St. John's Church in Royston - Part 1

 

A view of St. John's church from the south-east

Following on from a very enjoyable Sheffield U3A Geology Group field trip in Knaresborough, a couple of days later I resumed my investigation of the mediaeval churches of South Yorkshire - at the Church of St. John the Baptist in Royston, Barnsley. 

 

My first view of St. John's church

 

Alighting from the No. 59 bus from Barnsley Interchange at the Royston Lane/Church Hill stop, a short walk brought me to Church Street where I got my first sight of the church, which Historic England describes as “Predominantly C15 in three building phases but incorporating work of C14” and Pevsner begins his entry in my Yorkshire West Riding volume with “Big Perp W tower”. 

 

The south elevation

 

When researching my Language of Blog post for All Saints church in Darton, which I had visited earlier in the year, I discovered that the church website says that it was one of 5 sister churches with the same design – with the others being at High Hoyland, Cawthorne, Silkstone and Royston. 

 

The west elevation of the tower

 

Certainly, the four bay nave and the seven bay aisles at Royston are similar to those at Darton, although there are differences in the styles of the clerestory windows, but the nave and aisles at Cawthorne are quite different and the mediaeval church at High Hoyland has been rebuilt.

 

The oriel window on the tower

Except for the west front of St. John’s church in Royston, which has an offset west door and belfry window and an extremely unusual five sided oriel window, the general design and detailing of the towers to these churches are all very similar. 

 

The west door

 

Getting close to the west door, I had a good look at the massive sandstone that has been used to build the church, which is very coarse grained, varying from grey to orange in colour and has well defined cross-bedding that is highlighted by differential weathering of the graded beds. 

 

A detail of the stonework adjacent to the west door

The nearest major sandstone formations are the Oaks Rock and the Mexborough Rock, but the sandstone looks very similar to the stone used at All Saints church in Darton, which I think is probably Woolley Edge Rock – a sandstone that was extensively quarried for building stone around Barnsley and which, according to the geological memoir, sometimes has a closer resemblance to those found in the Lower Coal Measures or Millstone Grit than to any of the other Middle Coal Measures sandstones. 

 

The geology around Royston

 

I had a quick walk in an anti-clockwise direction to take a set of general record photos to be used for the British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge. The masonry to the south elevation looks uniform in appearance, with an even patina and covering of dirt and I presume that this was not included in the restoration (1867-1869) by John Loughborough Pearson, who developed a reputation for unnecessarily renewing the fabric of mediaeval churches that he worked on. 

 

Recent restoration work on the south aisle

 

The only modern restoration that I could see is the work to some windows and buttresses, where a uniformly buff coloured medium grained gritstone has been used, with no great attempt apparently being made to match the colour and texture of the original stonework. 

 

A grotesque on the clerestory

 

I took photographs of several fine grotesques that decorate the castellated parapet to the clerestory, some of which are quite weathered, before going to have a look at Royston war memorial in the churchyard, which is built with Bolton Woods stone.

 

Royston war memorial

 

Moving further round the exterior, the 4-light east window is described by Historic England (HE) as having Decorated flamboyant tracery, which is probably a C19 restoration, and the north aisle is noticeably wider than the south aisle - with a small square headed and cusped single light window in the vestry at its east end.

 

A view from the north-east

 

The north elevation of the vestry has window heads that are more triangular in form than the four centred arches to the south aisle and clerestory windows. Pevsner describes the internal door from the chancel to the vestry as having an ogee arch and probably Decorated Gothic; however, the tracery to the vestry windows look more like the Perpendicular Gothic style to me and it is possible that the windows are transitional between the two styles. 

 

The vestry

 

The earlier C14 Decorated Gothic windows to the north aisle are arched, with 2-lights and cusped Y-tracery and contrast with the later Perpendicular Gothic windows of the clerestory, which are probably contemporary with the building of the tower in the 1480’s. 

 

The north aisle

 

Continuing along the north aisle, I didn't notice any changes to the various styles of the windows described above and, after taking further note of the grey to orange colours in the sandstone, I entered the church by the south porch and went to look for a church guide. 

 

A view along the north elevation