All Saints Church in Batley

 

All Saints church in Batley

To conclude my day out to Batley and Birstall, which included an exploration of the warehouses on Station Road, the public buildings in the Market Place Conservation Area, St. Peter’s church and Batley Cemetery, I had a quick look at the exterior of All Saints church in Batley. 

 

The south-west entrance to the churchyard

 

The architect Walter Hanstock, in partnership with both Michael Sheard and his son Arthur Walter Hanstock, designed very many of these buildings and it is therefore quite fitting that he was responsible for the restoration (1872-3) of this Grade I listed mediaeval church, which Historic England (HE) dates to the C13, but most of the fabric was built c.1485. 

 

My first view of All saints church

Entering the churchyard at the south-west corner, I was immediately struck by the large numbers of the trees growing in the immediate vicinity of the church, which threw much of the fabric into the shade and made it difficult to obtain photographs of the entire structure. 

 

A view of the west end of the church

 

Once inside the churchyard, I obtained a much better view of the west end, especially the tower, with its corbelled, machiolated and castellated parapet with tall square pinnacles – and it reminded me very much of the tower at St. Peter’s church in Birstall. Pevsner describes it as being a “corbelled-out parapet of the Leeds region”, but provides no other examples. 

A view of the west elevation of the tower

When travelling around Barnsley to look at their mediaeval churches, I discovered that All Saints church in Darton was one of five sister churches that had ties with the Cluniac Monk Bretton Priory and were built with a very similar design. 

 

A view of the north elevation of the tower

 

In Medieval Churches of West Yorkshire, Peter Ryder also draws attention to several churches that have virtually identical towers, which suggests that the same master mason may have been responsible for the design of these. 

 

The north aisle

 

Continuing along the north aisle, Ryder describes the rebuilding in the Perpendicular Gothic style as having taken place in the half century either side of 1500 - adding that the church “escaped the Victorian era very lightly; most of the windows still have their 16th or 17th century plain square-headed or round-arched lights”. Pevsner just describes them as “All windows Perp, and most of them straight-headed”. 

 

Pevsner's description of All Saints church

 

I noted that large blocks of a yellowish cross-bedded sandstone with orange variation has been used for the walling and the infill of the north door, which is very probably Birstall Rock, but the C20 vestry is built with a different sandstone that I didn't look at closely. 

 

The C20 vestry

Moving round the east end of the church, the canopies of the mature trees again made it difficult to obtain a good photograph and I didn’t get close enough to have a good look at the stonework or photograph the details. 

 

A view along the south elevation

 

The south aisle has the same style of windows as the north aisle, which are all square headed but with some of these having round arched lights, but I just took a few general photos without examining the details. 

 

A view of the porch and south elevation

 

All around the church, large slabs are used for paving, which includes many inscribed grave slabs, and to the east of the porch there are a few raised slabs and a Grade II listed recumbent effigy, which HE describes as a robed figure with hands together on the chest and probably C13. 

The effigy to the east of the porch

Having note that a car was parked outside the church, I was hoping that I might have an opportunity to look in the interior, but I couldn’t see any lights on and, after photographing some of the inscribed grave slabs, I made my way to the entrance on Branch Road and headed back to the railway station - stopping at the Union Rooms on the way to have a well earned pint.

 

Grave slabs in the churchyard