Continuing my walk around the interior of the Church of St. Mary Magdalene, having photographed the principal architectural elements and had a good look at the Romanesque features of the arches to the transepts, I took a general photo of the east end of the nave without taking much notice of the details of the chancel arch.
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| The chancel arch |
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| The CRSBI description of the chancel arch |
Once inside the chancel, where the light contrast between the east window and the surrounding walls seemed to be a problem for my otherwise quite reliable Panasonic Lumix TZ100 camera, I didn’t examine any of the patterns in the masonry and just took a few record photos of a few features that caught my eye.  |
| The chancel |
The sedilia with pointed trefoiled heads in the south wall is dated by Pevsner to c.1300, which fits in with a major phase of alterations to the chancel and the construction of the west end of the south aisle, and HE describe it as being renewed.  |
| The sedilia on the south side of the chancel |
Set into the floor are ledger stones commemorating John Cooke Yarborough (d.1836), his son Edward (d.1812) and Emily Sarah (d.1841), the wife of George Cooke Yarborough, who all lived at the now demolished Campsmount. They are made of of a dark grey stone, which may be Carboniferous Limestone that has largely lost its original polished surface, a stone that I have seen used in several other ledgers, although I didn’t closely inspect it.
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| Stone ledgers commemorating members of the Yarborough family |
On the north wall of the chancel is a large white Carrara marble wall monument to Thomas Yarborough (d.1772) and his family, which was carved by the renowned sculptor John Flaxman in 1803 and is described by Pevsner as “Grecian relief of the family present at the death of a geron”.
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| The Yarborough family wall memorial |
Immediately to the west of this is a C12 window that has shafts with scalloped capitals, which I seen from the exterior and just took a single record photo, which I had to adjust in Photoshop and again highlighted the technical deficiency of my camera compared to my previous Canon Powershot G16 and G7XII cameras, when taking photographs of windows in a church interior.
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| The C12 window in the chancel |
Moving back to the north aisle, a dolomitic limestone mediaeval grave slab is set into the tiled floor, which HE describes as being inscribed with a sword to right of a cross on a calvary base, but this is not mentioned by Pevsner or the church guide.
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| The grave slab in the north aisle |
A little further to the west along the north aisle, a pointed arched niche is set into the wall and in this is laid a large thick, moulded yellow dolomitic limestone slab, which is weathered to the extent that no details can be made out and no mention is made of this.
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| A large moulded slab occupying a niche in the north aisle |
Returning to the crossing, preparations were being made for the Summer Serenade in the evening, featuring the Hatfield and Askern Colliery Band, I didn’t spend any more time to look at any of the features mentioned in the Lady Chapel, except the C15 font, and continued to the south aisle.
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| The font in the Lady Chapel |
In the wall of the aisle, which is built with distinctly yellow limestone from the Cadeby Formation, I noted numerous reset fragments of C12 masonry – 29 according to the CRSBI - which Pevsner suggests are derived from the arch from the south aisle arch.
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| Views of reset stones in the south aisle wall |
The CRSBI go on to say that they believe that the range of patterns, which includes those of arches with two orders, indicate that they may be from other arches in more prominent positions and therefore more highly decorated. Furthermore, they suggest that the fragments, which were once scattered in the churchyard, were placed in the wall during the restoration of the 1870’s.
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| A capital fixed to the west end of the nave |
At the west end of the nave, a scalloped capital is fixed by a bracket on the wall and this was selected for an exhibition at the Hayward Gallery in London. It was originally found in the priest's chamber, which occupies the second floor of the C.1300 addition to the west end of the south aisle. The CRSBI describes the decoration in some detail and states that George Zarnecki had assigned a date of c.1089 to this.
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| The tower arch |
After photographing the tall round C12 tower arch, which has no decoration and plain imposts, I noticed the beakheads on the sill of the west window of the north aisle, which were originally part of a corbel table that was dismantled during the rebuilding of the Norman church.
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| Beakheads in the north aisle |
On the window sill of the west window of the south aisle, there are more examples of salvaged loose sculpture and these may be some of those that the CRSBI found piled up in the fireplace in the priest’s chamber and lying in the north transept, when they undertook their survey in 2005.
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| Salvaged sculpted masonry in the south aisle |
Having by now visited well over 100 mediaeval churches in South Yorkshire and the surrounding counties, where Romanesque sculptural details such as these are often the architectural highlight, it would be nice to see these in a well designed showcase or even as a temporary exhibition at DANUM, where a C12 window head from St. Wilfrid’s church in Hickleton is on permanent display.
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| A view of the baptistry and C14 font from the tower |
In the baptistry at the west end of the south aisle, there is another font that dates to the C14, but the highlight is the vaulted ceiling (c.1300) above which is the priest’s chamber, but I don’t think that this was accessible at the time.
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| The vaulted ceiling in the baptistry |
Having had a quick walk around the church, I then had a good chat with members of BarnSCAN, the local history group and the churchwarden who, when I said that I had been wanting to visit St. Helen’s church in Burghwallis for some time, said that their churchwarden would be doing some work in the churchyard and he would open up the church for me.
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| The arch from the south aisle to the baptistry |
It had been my intention to catch the No. 51 bus to Burghwallis and have a look at the exterior of this Anglo-Saxon church, before undertaking a British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge for the village, so this was an added bonus to what had already been a great day out – especially since the organiser of Church Explorers Week, Chris Ellis, kindly offered to give me a lift. 
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