St. John's Church in Penistone - Part 2

 

A grotesque on the north side of the clerestory

Although a fine mediaeval church with C13 arcades, except for the variations in masonry and the fine monuments in the chancel, the interior of the Church of St. John the Baptist is quite plain and it didn’t take long for me to photograph it. 

 

The tower

 

Continuing my exploration of the church by walking anti-clockwise around the exterior, I first stopped at the 24 metre high tower, which Pevsner simply describes as “Tall Perp”, by Historic England as later C14 or C15 and the church guide as dating to 1500. 

 

A view along the south elevation

 

Looking along the south elevation, the ashlar masonry is composed of blocks of similar size and the quite uniform blackening and weathering of the stonework, which obscures the distinct yellow colour of the Grenoside Sandstone seen in the interior, suggests that the tower, south aisle and clerestory are part of the same phase of rebuilding in a Perpendicular Gothic style. 

 

Decoration to the west door

 

Moving around the tower to look at its large west door, I was very interested to see that the two orders of mouldings have been enriched with carvings, which Historic England describes as stars and masks and Pevsner as fleurons. 

 

The north elevation

Continuing to the north elevation and standing back to see along its length, the masonry to the walling of the aisle and the clerestory above looks like they have been built at a different times - from the Decorated Gothic to Perpendicular Gothic periods - with the latter comprising ashlar blocks that are uniformly blackened.

 

A window and walling in the north aisle

 

The masonry to the aisle is much more variable in shape and size and, despite being quite deeply weathered, appears to have had a roughly tooled finish. Looking at the jambs of the later Perpendicular Gothic windows, which have triangular heads, they are not toothed into the adjoining masonry and could therefore be insertions into earlier walling, which would presumably be of a similar c.1300 date to the arcades. 

 

Masonry to the north wall of the chancel

 

Beyond the north chapel and the C19 vestry, the extent of the C18 masonry to the chancel can be seen in its north wall, where the lower part is roughly squared and coursed rubble and the upper part is well squared masonry. The east end of the chancel wall, although partly obscured by attached grave slabs, also shows the original masonry below the east window. 

 

The east wall of the chancel

At the east end of the clerestory on the top of a corner buttress, along with another on the south side, there is a projecting grotesque like carving that has unusual decoration on the head, which I can’t work out if it is meant to be hair or some kind of headdress. 

 

Grotesques at the east end of the clerestory

 

On either side of the east chancel wall, just below the parapet, further very crude looking pairs of heads, with similar decoration, project from large quoins that form part of the masonry that I have presumed to be part of the C18 extension to the chancel. These are similar in style to the very weathered head stop on the south door (c.1300) and I therefore wonder if these have been reset when the chancel was enlarged. 

 

Carved heads on the east chancel wall

 

The south chancel wall retains much of the original masonry and the partly restored original window, with its intersecting tracery, is identical in style to the much larger east window, which presumably reproduced the style of tracery in the chancel, which is dated to c.1300. 

 

The south wall of the chancel

 

It had taken just just under an hour to complete my inspection of both the interior and the exterior of the church and, just before I set off to have a quick look around Penistone, the fine rain that had been continuous since getting off the train finally stopped and the sun came out. 

 

A general view from the east