Church Heritage Record 643040

West belcote, 3-bay nave and north aisle, chancel and vestry.

Nave 12m (37ft) by 5m (15’6ft).

The present church was probably founded by the early 12th century.  The north aisle was added in the early 13th century, but later demolished and the arcade walled up.  A picture kept within the church shows a very similar building in the early 19th-century, without the aisle of course, and much overgrown.  The church was restored, re-roofed, the north aisle rebuilt and the belcote erected by Paley and Austin in 1878-80. The porch was added in the early 20th century.

The surrounding area centred around West Heslerton is an archaeological site of national importance, with earthworks and underground remains of a substantial Romano-British and Saxon proto-urban settlement. The large-scale excavations here have changed our perception of the late Roman and early Saxon period.  There are also substantial medieval and post-medieval remains, including the nationally important site of Wharram Percy, and of course the other medieval churches in the area.

This is a compact, homogenous and attractive church in the Decorated Gothic style.  The chancel and nave are under one steeply pitched roof, and a little more vertical emphasis is given by the gabled belcote, with double round-arched openings. The church sits on a double-chamfered plinth and has coped gables, and belcote and chancel gable crosses. 

The west end has thick diagonal buttresses of two weatherings, the south-western has two mass dials carved ajacent to it.  The west nave wall is pierced by a 2-light Perpendicular window beneath a pointed hood-mould with a headstop to the right, the second head-stop has been reset at the apex. The west wall of the north aisle has a square-headed 2-light with a label, of the same type as the north wall windows.

The south porch is an open timber construction on dwarf side walls. The late 12th-century inner doorway has a chevron-moulded round arch on slender shafts, with a stiff-leaf capital to the right and a scalloped capital to the left.

The substantially medieval nave wall is pierced beyond the south porch in the west bay by a restored 3-light window with Decorated tracery (these windows all have quatrefoils in the heads), separated from the two restored chancel 2-lights in the same style by a buttress of three weatherings.  A small low-side pointed lancet survives just to the east of the buttress.

The north aisle wall is pierced by two square-headed windows with labels, respectively a 2-light and a 3-light, with a further 2-light of the same type in the chancel north wall beyond a buttress.  One wonders if these were transferred from the nave north wall when the arcade was re-opened in 1880.  The medieval foundations of the aisle can still clearly be seen. The chancel east end has angle buttresses of three weatherings flanking a 3-light window with Decorated tracery beneath a pointed hood-mould with head-stops.  There is also a small quatrefoil opening high in the gable.

Looking west, the early 13th-century arcade has pointed double-chamfered arches carried on cylindrical piers with head-stopped capitals.   The north wall contains fragments of 12th-century carved stones, including a grave slab with a cross and sword in relief.  A pointed arch partly blocked by a late 19th-century wooden screen demarcates the vestry at the east end of the north aisle; there is an altar in front of this. The church is still fully pewed.  The nave and aisle floors are laid with quarry tiles. The nave roof has a cruck construction with tie-beams resting on simple stone corbels.

The chancel arch is pointed and chamfered, and dies into the walls.  In the embrasure of the low-side chancel window is a transparent box containing a finely carved corbel head or head-stop of the 13th century.   Set within a restored arched niche in the chancel north wall is a 14th-century recumbent effigy of a priest, the head defaced, on a tomb chest with a row of 5 quatrefoils each enclosing a rose.  There is a small 14th-century piscina in the opposite corner. The chancel furnishings are simple but attractive, lit by a combination of clear and stained glass windows.  The floor has fine encaustic tiles by Craven Dunmill, and rises to the altar by three single steps.  The chancel roof is of the waggon type, taken down to plain corbels.