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| A view of the tower |
In my 1967 edition of The Buildings of England - Yorkshire West Riding, Pevsner begins his quite lengthy account of St. Mary’s church in Tickhill with the words: “The proudest parish church in the West Riding, except for those of the big towns.” When quickly photographing its exterior after visiting Tickhill Castle in September 2021, I was very impressed by the height of the aisles and nave, which are part of the extensive rebuilding of the early C13 church during the late C14.
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| A view of the tower from the north aisle |
Entering the church by the north porch, the tall C13 arches from the tower to the nave and the aisles show that this was already a large church and the illustration by Sydney Kitson, reproduced by the Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland (CRSBI), shows that the previous early C12 church was also quite substantial.
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| A view east from the north aisle |
Looking down the north aisle and through the north arcade to the nave and beyond, I was immediately struck by the quality of the lighting inside the church, which is due to the height of the windows in the aisles and clerestory, which has two windows per bay, and also to the window at the east end of the nave.
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| A view east along the nave |
Pevsner further comments on the interior: “Wide arcades of four bays with tall piers of an unusual section. Four semi-octagonal shafts in the main directions, four small hollows in the diagonals. Each arch carries an ogee gable the top of which reaches into the clerestory zone”.
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| The south arcade and clerestory |
Walking down to the east end of the nave and turning to look at the tower arch, an old roofline is clearly visible above it and its apex is offset from the position of the crown of the arch, which is presumably the result of the realignment of the tower and nave.
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| The old roofline above the tower arch |
Continuing into the chancel, its north wall contains a lancet window, which is evidence of the Early English Gothic style that had developed by the early C13. According to the church website, this was originally part of the external wall that was enclosed after the building of St. Helen’s chapel, which was added in the 1340s and replaced a vestry that was accessed by the priest’s door.
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| The north wall of the chancel |
Walking up and down the nave to take a better look at the arcades, I stopped to further look at the various heraldic devices above the chancel arch, including an angel holding the shield with the coat of arms, which the church guide describes as belonging to the Estfeld family and also the Fitzwilliam crest with a supporting hand.
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| Heraldic devices above the chancel arch |
On the arcades, further heraldic devices can be seen on shields that are carved on the base of the spandrels between the arches, which the church guide describe as Fitzwilliam, Merchant’s Monogram and Our Lord, without going into further detail.
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| Details of spandrels with heraldic devices |
The capitals to the late C14 chancel arch and arcades all have octagonal sections, with simple mouldings below and above a central band that is decorated with what Pevsner describes as bossy foliage – leaves, berries and flowers stylised with nail-head to my eye.
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| Various carved capitals |
The bands on the responds to the tower arch, which was remodelled as part of the heightening of the tower, are larger and contain similar floriated decoration and I also noticed that there are also grotesques on both sides of the tower arch.
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| A grotesque |
Being conscious that I still had 14 more buildings to photograph for my Photo Challenge during my exploration of Tickhill, before catching the then hourly No. 22 bus back to Doncaster, I didn’t have the time to look closely at any of these interesting details.
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| A grotesque |
I finished my very brief exploration of the interior of St. Mary’s church by taking a couple of quick snaps of the font, which Pevsner considered to be Perpendicular Gothic (with a footnote suggesting an alternative C19 date), but Historic England makes no reference to it.
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| The font |
When first entering St. Mary’s church, I looked for one of the simple black and white folded A4 pages that have been used throughout South Yorkshire, as part of the Heritage Inspired initiative, but I couldn’t find one.
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| Visitor information at St. Mary's church |
On my way out, I had a good look through the various leaflets etc. that are made available to visitors and was interested to see that there was a comprehensive church guide in an A4 ring binder file. Although the lighting inside the church enabled me to easily take photographs of more than 20 pages that are of interest to me, it would be nice to see a version of this online.
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| An extract from the church guide |
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