St. Bartholomew’s in Maltby Revisited

 

The tower and steeple at St. Bartholomew's church

Back in 2015, I ended a brief exploration of Maltby Crags by walking along the valley occupied by Maltby Dike to St. Bartholomew’s church, where I had a very quick look at its exterior before catching a bus back to Rotherham.

 

The west end of St. Bartholomew's church

 

Seven years later and having visited all of the mediaeval churches in Rotherham, I still hadn’t arranged to look at its interior; however, although having completed the last leg of a long walk from Hooton Levitt to Maltby, I still had enough energy to survey this church in a little more detail - starting at the tower, which dates back to the C11 and was raised in the C15.

 

The lower section of the tower

The ancient date assigned to this Grade II* Listed church is based on the extensive use of herringbone masonry in the tower, which on the lower section of its west end is dressed with side alternate quoins made out of a soft brown sandstone – contrasting with the C19 quoins above.

 

The west elevation of the tower

This sandstone, which is also used occasionally in the herringbone masonry, is of a type that I have never encountered before in Rotherham and, as with the Anglo-Saxon elements of All Saints church in Laughton-en-le-Morthen, the use of sandstone in an area where Permian dolomitic limestone is readily available and used ubiquitously for historic buildings in Maltby is quite notable.

 

The west window of the tower

 

The west window, which P.F. Ryder in Saxon Churches in South Yorkshire describes as “plainly Victorian” and presumably is part of the rebuilding in 1859, is made out of a very similar Coal Measures sandstone that has been restored with medium grained sandstone from the Millstone Grit of Derbyshire or West Yorkshire.

 

11th century quoins in the tower

Looking at the upper stages of the north and south elevations of the tower, there are subtle changes in the masonry that Ryder - as a standing buildings archaeologist - has identified, but which are also clearly visible to geologists with specialist interests in building stone like myself.

 

Views of the upper stages of the tower

 

Wandering around the churchyard, I was interested to see the Commonwealth War Grave commemorating Corporal J.A.H. Makin of the Labour Corps, which is made of a slab of Italian Botticino marble that is marked with several brown spots to which I can’t give an explanation.

 

A detail of the Botticino marble headstone of Corporal J.A.H. Makin

Making my way back around the south elevation of the Victorian extension, dated to 1859, I was again interested to see that a window described in the Historic England listing as a “circular, plate tracery window in pointed recess” is also made of this mystery sandstone, which is beyond my my experience of devising the Triton Stone Library and investigating building stones in South Yorkshire and the surrounding counties ever since.

 

A window with circular plate tracery