St. Mary's Church in Whitkirk - Part 1

 

A view of the south elevation of St. Mary's church

When I discovered that St. Mary’s church in Whitkirk would be open for the 2023 Heritage Open Days festival, a quick online search directed me to the Whitkirk Conservation Area Appraisal (CAA), which states that Whitkirk was first mentioned in a charter dated 1154 -1166 as ‘Whitechirche’, but that this Old English name was subsequently amended with the Old Norse word for church, ‘kirkja’. 

 

An extract from the Conservation Area Appraisal

 

As a geologist, I immediately thought that this ‘white church’ may reflect the use of dolomitic limestone from the Permian Cadeby Formation, which outcrops only a few kilometres away to the east, for a Norman church – possible remains of which are still found in the predominantly C15 fabric, according to the CAA. 

 

A view from the north side of Selby Road

 

However, very shortly after alighting from the bus, even from the north side of Selby Road, I could clearly see that St. Mary’s church is built with sandstone that has blackened over the years. As I soon discovered when photographing the historic architecture in the Conservation Area, brick is the predominant building material in Whitkirk and, except for the remains of the stable and arch to the south of No. 5 Colton Road, sandstone has only been used for quoins, dressings and for roofs. 

 

The Building Stone Heritage of Leeds

When first starting out as a co-owner of Triton Building Restoration Ltd. back in 1989, I attended a Donovan Purcell Memorial Lecture by Francis G. Dimes, which sparked my interest in identifying and matching building stones and, in recent years, I used The Building Stone Heritage of Leeds, written with Murray Mitchell, to prepare a walk in Leeds with the Sheffield U3A Geology Group.

 

Quarries shown on the Building Stone Database for England map explorer

 

From this and experience of visiting Kirkstall Abbey, St. John’s church in Adel, Roundhay Park twice and Pudsey over the last 10 years and to undertake British Listed Buildings Photo Challenges in Morley, Headingley and the City and Hunslet Ward, which will be described here in the near future, I have seen many examples of the principal building stones used in Leeds – the coarse grained and often pebbly Rough Rock from the Millstone Grit Group and the Thornhill Rock and the Elland Flags from the Lower and Middle Coal Measures respectively. 

 

A view of the south elevation

 

Looking at the south elevation from a distance, I could see that the sandstone used for St. Mary’s church has very noticeable iron staining that gives it distinct yellow/orange colouration, which is a characteristic that I have not seen in any of the sandstones mentioned above. 

 

A detail of the Rough Rock used to rebuild the chancel

 

In contrast, the sandstone used for the chancel is quite grey in colour and, getting much nearer, I could see that it is very coarse grained and large quartz pebbles up to 10 mm in diameter are quite common. The chancel was rebuilt by the architect, G.F. Bodley, whose work I had previously seen at All Saints church in Cawthorne and St. Wilfred’s church in Hickleton. 

 

The east end of the chancel

I only looked closely at the east window of the chancel, where the traceried panel with shield has developed a patina that reminds me of the one I had seen on Bath stone in sheltered positions on very many buildings in London, when working in the building restoration industry. 

 

Jurassic limestone used for panels to the east window of the chancel

 

I have seen Bath stone used in the Crookes Cemetery Chapel and possibly for other Victorian buildings in Sheffield, but the Jurassic limestone usually seen in the north of England is from the Lincolnshire Limestone Formation, particularly Ancaster limestone, but looking at my high resolution photo of a detail of the window surround, I can see a very high proportion of quite large shell fragments – a feature that I can’t recall seeing in Ancaster limestone.

 

A detail of shelly limestone in a window surround

 

Walking anti-clockwise around the church, although the church guide mentions that the 1855-56 restoration replaced windows that were not of a consistent design, but which is not mentioned by Pevsner, Historic England or Ryder, it looks like the whole church was built in a single phase that, depending on the source, was from the early to mid C15. 

 

A view of the north elevation and tower

 

I didn’t notice any obvious variations in the pattern of masonry or the use of any other different sandstones and I just took a set of general photographs, which record the styles of the windows and doors in the aisles, clerestory and tower. 

 

Views of the colours and textures seen in the fabric

 

The sandstone used for the C15 fabric is fine to medium grained, cross-bedded and grey to light brown in colour, but with concentrations of iron that frequently stain the stone orange and this is often developed as Liesegang rings. These general physical characteristics are more typical of minor unnamed sandstones than thicker and laterally extensive Coal Measures formations, where the colour and texture is usually much more consistent. 

 

Differential weathering

The sandstone also has quite pronounced graded bedding in places, with the finer silty beds being differentially weathered and which has resulted in quite poor durability and subsequent inappropriate repair with sand and cement and the replacement of several blocks but, except for the use of a much lighter coloured sandstone with iron bands on the south aisle, I didn’t take much notice of the type of sandstone that has been used for restoration. 

 

Sandstone used to restore weathered ashlar blocks

 

The sculptural decoration of the church has been kept to a bare minimum and although, quite unusually, the obelisk pinnacles to the tower are carved with geometrical patterns that I have not seen before, there are no gargoyles. 

 

Headstops on the west elevation of the tower

 

On the west elevation of the tower, however both the window and the door are adorned with crude headstops, with those on the latter being quite heavily weathered. Moving round to the porch, the weathered headstops here are also very unusual in that instead of depicting the king and queen at the time of its construction, they appear to be winged figures holding a shield. 

 

Headstops on the porch