St. Anne's Church Baslow - The Interior

A detail of the alabaster pulpit

When visiting St. Anne’s church in Baslow, on my way to Stoney Middleton, I had to make a second trip a couple of days later to get a better understanding of its construction history, such was the considerable variation in the masonry to the exterior and the relatively little information available from sources such as Pevsner and Historic England.

A grave slab and miscellaneous fragments of masonry in the porch

Entering the porch, various carved details reset into the wall, together with an early C13 grave slab and a door arch made with orange/red sandstone, suggested that there would be plenty of interest to see in the interior; however, I was disappointed to note that plaster covers all the walls and that there is no exposed masonry to help with the understanding of the archaeology. 

A general view along the nave to the chancel

The 3-bay arcades are essentially of the same style, with octagonal profile responds at both ends. The south arcade has intervening round columns but the north arcade has a round and octagonal column and is very slightly taller.

A general view of the arcades from the north aisle

The Victorian chancel arch, the 2-bay arcade – which separates the chancel from the vestry - and the arch to the vestry from the south aisle all faithfully reproduce the original mouldings of the mediaeval arcades and are from the early C14, as mentioned in the church website.

The arcade between the chancel and the vestry

If the arcades were built at the same time as the south aisle, as also suggested by the same source, the Perpendicular Gothic style square headed windows of the latter would therefore indicate a later date for them.

Headstops on the chancel arch

The arches and arcades are all very simple in their design, without any ornamentation to their capitals and the only sculptural decoration of any note are the Victorian headstops to the chancel arch, which depict a king and a queen.

The font

A handful of quite plain marble memorials from the C18 onward are found on the walls of the chancel and the aisle and the font is an unadorned octagon on a younger base. The most decorative element is the intricately carved lamb and flag, which is set inside a quatrefoil on the front of the C19 alabaster pulpit.

The pulpit