All Saints Church in Darfield - Part 4

Headstops to the south window of the chancel

Following on from my brief investigation of the building stones and construction history of the east elevation of All Saints church, in Darfield, I turned my attention to the south elevation – beginning with the east end of the south aisle, which is occupied by the Lady Chapel. 

The easternmost south aisle window

It is again constructed in ashlar masonry using the local Mexborough Rock, with a C14 Decorated Gothic window having cusped heads to each of the three lights, flowing tracery with simple cusps and crudely carved headstops. 

The priest's door in the chancel

There is also a priest’s door with an ogee head, which is a very common feature of English Gothic architecture of both the C14 and C15, but here it will be from the earlier Decorated Gothic rather than the Perpendicular Gothic period. 

Windows in the south aisle

Moving on to the south aisle, which has a plain parapet, the windows are again arched with hybrid geometical and flowing tracery. The tracery to the windows of the clerestory, which are also arched, have identical patterns to those seen on the north elevation. 

Headstops on the north aisle

As with the windows to the chancel, the two west windows have crudely carved headstops but the east window has label stops carved in a leaf form. In this respect, these windows contrast with the flat headed windows in the north aisle, which have no ornamentation.

The porch

The porch, like many others that I have seen from the C15, has a very robust construction with diagonal buttresses, heavily moulded castellated parapets and finials to the front elevation. The north and south walls have large stepped buttresses, very crude grotesques and projecting stone channels, which drain the ribbed pitched roof. 

The west window of the south aisle and the bellcote

The west end of the south aisle has a three light pointed window, with another example of Decorated Gothic tracery that has elements of the geometrical and flowing style, as previously seen in the north aisle; however, perhaps the most interesting feature here is an old bellcote. 

A short buttress at the east end of the south aisle

On the corner of the south aisle, the short diagonal buttress provides another unusual feature, with its lower part forming a niche with an ornate ogee head, although it is probably far too shallow to have once housed a statue. 

The south elevation of the tower

Looking at the masonry of the south elevation of the tower in the sunshine, the lower Norman part to my eye constitutes three distinct phases of building. The second stage of the tower is built in uniformly blackened rubble masonry, which obvious differs from the C15 ashlar above it; however, my training in stratigraphy enables me to also detect subtle changes in the masonry of the lowest first stage.

The old sundial on the tower

On the tower just above the string course that marks the beginning of its second stage, there is an old sundial and there are the remains of an old cross in the churchyard near to the porch.

Remains of an old cross