St. John's Church in Wadworth - Part 1

 

The Church of St. John the Baptist

Approaching the east end of the Church of St. John the Baptist in Wadworth from Old School Lane, I firstly encountered Wadworth war memorial, which is in the form of a short Celtic cross. It is made with a dark grey rough hewn granite, with a polished panel into which the names of the fallen are inscribed, which I think is probably the Rubislaw variety from Aberdeen.

 

Wadworth war memorial

 

The east wall of the chancel, which I think dates to the C12, is built with coursed rubble walling, where the individual irregularly shaped stones are thinly bedded and cream/buff to yellow in colour, with the very occasionally reddened stone. This is very similar to the dolomitic limestone that I had seen in vernacular architecture in the village and I presume that this has been quarried locally from the Brotherton Formation. 

 

The east wall of the chancel

 

It contrasts with the massive pale cream limestone with a grey patina, which has been used for the quoins and for the c.1300 Y-tracery and dressings of the window. The upper part of the wall has been altered, with very large blocks of yellowish limestone ashlar masonry being used for this. 

 

A detail of the masonry to the east wall of the chancel

 

The south chapel, which according to Pevsner was built a generation later and has unusually tall mullions and tracery with mouchettes, is built in limestone that is similar to the dressings on the east wall of the chancel, but contains a high proportion of thinly bedded stones. 

 

The east end of the south chapel

 

The masonry to the east end of the south chapel is very uniform in colour and, although the thinner beds are not typical of the stone obtained from it, this is very probably from the Cadeby Formation, which has been quarried extensively at Warmsworth and along the Don Gorge to the north-west and Stainton to the south. 

 

Quarries on the Cadeby Formation in the vicinity of Wadworth

 

Set against the wall of the south chapel are a few Coal Measures sandstone headstones, one of which has eroded away to reveal a greyish coloured body of the sandstone, but I was more interested in the pattern of weathering to the inscription and the surrounding stone. 

 

Weathering of a Coal Measures sandstone headstone

 

The north chapel is dated to c.1300 addition, with the roughly coursed rubble masonry being similar to the chancel, but the quoins and northern part of the east end is built with much larger blocks of squared greyish limestone blocks, which are similar to those seen in the south chapel.

 

The east end of the south chapel

 

When I visited St. John’s church very briefly back in 2007, when undertaking surveys for the Doncaster Geodiversity Assessment, I was very impressed by the grotesques and, before continuing my walk anti-clockwise around its exterior, I took a few photographs of these. 

 

Grotesques on the chancel

 

Standing back to photograph the north elevation, the colour high level ashlar masonry to the chancel looks incongruous, compared to the rest of the stonework, and I suspect that this may be part of a programme of recent essential restoration. It contains a flat headed window with Tudor style four centred arches to the lights, which fits in with C15 phase of the building mentioned by Historic England, but it looks very different to the masonry on the north side of the clerestory. 

 

The north elevation

 

Although Pevsner mentions that the Norman church had a north aisle, neither he or Historic England make any specific reference to the exterior; however, looking at the size and shape of the blocks, the masonry looks more similar to the north (c.1300) and south (early to mid C14) chapels than the east wall of the chancel.

 

The north elevation of the tower

 

Furthermore, the stonework of the nave comprises poorly coursed rubble, with the pattern changing to squared and coursed masonry above it when the clerestory was added in the late C15, together with the castellated parapets and crocketted finials, which coincided with the building of the tower with limestone ashlar in the Perpendicular Gothic style. 

 

The tower

 

On both the north and south sides of the tower, just above the aisle roofs, sections of masonry remain from the original tower and above these are old rooflines, projecting angled bands of masonry and corbels, which presumably relate to the chambers that are said by Pevsner to have formerly existed above the aisles. 

 

An old roofline and corbels

Moving round to the south elevation, the south aisle to the west of the porch is built with poorly coursed masonry in the lowest section, but the upper part is squared and coursed, with a lancet window that is typical of the Early English Gothic style. 

 

The west end of the south aisle

 

Continuing beyond the south porch, the south aisle is built with ashlar walling that has uniformly sized blocks and windows that have wide triangular arches, which are on the verge of being four centred and have foiled heads to the lights. 

 

A detail of the south aisle window heads and the clerestory

 

Unlike the north elevation, where coursed rubble walling comprises the lower part, the clerestory is built entirely of ashlar masonry that has a similar block size and pattern to the aisle below. All of the limestone used for the ashlar to the tower and other Perpendicular Gothic elements are uniformly grey, yet the south side of the clerestory has a high proportion of cream/yellow coloured blocks, which may be evidence of modern restoration.

 

The south aisle and the south chapel