The pattern occurs on the bell of a capital at Kilham, though the resemblance of volutes is not close.

Tower arch

Pevsner (1972), 317, says ‘The tower is Norman below (arch to the nave with nook-shafts – though the arch itself is later – bits of reset zigzag and saltire crosses) and Perp above…’; Pevsner and Neave (1995, 624) say ‘The rebuilt [tower] arch to the nave has nook-shafts and there are bits of reset zigzag and saltire crosses’. Neither version mentions the capitals. As the fieldworker did not find any reset pieces near the arch, it is assumed that the description of ‘zigzag and saltire crosses’ applies to the right capital.