St. Peter's Church in Kirkthorpe - Part 2

 

The spiral staircase in the tower

After a quick look at the exterior of the Church of St. James the Apostle in Kirkthorpe, where I had been most interested in the generally poor durability of the sandstone and its unusual soft sediment deformation structures, I went inside and introduced myself to the members of its congregation who were welcoming visitors to their Heritage Open Days event. 

 

A view of the nave and arcade

 

My first task, as usual, was to make a general photographic record of the principal elements of the church, of which only the presumably C14 arcade is referred to in my copy of the reprinted 1967 edition of Pevsner and essentially repeated by Historic England (HE) in its listing description. 

 

An edited description in Pevsner - The West Riding

 

I took a few photos of the arcade, including the quatrefoil section, clustered colonnettes with moulded capitals and fleurons, but I didn’t spend any time examining them closely and continued through the wide shallow pointed arch to the chancel. 

 

A detail of a complex capital with fleurons

 

I have got used to the rather brief and haphazard descriptions offered by Pevsner and, on this occasion, it seems that the HE fieldwork officer hasn’t made much of an effort to undertake any further research on the architectural details and there is no mention of the chancel and the decorated panels with ogee arches and finials, which are placed either side of the reredos. 

 

The chancel

The east end of the church, according to the church guide, was extended by 3 yards in the 1850’s, but I didn’t see anything obvious in the masonry of the arcade between the chancel and north chapel, which might record this. 

 

The arcade between the chancel and north chapel

 

The headstop above the column to the central bay looks very weathered and is quite crude compared to the obviously Victorian headstop on the western respond and is presumably original, with the latter being a later replacement, but again I didn't closely examine any of the masonry at the east end of the church. 

 

A weathered headstop

 

The walls of the nave and north aisle contain numerous C18 marble wall monuments, which obscure much of the stonework and I just took a few record photos of these without looking at their details and will briefly describe these in my next post. 

 

A view along the nave from the chancel

 

From the chancel, I took a couple of photos along the nave and walked down to the west end, where the font is placed in the centre of the nave in front of a screen that hides the organ. This simple cup shaped font has a 1718 date carved in raised numerals and, according to the church guide is made from Caen stone from Normandy - probably best known for its use at the White Tower at the Tower of London and for the cathedrals at Canterbury and Rochester. 

 

The font

 

During my visit, I had a good talk with one of the churchwardens about the arcade and various other features, as well as having another look at the condition of the external stonework with him, and I didn’t explore the details of the church as well as I would have done if I was by myself. 

 

An account of the history in the church guide

 

When sitting down to write this Blog post, 18 months after my visit, I was interested to read in the church guide about its Saxon origins and Norman and mediaeval history, but I was very surprised by Peter Ryder’s description in Medieval Churches of West Yorkshire: “The three western bays of the nave seem to be of 12th century date (some areas of typically ‘Norman’ masonry survive, along with part of the rear arch of the original south door”, as I didn’t notice any of this. 

 

Anorther view of the spiral staircase in the tower

Having plenty of time before the next hourly No. 189 bus to Wakefield, I took advantage of the opportunity to go up to the top of the roof of the tower, as I had done previously at All Saints church in Aston and St. Peter and St. Paul’s church in Barnby Dun. 

 

The ladder to the belfry

After walking up the spiral staircase to the ringing room, while holding on tightly to the rope that substitutes for a hand rail, I was a bit surprised to see that there was a long ladder up to the belfry, which I duly ascended; however, I was completely unprepared for the final leg up to the roof, which entailed a scramble through the bell frame. 

 

A view of the bell frame

I wasn’t very happy about doing this but, having got so far up the tower, I could hardly turn back and so I gritted my teeth and carefully followed instructions, before exiting onto the roof via a loft hatch and then encountering a castellated parapet that appeared far too low for my liking. 

 

The stone slate roof to the tower

 

Even though I have been on very many scaffolds while working in the building restoration industry, I have never been very comfortable at heights and, as I did when on the roof of All Saints church, my first instinct was to look for the flagpole to cling to; however, finding only a steep stone slate roof, I declined the invitation to walk around the roof along the lead gutter, took a few quick snaps and retraced my steps to the bottom of the tower, where I was offered a much needed cup of tea.

 

Views from the roof of the tower