St. Oswald's Church in Kirk Sandall - I

A general view of St. Oswald's church in Kirk Sandall

After my visit to Cadeby Quarry on the last day of May 2019, my next outing made the most of an Open Day at St. Oswald’s church in Kirk Sandall, organised by the Churches Conservation Trust and the Friends of St. Oswalds. 

Kirk Sandall on an Ordnance Survey map of 1854

Set next to the River Don, but with the River Don Navigation since built in between, subsequent development in the area – starting with the building of the Pilkington Glass factory and its accompanying model village in 1919 – led to the demise of the old village of Kirk Sandall, resulting in the closure of the church and it being taken over by the Redundant Churches Fund in 1980. 

Geological maps showing bedrock only and with superficial deposits

The general area to the east of Doncaster is low lying, with the soft Triassic sandstone bedrock being covered with various sediments of Quaternary age, including river terrace deposits, till, peat and blown sand – none of which provide building stone 

The approach to St. Oswald's church

Approaching along a road that bisects an industrial and housing estate, my first glimpse of the church immediately told me that it was mainly built of Permian dolomitic limestone, with its distinctive pale cream colour, which probably would have been shipped along the River Don from the quarries around Sprotbrough and Conisbrough – 10 km to the south-west as the crow flies. 

Getting closer to St. Oswald's church

Getting closer, the Victorian porch is seen to contain a large proportion of flaggy Carboniferous sandstone, which is highly weathered and scoured. Despite the impression of a relative modern age, given by the porch and the tower that rises above it, which was rebuilt in 1935, a detailed inspection shows that the church is of considerable antiquity - of Norman date or earlier.

The south elevation of St. Oswald's church

Large round cobbles have been used extensively in the lowest sections of the walling to the south aisle, but the upper sections have a completely different style of masonry, which to me suggests a phase of later rebuilding. The south elevation, in particular, contains a restored window in the Geometrical style - characteristic of c.1250-1310, according to Pevsner.

A general view of the east end of the south aisle

When surveying the RIGS (Regionally Important Geological Sites) in Doncaster, I visited several quarries that were extracting sand and gravel from the Quaternary deposits in the region, and some of them occasionally contained cobbles of this size. 

Sand, gravel and cobbles at Dunsville Quarry

During a subsequent survey the following year, at Lindholme Hall, which sits on a small ridge of Devensian glaciofluvial sand and gravel, I saw many cobbles in several trial pits and these – picked from the nearby fields - have been used in an old agricultural building in the area. 

A trial pit at Lindhome Hall

A similar deposit is also found in Thorne and cobbles have been used extensively in the aisles and the clerestory of St. Nicholas' church, with dolomitic limestone used for windows, dressings and later buttresses, parapets and the extension of the tower. 

Working at Lindhome Hall in the fading February light

This is proving to be a very interesting project, but it would need further fieldwork and a detailed examination of the individual cobbles - potentially requiring petrographic analysis - to determine the possible source of the cobbles used at St. Oswald’s church. It would have been easy to transport cobbles from Thorne but, with within a few hundred metres, there are also small patches of both glaciofluvial sediments and till.

A general view of St. Oswald's church