All Saints Church in Darfield - Part 6

A carved architectural detail in the south aisle

After having a look at the nave and arcades at All Saints church in Darfield, I carried on my investigation of the interior in the south aisle, where I soon encountered an elaborately carved detail on one of the window sills. 

A view along the south aisle to the Lady Chapel

With the original box pews along its length obscuring the walling here, I didn’t investigate further, but it appears like it has been salvaged from a pre-existing part of the church or a monument and reused in a random fashion – as I had recently seen at Barnby Dun parish church. 

The possible location of a former wall memorial

Walking further down the aisle to the end of the south arcade, more box pews hide the bases to the columns and the next point of interest that I found was on the south aisle wall, above a section of Jacobean wood panelling. A section of masonry has three new tooled blocks, which fill a void and beneath these is a scar in the stonework, which I think may have been the position of a former wall memorial.

An opening to the south side of the chancel arch

In the masonry to the south side of the chancel arch, there is a large dressed opening, which I at first thought was a squint but actually leads at an angle to the Lady Chapel. Above it there is generally irregular masonry, with various reused tooled stones and an apparent void, all of which don’t make much architectural sense. 

A detail of the masonry south of the chancel arch

Very often, this is the position of the rood stairs, which allows access to the rood screen and sometimes continuing to the roof, as also seen at Barnby Dun, and it makes me think that this is part of the remodelling of the church that took place in the C15. 

Crudely altered masonry at the end of the south aisle

Moving back into the aisle, I was further surprised to see a double arch in the chancel ancade, whose eastern impost is set into a section of walling that has been very crudely altered, to leave a section of rubble core exposed. On the church website, a plan identifies this as a section of masonry that, along with others at the east end of the chancel arcades, dates to the C12. 

A detail of the exposed rubble core

Immediately to the east of this, there is a small vertical section of ashlar that comprises the remains of a south wall of the chancel, into which the arch to the Lady Chapel has been inserted at a later date. Oddly, the arch cuts through two 2-light flat headed windows,  considered to be Perpendicular Gothic by Nikolaus Pevsner, which would have been originally on the outside. 

A view along the south aisle from the Lady Chapel

He says: “For one curious fact no explanation can be offered. The chancel had two-light upper windows which are now inside the building. They cannot be earlier than Perp, and yet the S chapel is according to all evidence Dec. It might be said that the windows are re-used and the chapel itself later. But can the same be assumed of the reredos?”. 

A view along the south aisle from the Lady Chapel

At the time, I just took a few photos to record the principal features of the masonry here but, opposite the exposed rubble core, there is a very distinct break in the stonework. A wall monument partly covers an irregular vertical joint in the stonework, with randomly coursed irregularly sized blocks to the west and larger and often square blocks to the east. Looking further up at the ceiling, the cornice also changes from stone to plaster.

A break in the stonework of the south aisle