St. Peter's Churchyard in Woolley

 

A detail of the grave slab of William Sykes (d.1742)

Except for my better appreciation of the physical characteristics of the Woolley Edge Rock, my visit to St. Peter’s church proved to be a bit of a disappointment – because I was unable to have a look at its interior, which the Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture of Britain and Ireland records as containing a resited tympanum and a shaft.

 

A squeeze stile

Shrugging my shoulders, I then went to find the Grade II Listed cross base and the grave slabs and chest tombs in the graveyard, which I had first entered through a squeeze stile – a structure that I had never encountered before and had to talk with a dog walking resident, before using it. 

 

The cross base

 

On my travels I have seen very many of the cross bases like this, which Historic England (HE) describes as probably being mediaeval, but this square section stump embedded in a round base does not have any interesting features and I only took a single record photograph. 

 

The tombs of George Wildsmith and George Stringer

 

The pair of raised grave slabs are memorials to George Wildsmith (d.1724) and George Stringer (d.1723). Both have channelled borders and finely-carved semicircular-arched heads, with the Wildsmith memorial having winged-head spandrels and a carved heart motif, although the details are not easy to see because of the dense growth of lichens.

 

The tombs of Susanna and Anne Fretwell

Another pair of raised slabs commemorate the wives of Robert Fretwell, Susanna (d.1707) and Anne (d.1714). Again the detailing of these is obscured by lichens, but the slab to the right has a carved circular motif with floral border surmounted by trumpeting angel.

 

The chest tombs with pitched roofs

 

A pair of chest-tombs that caught the attention of Pevsner are described by him as “two shrine-like tomb-chests with pitched roofs. What date can they be?”, to which HE adds that they are of uncertain date and possibly pre-Norman.

 

A close up view of a chest tomb with a pitched roof

The criteria for listing table tombs and grave slabs does take into account the architectural style, sculpted designs and inscriptions; however, very often it seems that they are primarily listed if the person commemorated has local significance.

 

Various unlisted chest tombs

 

This would explain the listing of memorials that appear to my eye to have very little merit from a design point of view or other features that set them apart and, on the other hand, those that I think are noteworthy but are not listed – such as the grave slab of another George Stringer (d.1826). 

 

A detail of the grave slab of George Stringer

 

Continuing my quick wander around the churchyard, I kept my eyes open for more examples of fine calligraphy and letter cutting on C18 grave slabs, including that of George Prince of Woolley (d.1764), which has strange looking winged creatures that look more like modern depictions of supposed aliens than angels. 

 

A detail of the grave slab of George Prince

Another interesting C18 memorial is the footstone of the grave of Henry Broomhead (d.1733), a feature that I first recall seeing amongst the many Grade II Listed gravestones at All Saint’s churchyard in Darton and then at All Saint’s churchyard in Wingerworth. 

 

The footstone of Henry Broomhead

 

I briefly finished my very brief walk around St. Peter’s churchyard by taking a couple of record photographs of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Portland stone headstones of Private A. Green and Corporal C. Langfield, who both served in the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry.

 

The headstones of Private A. Green and Corporal C. Langfield

St. Peter's Church in Woolley

 

A view of St. Peter's church from the south-east

Starting my day out to Woolley by alighting from the No. 59 bus at the Barnsley Road/George Lane stop at approximately 11:54 am, after photographing 19 listed buildings and other structures as part of a British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge, it took me exactly an hour to walk to the Grade I Listed St. Peter’s church.

 

The tower

 

Having looked online and found that its Google Map listing showed that it would be open, in the absence of such information on the church or related websites, I was very disappointed to discover that it was actually closed.

 

The interior of the porch

Looking at the notices in the porch, I had hoped to find details of a keyholder but found no information there and, having seen a window open and a car parked outside, I went to the vicarage next door where, much to my great surprise, I was greeted by the Bishop of Beverley.

 

Woolley Edge Rock in the porch

Having explained that I had made a special effort to visit the church, which involved travel by two buses a train, I thought that he might have tried calling Reverend Kevin Greaves, who doesn’t actually live in the village, to ask for the whereabouts of a key, but he didn’t seem at all interested and so I just returned to the church to have another look at the interior of the porch.

The south door

 

During previous visits to Wakefield Cathedral and the Chantry Chapel of St. Mary in Wakefield and St. Helen’s church and Sandal Castle in Sandal Magna, I noticed that the coarse grained sandstone had a very distinctive striped appearance, caused by differentially weathered iron rich beds with a purplish colour.

A detail of the surround to the south door

 

In this area, the geological memoir for Wakefield (1940) records that the Woolley Edge Rock was a very important building stone in the region, with a reference to its use for the restoration of the cathedral. As a 'geological detective', I have had to deduce that it was sandstone from this rock formation that I had seen in these buildings – based on my own observations of its physical characteristics, compared to very many others that I had by now seen on my travels.

 

A detail of striping in the Woolley Edge Rock

Having had a good look at the Woolley Edge Rock in the porch, I had a quick walk around the exterior of the church. Pevsner’s description of the exterior is limited to “Perp throughout” and Peter Ryder, in Medieval Churches of West Yorkshire, says that the only architectural features to survive from earlier periods are all reset in later walls. The rest is the result of the late C15 and early C16 remodelling, carried out in various phases and a restoration c.1870 by Ewan Christian.

 

A detail of the south wall of the porch

The masonry to the outer south face of the porch displays thin planar beds and more massive sandstone with cross-bedding, which are both deeply scoured in places and, as seen elsewhere in the Woolley Edge Rock, the thin iron rich beds are differentially weathered.

 

Millennium sculptures by Charles Gurrey

 

I was very surprised to see two interesting pieces of modern sculpture designed by Charles Gurrey on the porch, one an upside down cross and the other a relief sculpture set into a niche, which depicts three fish. Part of a Millennium project in 2000, these are both symbols of Saint Peter, who was crucified upside down and known as the fisher of men.

 

A crocketted pinnacle on the chancel

 
For a C15 church, typically flamboyant Perpendicular Gothic style elements are few and far between, with a castellated parapet, crocketted pinnacles and modest gargoyles to the tower. On the east wall of the chancel, quite unusually, there is a pair of crocketted pinnacles that have a very large diameter compared to their height.

Views of the south and north elevations

 

Without getting close to the masonry, I took a set of general record photographs of the south and north elevations, but I did notice that a section of walling below the chancel window that has been restored using precisely squared blocks with a tooled finish. Although lacking the yellow/orange colouration of the original stonework, these show thin purplish stripes, which is similar to that seen in the historic buildings mentioned above.

Restored masonry in the east wall of the chancel

Historic Architecture in Woolley – Part 2

 

The gatepiers at The Old Court House

Continuing along New Road in Woolley, to photograph its historic architecture as part of another British Listed Buildings Photo Challenge, my next stop was Oak Villa, a mid to late C18 house that is Grade II Listed for its group value and which I only photographed from a distance.

 

Oak Villa

 

The Grade II Listed gatepiers to the walled garden of Woolley Hall was next on my list, which provides another example of the massive Woolley Edge Rock, with very pronounced iron staining and differentially weathered cross-bedding. 

 

Gatepiers to the walled garden at Woolley Hall

I then walked down Woolley Park Gardens to find the early C19 Grade II listed water cistern cover, which has a hexagonal plan with Gothick 2-centred-arched recessed panels to each side and a cornice, with a pyramidal and a ball finial. 

 

The water cistern cover

 

The area once occupied by the walled garden is now largely developed with substantial modern houses in spacious grounds and, with the lack of post office, shops, public houses or a school in Woolley necessitating multiple car ownership, the village has quite an affluent feel to it.

 

Views of The Old Court House

 

Approaching the Old Court House, there is no clue to its actual age, which Historic England describes as ‘fragmentary remains of a C16 century timber framed building encased in stone during the mid C17 and refenestrated in the mid C18 and further altered in the mid C20’. 

 

A gatepier to the Old Court House

 

The gatepiers to the Old Court House are separately listed, also Grade II, but I was more interested in the red brick house that has been built next to it, which appears to be one of the complex of buildings here that appear on the 1854 Ordnance Survey map. 

 

The brick building next to the Old Court House

 

In an area where there is an abundance of quarries in the Woolley Edge Rock, with sandstone used to build all of the other houses that I had seen in the village, it is surprising that brick has been used; however, the same map shows a brick field at the crossroads on New Road and Barnsley Road, which shows that there must have been a demand for brick in the area. 

 

The Old Vicarage

 

On the other side of New Road is the Old Vicarage, which dates back to the late C17, with a new entrance created to the west c.1810 and since converted into two houses. I could only get glimpses over the garden hedge and at the entrance and, after taking a couple of photos, walked along High Street to photograph the late C18 Coach House and the former Sunday School (c.1796), which was built for Godfrey Wentworth of Woolley Hall. 

 

The Coach House and Sunday School

 

Again, these are set in gardens with mature trees and hedges that prevented me from getting a good view of them and, just taking general photographs to record the fabric and stone slate roofs, I retraced my steps and headed up The Green. 

 

Nos. 1 and 2 The Green

 

Nos. 1 and 2 The Green (c.1718) was originally founded as a school by William Wentworth and, before being converted to houses, it was used as a village institute. It is built in the same vernacular materials as seen throughout the village and its most notable features are the multiple mullioned windows to No. 1, which was the former school room. 

 

The former Woolley Church of England School

 

The former Woolley Church of England School (1842), sited on the opposite side of the road, is now the village hall and is built with tooled sandstone walling, rusticated quoins and a Welsh slate roof. An inscribed plaque reads "This school for Girls and Infants was built by Subscription A.D. MDCCCXLII Jesus saith feed my lambs. John XXI.15". 

 

Views of Nos. 5-11 The Court Yard

 

Making my way back down to High Street and crossing over the road, the next building on my Photo Challenge was Nos. 5-11 The Court Yard, a late C18 U-shaped farm building that has been converted to multiple residential use. 

 

The barn at Beech Farm

 

The late C18 barn at Beech Farm was just a short distance further along High Street and, with this being set at right angles to the road and now converted to residential use, I just took a few photos from a distance before carrying on along the road. 

 

Woolley war memorial

At the corner of Molly Hurst Lane and Church Street, I stopped briefly to photograph the unlisted Woolley war memorial, which is in the form of a cross with an octagonal shaft and a bronze Sword of Sacrifice on its front face.

 

Inscribed panels on Woolley war memorial

 

The steps and plinth are made of concrete but the cross and inscribed panels are made of medium grained sandstone, which is quite likely to be Stancliffe Darley Dale stone – a sandstone from the Ashover Grit in Derbyshire, which was favoured for war memorials in this region.  From here, I continued down Church Street and passed by The Vicarage, where I noted that someone was at home should I need to obtain a key to get into St. Peter's church.

 

The Vicarage

 

Historic Architecture in Woolley – Part 1

 

The sheep dip on New Road

Alighting from the No. 59 bus at the Barnsley Road stop, at the start of my exploration of Woolley, I walked down to the crossroads and headed east along New Road where, after a few hundred metres, I came to a section of the field boundary wall where the lowest courses are weathered to reveal a very iron rich sandstone. 

 

A boundary wall on New Road

Looking more closely, the rusty brown beds that have a concentration of iron oxides/hydroxides are differentially weathered to give a banded appearance, which highlights both the plane bedding and cross-bedding in this sandstone. 

 

A specimen of sandstone from the boundary wall

 

In one place, some of the stones had become dislodged and I collected a sample, which is coarse grained, with iron rich differentially weathered beds - as seen on a larger scale in the boundary wall - but there is no obvious graded bedding. 

 

 A view of the Building Stones of England Database map explorer

 

Looking at the Building Stones of England Database map explorer, the area around Woolley is underlain by the Woolley Edge Rock, with several quarries marked on the prominent escarpment overlooking the M1 motorway to the west of the village. 

 

The gates and lodges to Woolley Hall

 

A little further down the road, I stopped to photograph the pair of early C19 Grade II Listed lodges and gatepiers at the entrance to Woolley Hall, but these were largely overgrown by ivy  and blackened and I didn't look closely at the stonework. 

 

A distant view of the buildings at the Home Farm

 

Continuing along New Road, I passed the private road to the former Home Farm at Woolley Hall which, from initial research using Goole Map Street View, I knew would stop me from getting access to a cluster of listed buildings there; however, a little further on, I got a distant view of parts of these and was able to take photos of the early C19 No. 1 Home Farm Yard and Home Farm Cottage using the zoom lens on my Panasonic Lumix TZ100 camera.

 

No. 1 Home Farm Yard and Home Farm Cottage

 

Arriving at Woolley, I had to look twice before I realised that the houses on Old Mount Farm are part of a recent development, where the use of reclaimed sandstone and stone slates for the roof - presumably a requirement of it being built within the Woolley Conservation Area - fit in with the character of the rest of the village. 

 

Views of the Old Mount Farm development

 

At the bend in the road is a sheep dip that once served all of the farms in the village, which probably dates from the C18 but, although a short section is marked on the Ordnance Survey map, the stream was not flowing at the time of my visit. 

 

The sheep wash

 

I have only once encountered a sheep pen adjoining Sheepwash Bridge on the River Wye at Ashford-in-the-Water in the Peak District National Park, which is very simple. The arrangement of the sheep dip here, which is also registered as a Scheduled Monument, is much more complex and includes a sunken trough and drainage channels. 

 

The sheep pen

On the opposite side of the road, the three storied Grade II Listed Mount Farmhouse (1719) provides an imposing entrance to the old village, with its double-pile plan and 3-bay symmetrical facade built in sandstone ashlar.

 

The south elevation of Mount Farmhouse

Due to the narrowness of the street, its position behind the high boundary wall and overhanging trees, it wasn’t easy to get a good view of its principal elevation, which is presumably architect designed and intended to reflect the status of the owner. 

 

Mount Farmhouse

 

The gatepiers and the flanking boundary walls are also Grade II Listed and are quite ornate, with Historic England describing them as “Pilastered piers each have base, cyma-moulded foot and cornice surmounted by heavy casement cornice with obelisk finials. Carved consoles to outer sides on square base level with chamfered coping of walls. Simple pair of cast-iron gates with dogbars with alternate arrowheads”. 

 

The gatepiers and boundary wall at Mount Farmhouse

 

Crossing back over New Road, Orchard Cottage comprises an early C18 cottage, which has been partly converted to a stable, to which has been added another cottage in the C19. I didn’t look closely at the masonry, but it is evidently iron rich and displays the differentially weathered cross-bedding that is a feature of the Woolley Edge Rock.

 

Orchard Cottage