St. Peter & St. Paul Eckington - Part 1

The west door

Continuing with my travels in north-east Derbyshire, my next day out was to see the church of St. Peter and St. Paul in Eckington, which I had passed before a couple of times on the way to Bolsover and Barlborough on the Stagecoach No.53 bus. 

The geology around Eckington

The Parkgate Rock, upon which the church is set, is the source of the stone used for the mediaeval parts of the church and the surrounding Coal Measures strata are full of ironstone and coal – upon which the fortune of the Sitwell family was based. 

A plan of the church of St. Peter and St. Paul

Starting at the tower, described by Pevsner as being “big and square” and considered to be transitional between Norman and Early English Gothic, there is a round arched west door, a blocked arch that served a demolished part of the south aisle and lancet windows at upper levels.

The tower

The walling comprises roughly coursed irregular blocks of thin bedded sandstone, with frequent iron staining, and more massive blocks of medium grained sandstone for the quoins, dressings and ashlar to the spire, which was added in the C14. In several places, the sandstone to the general walling shows cavernous decay and there are occasional red/brown ironstone nodules. 

A general view from the north-west

Moving clockwise to the north elevation, a plan in the church guide indicates that the west half of the north aisle is C15 and the east half is C14, although there is no obvious change in the pattern of the stonework along its length, except where an opening to the east of the doorway is filled with blocks of slightly orange sandstone that have a greater bed height. 

The north aisle

Looking more closely, although the string course below the windows runs at the same height, the style of plinth varies between the west and east ends. The plain parapet has distinct tooling with continuous horizontal lines and, like the vestry at the east end this was added in 1763 by John Platt of Rotherham; however, it can also be seen that the uppermost two courses consist of larger ashlar blocks with no tooling. 

A detail of the north aisle

The windows to the aisle have late Perpendicular Gothic four centred arches, with cusped two-light windows and a mouchette above, and the flat headed windows to the clerestory, with cusped lights, are also C15 and were added at the same time. To the east of the tower, an old steep roofline can clearly be seen and two of the lancet windows have been blocked up. 

An old roofline on the tower

The north wall of the chancel reverts to a more primitive pattern of masonry, with the block sizes and shapes and courses being very irregular and the sandstone having higher iron content than the stonework in the north aisle. It has affinities with the tower and may therefore be the remains of the chancel that was enlarged during the late C12. 

The east end of the north elevation

The remaining elevations of the chancel, including the Perpendicular Gothic east window, were rebuilt in the C19 along with the new organ chamber and, continuing further, the south aisle and the porch are again very different. 

A view of the chancel from the south-east

The south aisle was rebuilt in 1783, with round arched windows having large voussoirs in the Palladian style and the heavily rusticated porch with a prominent pediment, although the west end was again rebuilt in the same style in 1902. 

The south aisle

The sandstone used for the latest work is very different from others used in the fabric of the church, being massive, medium grained and having a very uniform orange colour – quite unlike anything that I can recall seeing before.

The porch