The Church of St Nicholas is a parish church dating from the 13th century. Its exceptional size reflects the importance and standing of the borough of Grosmont at the time of the church's construction and has led it to be called a 'miniature cathedral'.
By the late 19th century the church was close to collapse and was saved through an extensive reconstruction in 1869–79 by J. P. Seddon.
The church is built of Old Red Sandstone with ashlar dressings and slate roofs. It comprises the nave, transepts, the central tower, a chancel, a secondary chapel and a porch.
Largely unaltered from the time of its building, by the 19th century the church had seriously decayed and its tower was close to collapse. It was rescued from dereliction in a restoration.
References:The Pilgrimage Church of Wies (Wieskirche) is an oval rococo church, designed in the late 1740s by Dominikus Zimmermann. It is located in the foothills of the Alps in the municipality of Steingaden.
The sanctuary of Wies is a pilgrimage church extraordinarily well-preserved in the beautiful setting of an Alpine valley, and is a perfect masterpiece of Rococo art and creative genius, as well as an exceptional testimony to a civilization that has disappeared.
The hamlet of Wies, in 1738, is said to have been the setting of a miracle in which tears were seen on a simple wooden figure of Christ mounted on a column that was no longer venerated by the Premonstratensian monks of the Abbey. A wooden chapel constructed in the fields housed the miraculous statue for some time. However, pilgrims from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and even Italy became so numerous that the Abbot of the Premonstratensians of Steingaden decided to construct a splendid sanctuary.