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