A Walk From Birstall to Batley

 

A detail of Dock Ing Mills

Leaving St. Peter’s church, having had a good look at the various stones that have been used for its fabric and fixtures in the interior, I made my way up Kirkgate to the junction with Bradford Road and continued towards Batley, with the intention of completing my British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge for Birstall and Batley. 

 

My British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge for Birstall and Batley

After 200 metres, I stopped to take a few photos of Flock House, the site of which is marked on the 1894 Ordnance Survey (OS) map as Flock Works, but buildings on this site first appear on the 1908 map. It is now occupied by a number of businesses, with Birstall Mill Carpets reflecting its former use, and on the east elevation a lifting beam is still in place. 

 

Flock House

 

On the opposite side of Bradford Road, I stopped to take a photograph of a terrace of houses known as Colbeck Row, which is built with sandstone that has a very distinct mainly orange colour, which I had seen in the old school buildings on Kirkgate in Birstall and which I presume to be locally quarried Birstall Rock. 

 

Colbeck Row

 

Quite unusually, pp. 109-113 of the geological memoir for the Huddersfield district provide a detailed description of the Birstall Rock, with mentions of the washout of underlying coals after a period of uplift and the conditions of deposition. The section on building stones describe it as being extremely variable and, although once quarried widely, it is not particularly durable. 

 

An extract from the geological memoir

 

I continued along Bradford Road through the area known as Birstall Smithies, which the 1894 OS map shows with Birstall Foundry and several mills – marked as flock, woollen, cloth, cotton, shoddy and mungo – all of which are set around the terminus of the London & North Western Railway goods line from Batley, which opened in 1852. 

 

Birstall Smithies on the 1894 OS map

Most of the buildings that I passed were single storied and built of sandstone and brick, but have since been put to other commercial use and many of them have been demolished and replaced by various C20 industrial, commercial and residential buildings. 

 

Carlinghow Mill

 

Due to the delay earlier in the day, due to my failure to identify the correct stop to catch my bus to Birstall, and the time spent at St. Peter’s church, I decided not to look for the listed buildings in Birstall or visit the Bagshaw Museum and carried on for 1500 m past a mixture of C19 and C20 industrial, commercial and residential buildings until I came to the C18 Carlinghow Mill – a water powered corn mill, with an attached barn and other outbuildings. 

 

The west range at Dock Ing Mill

 

A little further along Bradford Road, on the south side, is a complex of buildings that form Dock Ing Mill (1899), which constitute several single storey buildings with north-lights on its west side and a two storey range, with a central castellated tower, on the east side. 

 

The east range at Dock Ing Mill

Zooming in to the tower to photograph the raised lettering that describe the building as Docking Mills, which is its alternative name, the sandstone used to build it has a high proportion of blocks that are orange in colour, which strongly suggests that this is another example of the Birstall Rock. 

 

The former National School at No. 521 Bradford Road

 

The next building on my Photo Challenge was the former National School at No. 521 Bradford Road (1848), which is built with sandstone that has a uniformly grey/brown colour and lacks the wild orange colouration of the Birstall Rock. To my eye, it looks like the Thornhill Rock that is widely used in Batley and the 1854 OS map shows that the quite substantial New Hall Quarry on the nearby Carlinghow Hill was working this formation. 

 

Views of the tram depot

 

On the opposite side of Bradford Road, Birstall Rock is again used for the tram depot (1874), which was originally used for horse drawn trams and then those powered by steam, with Batley and Dewsbury being pioneers in the introduction of electricity as the source of energy. 

 

A view of Blakeridge Mills

I then made my way down Centenary Lane to Cross Bank Road and Cemetery Road, where I took a photo of Blakeridge Mills, which was the main mill of John, Thomas, and Joshua Taylor - the largest woollen manufacturers in Batley. 

 

The Cross Bank Methodist Sunday School

 

After going to look at Batley Cemetery, which I will describe in my next post, I made my way back to Blakeridge Road, where the next building on my Photo Challenge was the Cross Bank Methodist Sunday School (1882), but Historic England make no mention of the architect. 

 

The Cross Bank Methodist Sunday School

 

Vivien Tomlinson's Family History website, however, describes the now demolished Wesleyan Methodist Church (1871) as being designed by Sheard and Hanstock, with Red Mansfield dolomitic sandstone used for the voussoirs and granite for the columns. These materials, along with Thornhill Rock used for the ashlar masonry, are used in the Sunday School and Walter Hanstock was again the architect for this. 

 

Views of St. Mary's church

The next building on my Photo challenge was the Gothic Revival style Church of St. Mary (1870). I just took a few record photos and didn’t take a close look at the dressed sandstone used for the walling and the ashlar dressings, but it is quite similar to the sandstone seen in the warehouses on Station Road, which I thought was most likely to be Thornhill Rock. 

 

Blakeridge Mills

Heading back to Batley along Blakeridge Road, I passed several large buildings that formed part of Blakeridge Mills, but which now been converted into apartments, before heading down Stocks Lane towards All Saints church. Passing Batley Health Centre, I was interested to see a fine relief sculpture, depicting beech leaves, cut into one of the walls but I have not yet been able to find any information about this. 

 

The relief sculpture on Batley Health Centre

 

After walking around the exterior of All Saints church, which I will describe later, I continued to Branch Lane and Commercial Street. Here, looking across the car park of Tesco Extra, the Park Road School (1876) was the last building on my Photo Challenge that I managed to photograph, before continuing to the railway station.

Park Road School

 

St. Peter's Church in Birstall - Part 2

 

A corbel in the porch carved as a grotesque

I spent less than 15 minutes walking around the exterior of St. Peter’s church in Birstall, taking general record photographs from a distance and, although these show that the string courses to the aisle are punctuated by small grotesques, except for the large winged beasts on the porches the figurative sculpture is quite restrained. 

 

Corbels carved with grotesques in the porch

Entering the north porch, I was therefore very surprised to see that the transverse ribs to the pointed tunnel vaults are set on corbels that are carved with grotesques, which depict mythical creatures and various heads – one of which depicts a man with snakes squirming over his face. 

A corbel carved with a grotesque

Once inside the church, I was greeted by the volunteers who were manning the Heritage Open Day and was offered a cup of tree, which was very welcome as I had now been on the move for nearly 3 hours without taking a break. 

 

The church guide

 

Having then purchased a church guide that describes the history of the church, I was then taken into the tower, which has its walls plastered and therefore unable to see the C12 masonry, but the round headed tower arch, with very simple capitals, can still be seen. 

 

A view of the capital to the tower arch

 

Like many church towers that I have seen, it is used for storage and there wasn’t much room to move, but the walls are are covered with a variety of wall monuments dating to the C18 and C19, although I didn’t look at any of them closely and just took a few general photos. 

 

Wall monuments in the tower

 

Peter Ryder, in Medieval Churches of West Yorkshire mentions three grave slabs laid against one of the walls, which the church guide describes as being carved with a double cross and reputedly belonging to Knights Hospitaller who owned land in the area, but Historic England (HE) make no reference to them. 

 

Grave slabs in the tower

 

I then just expected to have a wander around the church, but I was instead taken to an area in the outer south aisle, where there is sufficient space for a small ‘museum’ area, where various interesting items are on display. 

 

The 'museum' area in the outer south aisle

 

These include a late Anglo-Saxon cross slab, with a tree of life design, a coffin lid with a lozenge pattern that is dated to the C11 or C12, a C12 font, two stoops that the Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture for Britain and Ireland suggests may be Romanesque, but their octagonal shape probably indicates a later period. 

 

The C12 coffin above the Anglo-Saxon cross slab

 

Other items include ornately carved bench end panels dating from the C16 and C17 and next to this ‘museum’ area is a C15 octagonal font, which has a panelled bowl and stem and was apparently discarded in 1771 but reinstated in 1841. 

 

The C15 font

 

When I saw the elaborately decorated pulpit, I immediately thought this is made with Caen stone from Normandy, which was imported after the Norman Conquest to build Canterbury Cathedral, Rochester Cathedral and the White Tower and other buildings at the Tower of London. 

 

The south side of the pulpit

 

It reminds me of the intricate work in Leeds Central Library, which was undertaken by John Wormald Appleyard and although the church guide confirms that Caen stone has been used, they make no mention of the sculptor. 

 

The north side of the pulpit

 

When visiting a mediaeval church, I tend to make a systematic photographic record of the principal architectural elements - the aisles, arcades, nave, chancel and any associated chapels - where there is very often changes in the architectural style or patterns of masonry. 

 

Views of the various aisles and arcades

On this occasion, with there being double aisles with all of the arcades being built in a single phase and in the same style, with the principal detailing being the foliate capitals, I just had a random wander around the church. 

 

The chancel

 

Entering the chancel, which did not have the lighting on, I just had a wander around this and the adjoining aisles but it was too dark to see the details and the highlight was the reredos, depicting the Last Supper, which is illuminated with a yellow light. 

 

The reredos

 

The church guide again states that this is made of Caen stone, which is recognisable by its colour and very fine texture that makes it very suitable for very detailed carving, but the lighting conditions made it impossible to confirm this. 

 

A detail of the reredos

 

To either side of the reredos, there are niches which are occupied by statues of saints and have ornamented ogee arches with crocketted finials, trefoils, capitals and panels with foliated details and colonnettes made from alabaster. 

 

A niche and statue on the north side of the reredos

 

Before leaving the church, I took a couple of photos of the foliated capitals on the chancel arch and a grotesque on the arcade, which is of a similar style to those seen in the porch, before taking a few more photos of the exterior and then walking back to Batley along Bradford Road – where I would start my British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge.

Capitals on the chancel arch and a grotesque

St. Peter’s Church in Birstall – Part 1

 

The west end of St. Peter's church

When planning my day out to Batley and Birstall, I wanted to take advantage of the opening of the Grade II* listed St. Peter’s church for the 2024 Heritage Open Days festival; however, knowing that except for the tower it is essentially a Victorian church, I wouldn’t have made the effort to visit it unless I combined it with the historic architecture of Batley - as seen along Station Road and in the Market Place Conservation Area.

 

The north-east entrance to St. Peter's churchyard

 

Having had a very quick look at Birstall and approaching the north-east entrance to the churchyard, in overcast conditions, my first view was of a large church where the windows, castellated parapets and pinnacles are quite typical of the Perpendicular Gothic style.

 

A view of the north elevation

The remains of a C9 preaching cross have led to suggestions that there could have been a church before the stone built was founded c.1100 by Radulphus de Paganell, according to Historic England (HE), with it being extended by three further phases of building c.1200, c.1300 and c.1490. Except for the tower, with a belfry stage of c.1490 and the lowest two stages dating to the C12, all that is seen to day is the work of W.H. Crossland (1863-1870).

 

Another view of the north elevation

 

The C19 work comprises ashlar masonry using a sandstone that looks quite different to the sandstone used in the school buildings on Kirkgate that I saw when walking down from Market Place in Birstall, which I presume was quarried locally from the local Birstall Rock.

 

A view of the east end

I was keen to get a good look at the interior, so I just walked anticlockwise around the exterior to take general record photographs of the principal architectural elements, but from these the sandstone looks quite yellow in colour and unlike the Thornhill Rock that I had seen in Batley.

 

A detail of the chancel

 

By the time that the church was rebuilt, the railways had become well established and Batley was connected to the quarries working the Thornhill Rock to the south of Morley, the Elland Flags to the east of Halifax and the Rough Rock from Huddersfield. William Crossland who was born in Huddersfield and was based in Halifax, would no doubt have been fully aware of the qualities of these building stones.

 

The Building Stones Database for England map explorer

 

Either side of the east window, which is in the Decorated Gothic style, there are statues of St. Wilfred and a female saint, whose name has completely weathered away along with the nailhead detailing. From my photo, I can’t make out what stone it is, but its highly weathered nature suggests that it might be white Carrara marble rather than Portland stone.

 

Statues on the east end of the chancel

 

Moving round the large yew tree on the north-east corner, it is obvious that the church is built with double aisles, with the east end of the outer aisle having another Decorated Gothic style window, with simple late Perpendicular Gothic style 4-light square headed windows on its south elevation.

A view along the south elevation

 

Arriving at the south porch, which HE describe as having an entrance arch with “3 orders of filleted shafts and vertical bands of fleurons, foliage capitals, and arches incorporating bands of foliage”, I noted that the detailing is still quite sharp.

 

The south porch

 

The yellowish colour of the sandstone is quite apparent and the surface of the ashlar masonry is quite weathered in several places and, especially on the large winged grotesques projecting from the corners of the porch, the highly blackened surface is spalling to revel a fresh surface. Its colour and texture appears very similar to the massive sandstone from the Elland Flags, which I had previously seen earlier in the year in Headingley and the centre of Leeds.

 

A grotesque on the south porch

 

Moving round to the west end, there is a clear difference in the colour of the sandstone ashlar masonry of the double aisles and the sandstone used for the tower which, although quite blackened in places, has a lot more variation and has orange iron staining that is seen in the Birstall Rock.

 

A view of the west end

 

The lower part of the tower, dated to the C12, is built with well squared and coursed walling and there is a slit window on the south and north elevations, The belfry stage (c.1490) is built with much larger and regularly sized blocks and the castellated parapet is set on a corbel table which I had never seen before.

The tower

I finished my quick look at the exterior at the north porch, which has identical detailing to the south porch. With overcast conditions and the detailing not being well lit, I just took a few general photos before entering the church, with 45 minutes to look around before it was due to close.

 

The north porch