Entering the porch of St. Michael’s church, having had a brief look at the various phases of construction of its exterior and making a particular note of the poor condition of the masonry that formed part of the 1874 restoration, there was just less than an hour before I had to catch the No. 203 bus back to Doncaster.
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| The south door |
I immediately set about taking a systematic photographic record of the principal architectural elements, starting with the south aisle and south arcade. The walls to these and all of the other C19 masonry have been rendered and the columns appear to have been limewashed.
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| A view east along the south aisle |
Except to note the very unusual development of a golden brown hue in places, which I had seen in the patina that is a feature of the external stonework of the same age, I paid very little attention to their details and just took a few general photos of the arcade.
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| The south arcade |
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| The west arch of the north arcade |
Getting closer to the west arch of the arcade, which has been inserted into the C11 wall, the responds are semi-circular with square abaci and date to the late C12 but the arch itself is part of the work undertaken during the 1874 restoration.
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| The north arcade |
The two eastern arches in the arcade are considered by Pevsner to be slightly later than the western arch, probably early C13 and he draws attention to the octagonal column, which has an octagonal capital that he considers to be a hybrid of scalloped and waterleaf designs.
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| The capital to the column of the north arcade |
Set against the wall of the north aisle, there are three square section columns of stone that are positioned between and to either side of the square headed windows, which I presume to be some kind of buttress that provide support to the wall and relate to the remedy of structural problems associated with coal mining subsidence, which were addressed from 1997 to 2003 by the renowned church architect Ronald Sims.
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| The west wall of the nave |
The west end of the nave has a very thick wall, the east (internal) face of which Ryder describes as having a “confusion of joints, different masonry types and repairs due to recent damage, creating a picture almost impossible to interpret”.
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| Peter Ryder's drawing of the west wall of the nave |
Ryder obviously spent a considerable amount of time surveying the exterior and interior of St. Michael’s church and taking measurements of the various features and his drawing quite clearly indicates the changes in masonry that are far too many to describe in my Language of Stone Blog.
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| Herringbone masonry in the west wall of the nave |
I just took a few close up photos of some of the details of the walling, particularly the sections of herringbone masonry which has probably been used by Ryder as evidence of his C11 date and an Anglo-Saxon/Norman overlap style. As noted on the exterior of the tower, the dolomitic limestone is a yellow sandy variety of the Cadeby Formation but I didn’t examine it closely.
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| A view of the font in the tower |
The entrance to the tower was blocked by a heavy bench and I didn’t get the opportunity to have a look at the west face of the original tower, which was originally on the exterior but Ryder says has been rendered. I therefore couldn’t get a good look at the font or see the mediaeval grave slabs.
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| Pevsner's description of St. Michael's church |
When first developing an interest in mediaeval churches, when living in Sheffield, I relied on my 1974 reprint of The Buildings of England Yorkshire West Riding by Sir Nikolaus Pevsner; however, since starting my investigation of mediaeval churches at St. Helen's church in Treeton in 2016, I have often found his descriptions somewhat enigmatic and quite random in nature and he makes no mention of a possible C11 date of the church.
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| The chancel arch |
Making my way back down the nave to the chancel arch, Pevsner omits to mention that on the south side of the current arch, thought to date to the C15, a remnant of the jamb of the C12 arch has a square impost and four voussoirs.
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| A detail of the south side of the chancel arch |
On the north side of the chancel arch, there are further remnants of the earlier chancel arch and, although the impost has been cut back at a later date, more voussoirs can be seen. For the C12 details, the Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture of Britain and Ireland (CRSBI) is the best reference source that I have found and this often discusses aspects of The Romanesque elements that Pevsner and partcularly HE, with its very sterile descriptions, rarely address.
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| The north side of the chancel arch |
Moving into the chancel, as with the south aisle and the south arcade, white painted plaster is the product of the 1874 restoration and the columns and arches to both of the north and south chapels are part of this work, although Ryder’s floor plan shows that the chancel still possesses C11 masonry, including the round headed window in its north wall, which the CRSBI describes.  |
| Views of the chancel |
Although the painted and rendered elements of the interior were not of great interest, mainly because they are mainly C19 in date but also because the oldest masonry to the chancel is obscured, the west end, north arcade and north aisle deserved more time than I had on the day - to fully appreciate the archaeological aspects of the fabric.
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| The reset window in the north aisle |
Looking at the church guide – which was the last of the print run published in 2003 – there are various ledger stones, brasses and other monuments that I didn’t get to see and I look forward to an opportunity to visit again in the not too distant future..
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| The St. Michael's church guide |
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