St. Giles' Church in Killamarsh - Part 1

A general view of St. Giles' church 

After my day out to Barlborough, my next trip was to Killamarsh, originally a small agricultural settlement next to the River Rother, whose fortunes were changed by the industrial revolution. Its coal seams supplied the steel industry of Sheffield, a forge exploited local iron ore and the Chesterfield Canal opened up further commercial opportunities. 

A view of St. Giles' church tower from Kirkcroft Lane 

St. Giles’ church is set on a ridge of Pennine Middle Coal Measures Formation sandstone about 500 metres from the modern town centre. Approaching from Kirkcroft Lane, after a leisurely journey that included the Supertram from Sheffield city centre to Halfway, I was immediately struck by the stone used in the C15 tower. 

Churches with towers in mottled Rotherham Red sandstone

It is a red/yellow mottled, medium grained, cross bedded sandstone that is just like the variety of Rotherham Red sandstone used to build All Hallows church in Harthill, the towers of St. Peter and St. Paul in Todwick and St. John the Baptist in Wales and for alterations to the original aisleless nave of the latter. In Harthill, which is just 3 km to the east, several old quarries have been identified in the village – which once had a thriving grindstone industry – but I have not yet seen a source of mottled sandstone.

The west elevation of the tower at St. Giles' church

Looking closely at the towers of these churches, the windows to their belfries look almost identical and their angled buttresses, castellated parapets and the position of their gargoyles are very similar – except those at Wales were removed during the remodelling of the parapet during its late Victorian restoration.

The church towers in Harthill, Todwick and Wales

When exploring the mediaeval churches of South Yorkshire and Derbyshire, I have relied on the Pevsner Architectural Guides, Historic England listings, church guides and any other information that I can find on the internet. There is rarely information on the precise dating of any phase of construction, except relating to Victorian restorations, and at best this often seems to be an educated guess. 

The restored west window to the tower

I don’t know enough about the history of mediaeval church building, or whether documentation exists to support this but, in this instance, there are so many similarities between the aforementioned churches – which are all close together - to suggest perhaps that one master mason was responsible for the design and building of the C15 parts of all of them. 

A general view along the south elevation

Walking clockwise around the church, the south wall of the original nave is presumably the C14 element referred to in the Historic England listing and it is built out of the local sandstone, with its typically light brown colouration.

A restored Decorated Gothic window

To the left of the porch, there is a restored Decorated Gothic window with Geometric tracery but there are two unusual triangular headed windows ion the right hand side of the porch. These are identical to those seen in the south wall and the north chapel of St. James’ church in Barlborough and are considered to be late Perpendicular Gothic by Pevsner. 

A restored Perpendicular Gothic window

In both churches, these windows are not original and have been presumably been inserted during the major work that took place from 1894-1899 at St. James', by an unnamed architect, and in 1895 at St. Giles', by J.M. Brooks, who added the vestry and north aisle. 

A general view of St. Giles' church from the south-east