St. Helen Sandal Magna - The Interior

A view along the nave to the west end of St. Helen's church

Entering St. Helen's church by the south door, I found that a community space, which occupies much of the east end, was being used for a meeting and - following a suggestion to take a good look at the Tree of Life Memorial Garden while waiting for this meeting to finish - I only had time to take a rapid tour of the interior before catching the hourly train back to Rotherham.

Details of carved Kilkenny limestone in the Tree of Life Memorial Garden

The oldest visible masonry can be seen in the bases of the massive crossing piers, dated to c.1150, when the church was founded by the Earl of Warenne, whose estates included the manor of Conisbrough and which contained the villages of Harthill, Wales, Anston and Thorne – all of which have churches that date back to at least the 12th century.

A detail of the base of a crossing pier

The stone used here is the same gritty cross-bedded sandstone that has been used in Sandal Castle and the Chantry Chapel of St. Mary in Wakefield and, being clean, the brown/purple stripes can be clearly seen.

A detail of the sandstone used in the crossing piers

According to Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, the north arcade includes a single capital and sections of masonry that are also from the 12th century but the arcades are early 14th century Decorated Gothic style - as are the arches above the crossing piers.

A general view of the north arcade

The columns to the arcade and their capitals alternate between circular and octagonal shape in plan and, except the one that was presumably noted by Pevsner – which is elaborately carved – the details are all simple and the arcades added during the Victorian restoration of 1872 faithfully reproduce these profiles.

A detail of the carved capital in the north arcade

Looking at the stone used for the arcades, the artificial lighting in the nave gives it a yellowish hue but there are darker bands within it that are consistent in pattern with that seen in the crossing piers and it is probably the same sandstone; however the sandstone in the Victorian extension appears to be paler in colour and without the obvious banding seen in the mediaeval masonry. 

A general view of the south arcade

A wide range of monuments and memorials are scattered around the walls of both of the aisles, which are all late Victorian or younger in date, and a variety or marbles and other stones have been used for these but, as with the arcades, I wasn't able to closely examine them in the time available to me.

Memorials in the Pilkington Chapel