All Saints Church in Aston - The Exterior

A general view of the south elevation of All Saints church

All Saints church - in the parish of Aston cum Aughton - is set on a broad outcrop of the Carboniferous Mexborough Rock, which forms an intermittent escarpment that runs from Rotherham to Harthill and still produces the locally distinctive Rotherham Red sandstone, from which this Grade I Listed church is essentially built.

A general view of the tower

Domesday Book records a church here that dates back to c.700 AD and, falling within the manor held by Roger de Busli after the Norman Conquest, the later stone church falls within the Norman period, but evidence of this can only be seen in its interior.

Although I had to wait for the Heritage Open Days event in September before I finally gained access to its interior, I surveyed its exterior 5 months previously when I started out on my exploration of the mediaeval churches of Rotherham.

Starting on an anti-clockwise walk around the church at the tower, the Rotherham Red sandstone here includes the typical red/purple and mottled red/yellow varieties – as also seen in Todwick, Harthill and Wales – and the windows seen on its west elevation and all around the belfry are in the Perpendicular Gothic style, with the embattled parapet built in 1758.

The north aisle and porch have flat headed windows, with the Decorated Gothic style tracery restored with Rotherham Red sandstone from the Ulley Quarry and the mullions replaced with Permian dolomitic limestone of unknown origin.

The south aisle

Looking closely at the details, the highly weathered west window of the porch is also dolomitic limestone, as are the various elaborately carved headstops that adorn them. Moving on to the chancel, which was refaced entirely in dolomitic limestone ashlar in 1863, the carved headstops are also highly eroded here but the ashlar walling is in good condition.

Details of weathered dolomitic limestone sculpture on the south aisle

A newspaper report of 1900 records that these stone carvings were in near perfect condition but their details are now barely recognisable, which has been attributed to the effects of acid rain over the past century; however, like the villages of Anston and Laughton-en-le-Morthen – where the dolomitic limestone sculptures are also highly weathered – Aston is far away from the nearest historic source of atmospheric pollution in the Don Valley.

A detail of eroded tracery in the north aisle

Finishing off a short walk around the church, various post-mediaeval additions – including a narthex built in a very different Carboniferous sandstone, with Rotherham Red sandstone dressings – obscure the mediaeval north elevation but, in the remaining part of its north aisle, the windows and dressings are similar to those seen in the south aisle.

Permo-Triassic sandstone used for repairs in the base of the tower

Looking briefly at the various stones that have been used in its restoration, it is Rotherham Red sandstone that has been mainly used with dolomitic limestone restricted to some mullions but, in the base of the tower, a Permo-Triassic sandstone has been selected for some repairs and there are also good examples of the use of stone slips - a method of repair that avoids the replacement of a whole stone, but which is rarely used today.

Repairs to the south aisle using stone slips