St. Helen's Church in Burghwallis III

 

Weathered dolomite limestone crosses in the porch

When writing my previous posts that briefly describe an unexpected visit to St. Helen’s church in Burghwallis, I essentially relied on 63 photographs that I took in the 13 minutes that I had spent walking around its exterior and the report by Peter Ryder in the publication Saxon Churches in South Yorkshire, which Historic England have relied on for their listing description.

 

A view of the nave

 

Having just visited the Church of St. Mary Magdalene as part of Church Explorers Week, which also has a very interesting construction history, I immediately knew that I would also have to visit this church again in the not too distant future but, when Colin the churchwarden showed me the interior, I have to say that I was a bit disappointed to discover that all of the stonework is plastered. 

 

The reredos

Nevertheless, I was very interested to see that the reredos (1888) is made with dark brown veined alabaster, which is most likely to be from the village of Tutbury in Staffordshire and not Chellaston in Derbyshire, another former centre of alabaster production, which produced the white and very light brown veined variety until it ran out. 

 

The church guide

Realising that there wasn’t that much of interest to this Language of Stone Blog, I picked up the standard Heritage Inspired produced church guide, which informed me that the reredos, which was installed in memory of Anne Marie Peel who died in 1869, was originally plain alabaster but the figures were painted in the 1960’s. 

 

Flooring with grave slabs in the nave

 

The nave is paved with yellowish dolomitic limestone from the Cadeby Formation and, in the central aisle, large grave slabs that could be sandstone are set into the floor, but I didn’t inspect them closely and just took a photo from which I can make out a date of 1660 on the inscription. 

 

The grave slab of Thomas Gascoigne

According to Ryder, St. Helen’s church has a good collection of mediaeval cross slabs, with many other fragments set into steps, window sills and the general fabric, but I only noticed the slab with a brass figure in armour that is thought to be Thomas Gascoigne (d.1554). 

 

A view east along the nave

 

Being very conscious that Colin had plans to go to Campsall, I just took a few record photographs of the nave and I didn’t investigate the details of the pointed arches to the chancel and tower, which are partally obscured by the rood screen and gallery respectively. 

 

A view west along the nave

 

Pevsner refers to the rood screen in some detail but, as with many descriptions of other churches, his entry for St. Helen’s church is quite haphazard and doesn’t note many of its interesting features, including the font. Ryder thinks that the bowl may be C12, with the octagonal shaft being a C14/C15 alteration and the lower part of the shaft looking like it is Victorian. 

 

The font

 

Opening the south door and going into the porch, Colin showed me two old crosses that once stood on the apexes of the gables to the nave and chancel, which were salvaged when they were replaced during recent essential restoration to the church. 

 

A weathered cross in the porch

 

Burghwallis is set a long way from the Lower Don Valley, where the old steelworks were responsible for sulphurous atmospheric pollution, but these crosses show that although dolomitic limestone used for plain masonry is quite durable, the increased surface area of intricately carved masonry makes the stone susceptible to weathering by frost action. 

 

A weathered cross in the porch

 

The dolomitisation of the original limestone deposits that form the Cadeby Formation resulted in a reduction of its volume by approximately 12.4%, with the shrinkage leaving small crystal lined vughs and cracks (vents) that are not sealed with calcite and are open to penetration by moisture. 

 

The jambs to the south door

In his reference to the nave, Ryder considers that the south door is the only original opening in the walls of the original Saxon nave and that the “plain square-section jambs cut straight through the walls” is an indication of this. 

 

Peter Ryder's description of the south door

He goes on to describe the details of the position of rebates, alterations towards the end of the mediaeval period and the presence of red sandstone in the imposts and voussoirs of the original Saxon doorway, but I only took a few record photos and didn’t inspect these. 

 

A detail of the south door

After having a conversation with Colin about the financing of repairs to the mediaeval churches in the Diocese of Sheffield and thanking him for opening the church for me at short notice, I then went to have a closer look at the stonework of the tower. 

 

The west elevation of the tower

Looking from the ground up the west elevation, thinly bedded dolomitic limestone from the Brotherton Formation is used for the walls and massive limestone from the Cadeby Formation for the quoins, window dressings and for the Perpendicular Gothic style parapet and pinnacles. 

 

A grotesque on the parapet of the west elevation of the tower

The narrow round headed windows of the first stage are said by Ryder to be of a conventionally C12 type, but he considers the belfry openings to be a puzzling feature in that their general form is pre-Conquest, yet the pointed arches are of a C13 Early English Gothic style. 

 

Windows in the belfry stage of the tower

 

As when quickly looking at the chancel and the nave, where a considerable amount of sandstone in various shades of red have been used for the base course and square plinth, quoins and in the herringbone and roughly squared and coursed masonry, I was most interested in the considerable proportion of moderately large sandstone blocks that are used in the tower.

Red and dark plum coloured sandstone in the tower

St. Helen’s Church in Burghwallis II

 

The east end of St. Helen's church

Continuing my brief look at the exterior of St. Helen's church in Burghwallis, the east end of the south chancel wall is built with squared and coursed blocks that are obviously very different to the west end of the south chancel wall. It has very large well formed quoins made of yellowish limestone from the Cadeby Formation, which has been used for the well squared and coursed masonry on the east end of the chancel. 

 

The east end of the chancel

 

I didn't notice this at the time, as I was just taking a few general photos while waiting for Colin the churchwarden to finish his work but, in Saxon Churches in South Yorkshire, Peter Ryder draws attention to disturbance and patterns of the masonry beneath the east window that suggests that this is actually an insertion of a window into earlier masonry. 

 

The east wall of the chancel

He goes on to explain that drawings from the 1883 restoration show that the nave and chancel roofs were raised and their pitch steepened and, to maintain the proportions of the east end of the chancel, the window was dismantled and reset at a higher level. Looking closely at my photos, variations in the patterns and jointing of stonework can be clearly seen, which includes the used of red sandstone in the gable end. 

 

The east end of the north wall of the chancel

Moving round to the north elevation, the east end of the chancel is built with a mixture of rubble and roughly squared and coursed red sandstone and dolomitic limestone walling, which contains several large well square yellowish blocks of limestone. It also contains a small oculus window with a square surround made of dark red/purple sandstone, which has been reset with its former inner face to the exterior and Ryder describes as a pre-Conquest form. 

 

The vestry door

 

The north vestry, which Historic England (HE) describe as C19, has a doorway that is surrounded by very precisely squared limestone ashlar that mostly still retains very sharp profiles an except for a few large blocks to the jambs, which show advanced deteriotation and some of which have been recently replaced.

 

The vestry

In contrast, the east wall of the vestry is built with a mixture of yellowish limestone blocks with a good proportion of red sandstone blocks, which are quite well squared and coursed but are highly weathered and they would not look out of place in the eastern extension to the chancel. 

 

The north elevation of the vestry

On the north elevation of the porch, the masonry is much more regularly squared and coursed, but there is the same mix of weathered yellowish limestone and red sandstone, with well formed quoins, and may well be the C19 reuse of old stonework. HE describes the window as dating to the C15/C16, which has been reused; however, the ripple marks, which also apparent to a lesser degree in the restored windows of the nave and chancel on the south elevation, suggest to my eye that the stone used could be Ancaster limestone, which was often used by Victorian architects for their restorations. 

 

The north elevation of the nave

The lowest section of the north elevation of the nave is built with herringbone masonry, but the stonework above consists entirely of limestone rubble walling, which contains no red sandstone and is unlike any of the walling seen in the south walls of the nave and chancel. Ryder considers this to be a rebuilt part of the wall and the blocked doorway, which is partly obscured by a buttress, may relate to this but no date is assigned to it. 

 

The west end of the north wall of the nave

 

The C19 window is identical to those on the south wall of the chancel which, according to Ryder, replaced broad simple arched windows that had no tracery and, although he makes no reference to the architects involved in the 1864 and 1883 restorations, the local historian Margaret Burns says that the earlier restoration was supervised by John Loughborough Pearson – a Gothic Revival architect that was often criciticised by SPAB (The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings) for not respecting the mediaeval fabric of many churches that he worked on. 

 

The first stage of the north elevation of the tower

Continuing to the tower, I noted that this is built with thinly bedded limestone from the Brotherton Formation, which also includes a significant amount of substantial blocks of red sandstone and an oculus window identical to the one seen at the east end of the chancel. 

 

The upper stages of the west elevation of the tower

Before I had the time to take a close look at the tower, which HE describes as C13, the Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture of Britain and Ireland refers to as Norman and Ryder considers to have pre-Conquest and Early English Gothic features, Colin arrived to show me around the interior.

 

The belfry stage of the tower

St. Helen’s Church in Burghwallis I

 

The south elevation of St. Helen's church

The Church of St. Mary Magdalene in Campsall, with its complex construction history and its extensive in situ and reset Romanesque sculpture, is one of the most interesting that I have visited since I first began my investigation of mediaeval churches in Treeton back in February 2016. 

 

The lychgate

 

Having been dropped off at the lychgate of the Grade I Listed St. Helen’s church in Burghwallis by Chris Ellis, the organiser of Church Explorers Week, I entered the churchyard and went to look for Colin the churchwarden, who was doing some gardening. 

 

Saxon Churches in South Yorkshire

 

After introducing myself, I left him to finish off the work he was doing and went to have a very quick look at the exterior of the church, which is one of seven described by Peter Ryder in Saxon Churches in South Yorkshire and is best known for its extensive herringbone masonry. 

 

The south elevation of the nave and the porch

 

Historic England (HE) dates the church as “C10-C11 and C12 with C14-C16 alterations; restored 1864 and 1883” and, standing back to take a general record photograph of its south elevation, I could clearly see distinct variations in the patterns and colours of the masonry in the tower, porch, nave and chancel – including a considerable proportion of red sandstone. 

 

A close up view of the south elevation of the nave

Moving closer, the nave and the west end of the chancel is built mainly with herringbone masonry that comprises thin bedded limestone from the Brotherton Formation, with red sandstone sporadically used in the herringbone stonework, as normally bedded courses and for quoins. 

 

The geology around Burghwallis

 

A couple of blocks of massive squared yellowish limestone from the Cadeby Formation, which outcrops a short distance away to the north-west, have been used in walling in the east end of the nave, for most of the quoins to the east end of the nave, the dressings of the 3-light Perpendicular Gothic style square headed window and as large ashlar blocks in the porch, which HE date to the late C14 or early C15. 

 

The porch

The renewed C13 lancet window is made of massive limestone that has a buff/pink colour and is quite unlike the cream coloured or yellowish dolomitic limestone from the Cadeby Formation, but I did not examine it closely with my hand lens or test it with hydrochloric acid, which would confirm that it might be Jurassic oolitic limestone – as I have often seen used to restore the dressings of mediaeval churches built with dolomitic limestone in Doncaster. 

 

The base of the wall to the nave

 

Red sandstone has been used for the base of the wall of the nave and the plain square plinth and, although the latter is in places buried beneath the turf, it apparently continues into the west end of the chancel to a buttress that hides the joint in the masonry, which Ryder considers to certainly be pre-Conquest or overlap date to the west and of the late C14 to early C15 extension to the east. 

 

The floor plan of St. Helen's church

 

The west end of the chancel is composed of both herringbone and squared and coursed and masonry and Ryder refers to three of the red sandstone blocks as being shaped to the re-entrant angle of the east wall of the nave. 

 

The re-entrant angle of the nave and chancel

 

The central section of the chancel wall is also built with herringbone masonry, with coursed and squared stonework beneath the eaves, but the windows are in the late C13 to early C14 Decorated Gothic style and look like they have had much of the tracery replaced; however, Ryder states that a plan of the church in 1864 shows these to have been originally broad arches without tracery.

 

The central section of the south wall of the chancel

 

The extended east end of the chancel is built with well squared and coursed limestone, with an occasional use of red sandstone and very large quoins. The east window is also in the Decorated Gothic style with identical tracery, but it is shorter and it replaced a square headed window during one of the C19 restorations of the church - the first of which in 1864 was supervised by John Loughborough Pearson, according to the account by the local historian Margaret Burns.

 

The east end of the south elevation of the chancel

 

St. Mary Magdalene Campsall VI

 

The capital to the south transept arch

Continuing my walk around the interior of the Church of St. Mary Magdalene, having photographed the principal architectural elements and had a good look at the Romanesque features of the arches to the transepts, I took a general photo of the east end of the nave without taking much notice of the details of the chancel arch. 

 

The chancel arch

 

Pevsner doesn’t mention this, Historic England (HE) describes it as “restored and with semicircular respond to north and keeled respond to south, 4-centred arch of 2 roll-moulded orders” and the Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland (CRSBI) are quite non-committal. 

 

The CRSBI description of the chancel arch

Once inside the chancel, where the light contrast between the east window and the surrounding walls seemed to be a problem for my otherwise quite reliable Panasonic Lumix TZ100 camera, I didn’t examine any of the patterns in the masonry and just took a few record photos of a few features that caught my eye. 

 

The chancel

 

The sedilia with pointed trefoiled heads in the south wall is dated by Pevsner to c.1300, which fits in with a major phase of alterations to the chancel and the construction of the west end of the south aisle, and HE describe it as being renewed. 

 

The sedilia on the south side of the chancel

 

Set into the floor are ledger stones commemorating John Cooke Yarborough (d.1836), his son Edward (d.1812) and Emily Sarah (d.1841), the wife of George Cooke Yarborough, who all lived at the now demolished Campsmount. They are made of of a dark grey stone, which may be Carboniferous Limestone that has largely lost its original polished surface, a stone that I have seen used in several other ledgers, although I didn’t closely inspect it. 

 

Stone ledgers commemorating members of the Yarborough family

 

On the north wall of the chancel is a large white Carrara marble wall monument to Thomas Yarborough (d.1772) and his family, which was carved by the renowned sculptor John Flaxman in 1803 and is described by Pevsner as “Grecian relief of the family present at the death of a geron”. 

 

The Yarborough family wall memorial

Immediately to the west of this is a C12 window that has shafts with scalloped capitals, which I seen from the exterior and just took a single record photo, which I had to adjust in Photoshop and again highlighted the technical deficiency of my camera compared to my previous Canon Powershot G16 and G7XII cameras, when taking photographs of windows in a church interior. 

 

The C12 window in the chancel

 

Moving back to the north aisle, a dolomitic limestone mediaeval grave slab is set into the tiled floor, which HE describes as being inscribed with a sword to right of a cross on a calvary base, but this is not mentioned by Pevsner or the church guide. 

 

The grave slab in the north aisle

A little further to the west along the north aisle, a pointed arched niche is set into the wall and in this is laid a large thick, moulded yellow dolomitic limestone slab, which is weathered to the extent that no details can be made out and no mention is made of this. 

 

A large moulded slab occupying a niche in the north aisle

 

Returning to the crossing, preparations were being made for the Summer Serenade in the evening, featuring the Hatfield and Askern Colliery Band, I didn’t spend any more time to look at any of the features mentioned in the Lady Chapel, except the C15 font, and continued to the south aisle. 

 

The font in the Lady Chapel

 

In the wall of the aisle, which is built with distinctly yellow limestone from the Cadeby Formation, I noted numerous reset fragments of C12 masonry – 29 according to the CRSBI - which Pevsner suggests are derived from the arch from the south aisle arch. 

 

Views of reset stones in the south aisle wall

 

The CRSBI go on to say that they believe that the range of patterns, which includes those of arches with two orders, indicate that they may be from other arches in more prominent positions and therefore more highly decorated. Furthermore, they suggest that the fragments, which were once scattered in the churchyard, were placed in the wall during the restoration of the 1870’s. 

 

A capital fixed to the west end of the nave

 

At the west end of the nave, a scalloped capital is fixed by a bracket on the wall and this was selected for an exhibition at the Hayward Gallery in London. It was originally found in the priest's chamber, which occupies the second floor of the C.1300 addition to the west end of the south aisle. The CRSBI describes the decoration in some detail and states that George Zarnecki had assigned a date of c.1089 to this. 

 

The tower arch

 

After photographing the tall round C12 tower arch, which has no decoration and plain imposts, I noticed the beakheads on the sill of the west window of the north aisle, which were originally part of a corbel table that was dismantled during the rebuilding of the Norman church.

 

Beakheads in the north aisle

 

On the window sill of the west window of the south aisle, there are more examples of salvaged loose sculpture and these may be some of those that the CRSBI found piled up in the fireplace in the priest’s chamber and lying in the north transept, when they undertook their survey in 2005. 

 

Salvaged sculpted masonry in the south aisle

 

Having by now visited well over 100 mediaeval churches in South Yorkshire and the surrounding counties, where Romanesque sculptural details such as these are often the architectural highlight, it would be nice to see these in a well designed showcase or even as a temporary exhibition at DANUM, where a C12 window head from St. Wilfrid’s church in Hickleton is on permanent display. 

 

A view of the baptistry and C14 font from the tower

 

In the baptistry at the west end of the south aisle, there is another font that dates to the C14, but the highlight is the vaulted ceiling (c.1300) above which is the priest’s chamber, but I don’t think that this was accessible at the time.

 

The vaulted ceiling in the baptistry

 

Having had a quick walk around the church, I then had a good chat with members of BarnSCAN, the local history group and the churchwarden who, when I said that I had been wanting to visit St. Helen’s church in Burghwallis for some time, said that their churchwarden would be doing some work in the churchyard and he would open up the church for me. 

 

The arch from the south aisle to the baptistry

 

It had been my intention to catch the No. 51 bus to Burghwallis and have a look at the exterior of this Anglo-Saxon church, before undertaking a British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge for  the village, so this was an added bonus to what had already been a great day out – especially since the organiser of Church Explorers Week, Chris Ellis, kindly offered to give me a lift.

A view west along the nave