A gargoyle on the porch of St. John's church |
Moving
on to the east end of St. John’s church, I didn’t spend any time
looking at the very late C19 apse but, from the single photo that I
took, I can see that there are occasional red coloured blocks in the
masonry and that dolomitic limestone has been used for the parapet – as
also seen on the castellated south clerestory.
With
the brief spell of bright sunshine having vanished, I only had a
quick look at the north elevation, where the aisle was rebuilt in 1891, together with the similarly styled south aisle, the porch and the apse.
I
was more interested in the masonry that can be seen in the chancel
where, as on the south elevation, the single lancet window is set within
coursed rubble walling; however, to my eye, the stonework has a slightly different
character to the south side and looks more primitive.
The
extraordinarily long quoins, which are partially covered by the
diagonal buttress, are quite unusual and the lowermost section of the
wall is built out of rubble masonry that is barely coursed, with little attention being given to the sorting of the stones.
Although
the Historic England listing refers to a C12 core of the church, I
hadn’t seen any obviously Norman features while wandering around its
exterior; however, looking at the section of masonry that has been
exposed here, this is probably the oldest part visible on the exterior.
When
a relaxation of the COVID-19 Pandemic rules allow churches to be
opened as normal, I will go back to investigate this further but, on
this occasion, I took advantage of the reappearing sunshine to take
another look at the gargoyles on the south elevation.
Looking
closely at the Mexborough Rock here, ironstone pebbles can be clearly
seen and, although it lacks the red colour, this characteristic is
shared in common with the ‘Rotherham Red’ variety of sandstone that is
found on the south side of the Don Monocline.
Following
the south aisle to the porch, where the pattern of masonry and tool
marks are identical to those of the rebuilt aisles, the face bedded
parapet course is again weathered and delaminating, but
the more massive sandstone used for the gargoyles has proved to be much more
durable.
The
Victorian headstops to the porch, which depict a king and bishop, are
made in a finer grained sandstone that has not weathered so well, with
the lamination of the sandstone to the king’s head resulting in the loss
of much detail.
Looking
up at the tower, a very steep roofline marks the original position of
the nave roof, which adds further to the archaeological interest of the
church, but with no option but to come back and see the interior at a
later date, I then headed off to explore Castle Hill.
If not much care was taken to sort those stones (north chancel wall) someone had to be fairly meticulous in laying them up.
ReplyDeleteThey appear to have been recently pointed?
Yes, Nancy, the stones are random shaped and sized and care would have been needed to build the wall and, to answer your question, the pointing is quite recent.
ReplyDelete