St. Mary's Church Ecclesfield Revisited

 

A grotesque at St. Mary's church

During my walk from Grenoside to Ecclesfield, via Whitley, I had a very quick walk around the churchyard and the exterior of St. Mary’s church, which I had visited back in October 2016 to take a comprehensive set of photos while it was open, but were lost due to the failure of the external hard drive on which they had been stored. 

 

The Jeffcock Memorial Fountain

 

On that occasion, it was very overcast but this time the sun was shining brightly and I took advantage of this to photograph the Jeffcock Memorial Fountain (1903) and the water trough dedicated to Thomas William Jeffcock, which between them exhibit three types of granite. 

 

The Thomas William Jefferson water trough

The Jeffcocks were a large and prominent local family of colliery owners and mining engineers, who originally moved in the C17 from Eckington to Handsworth, where there is also a Grade II Listed granite water tough and drinking fountain dedicated to them. 

 

Ecclesfield war memorial

 

These were relocated from elsewhere in Ecclesfield and, together with the old village stocks, the tomb of Alexander John Scott - the chaplain to Horatio Nelson at the time of his death at the Battle of Trafalgar - and the unusual Portland stone war memorial by R.B. Brooks-Greaves, in the form of a four-sided wheel-head cross with Celtic style knotwork, make the churchyard worth visiting. 

 

The south elevation of St. Mary's church

 

Looking at the south elevation from a distance in the bright afternoon sunshine, the overall colour of the sandstone confirmed my thoughts that I had about its provenance back in 2016, when I thought that it would have been Grenoside Sandstone brought from the nearby village of Grenoside, which is the type locality for this formation.

 

The south porch

 

Approaching the south porch, where the accumulated dirt and patina has weathered away, the fresh surface of the sandstone appears quite yellow, which is one of the physical characteristics of the Grenoside Sandstone that distinguishes it from the other Pennine Coal Measures Formation sandstones in Sheffield. 

 

Weathered Grenoside Sandstone to the porch

 

I didn’t spend much time looking at the fabric of the exterior of the church, which was built between 1488 and 1500 in a late Perpendicular Gothic style, but I was interested to see ‘honest repairs’ in a couple of places, as advocated by SPAB (Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings), which I had seen at churches in Treeton, Todwick and Whiston amongst others. 

An 'honest repair'

On the porch and south aisle, the afternoon sunshine highlighted the spectacular grotesque figures that are in the form of short flying buttresses, which link the aisle walls to tall square columns that rise to form pinnacles. 

 

Various grotesques

 

After first visiting St. Mary's church, I had since seen similar features only at All Saints church in Silkstone, where many of them had been replaced in the C19 and with modern forms, presumably depicting former vicars, which are carved in Permian dolomitic limestone. 

 

A highly weathered grotesque

 

Some of these, including one on the north-east corner that appears to be limestone, are so heavily weathered that their original form can be barely determined, as with many of the limestone grotesques at Aston and Laughton-en-le-Morthen, but the similarities of the grotesques between the two churches is quite remarkable. 

 

A limestone grotesque

 

All Saints church was also rebuilt towards the end of the C15 and completed in 1485, which makes me wonder if the same master mason had been employed in their design, particularly since during a recent visit to All Saints church in Darton, I had discovered that the same essential elements of its design was shared with churches in Royston, Cawthorne and Silkstone.

 

Various grotesques