All Saints' Church Barwick-in-Elmet - I

A view of All Saints' church from Main Street

Arriving in Barwick-in-Elmet on the Connexions No. 64 bus from Leeds, the first thing that caught my eye when getting off at the southern end of Main Street was the tower of All Saint’s church in the far distance, sticking out above the houses at the back of the playing fields.

Approaching All Saints' church from The Cross

When approaching All Saint’s church from the west along The Cross, it can be clearly seen that the lower section of the tower is built of dolomitic limestone from the Cadeby Formation, but the upper section is built in a massive Carboniferous sandstone.

A general view of the west elevation of the tower

When surveying mediaeval churches, I usually look for variations in the shape, size and coursing of the stones, which provide good clues to the various phases of building. Sometimes, as at St. Helen’s church in Treeton, this is marked by the use of a completely different stone.

Sandstone used in the top section of the tower

At Barwick-in-Elmet however, the tower was built during the C15 in essentially one phase, and the sudden change between dolomitic limestone to Carboniferous sandstone records a change of heart of one of the benefactors – Sir Henry Vasavour – who supplied stone from a quarry on his Hazlewood Castle estate.

The statue of Sir Henry Vasavour

All of the various features of the tower are Perpendicular Gothic in style and, although I couldn't see these, an inscription beneath the lower niche – in which Sir Henry Vasavour is depicted holding a block of stone – refers to the date of 1455.

The west door of the tower

Richard Burnham, the Rector at All Saints' church, paid for the completion of the church in a sandstone that looks like the Rough Rock, a coarse gritstone that outcrops around Leeds and which has been used extensively in historic buildings. The upper niche was dedicated to him but, since at least 1700, it has been empty.

A detail of the west door of the tower

This dolomitic limestone was also used at the time for repairs to York Minster, which was originally built of stone from the Huddlestone Quarry at Micklefield and these were both considered noteworthy by William Camden, when he wrote his celebrated work Britannia – originally published in Latin in 1586.

Weathering to the north-west buttress of the tower

With both quarries being just over 7 km away, as well as the underlying Cadeby Formation being quarried for the vernacular buildings in the village, it is perhaps surprising that the rest of the church is built in local Carboniferous sandstone - especially since the Conservation Area Appraisal describes it as being soft and the nearest old quarry, at Scholes, exploited mudstone from the Pennine Middle Coal Measures Formation strata to make bricks.

The north elevation of the tower