Church Heritage Record 643132

Nave with south aisle, porch, chancel and vestry.

The site has very high archaeological potential, as part of a medieval village with considerable Roman remains in the area

The site is heavily buried to the S, N and W of the church.

Little information survives regarding the history of the small village of Scrayingham. There is local evidence of very early inhabitation from the Bronze Age, although not in Scrayingham itself. Pocklington was the regional capital of the Parisi tribe during the Iron Age and the Wolds, just to the north, contain considerable archaeological remains from the Neolithic period onwards. The Roman settlement at Ebor, York, stimulated the development of the area from the end of the first century AD. The area became a centre of iron and pottery manufacturing.

From the late C8 the area was subject to Viking raids and later settlements, and there are considerable archaeological survivals in the Wolds and elsewhere of early-Anglo Saxon items, both Christian and Pagan. The village was surveyed at Domesday, when it was called Escraingham and a township of Pocklington.

The area was a local centre for wool trading during the later Middle Ages, perhaps generating the income that paid for the church’s north door. But there is little surviving evidence of medieval settlements in Scrayingham. Through the early modern period, the Wolds was a hedgeless and treeless countryside, given over, largely, to sheep. Enclosure intensified but both arable and pastoral farming continued.

There are mature trees and bushes within the churchyard. No known preservation orders.

The church consists of nave, south aisle, chancel and vestry. The nave has a bellcote with two bells at the west end, above a tall lancet with a trefoil, of the 1850s, but set in a Saxon wall. The west wall has a single buttress to the south.

The north wall is Saxon, with two, very small blocked windows with segmental arches. It is constructed in limestone ashlar of very high quality. It has two buttresses and three Victorian windows. There  is a blocked north door, probably C14, opposite the main entrance to the south.

The aisle is of the 1850s, with angle buttresses, a plinth, and four traceried windows, roughly of a late-C13 style, with trefoils set in circular frames above two trefoiled lights. The window embrasures have shallow arched heads. The porch is set on low stone walls but others of open timber work in the gothic style, with steeply pitched roof and trefoil arched openings. The external stonework appears to be using medieval stones, with a brick core (visible from the interior).

The chancel has two south windows, one of two lights, the other of one, in keeping with those of the chancel, but set in apertures with two-centred arches and with labels. There is a south doorway. The chancel has a gable end, with a large west window of three trefoiled lights, with roughly Geometrical tracery – a central circle containing a quatrefoil, with trefoils to either side. It has a diagonal buttress to the south and a second to the north, in line with the east wall. Scratch dial to south wall.

The Victorian vestry has a trefoil window to the east and a north door.

The south arcade of the 1850s is of four bays, with large drum piers and very plain capitals, probably C13 in style. The capitals have been decorated. It has four windows, as described above, each of two lights with late-C13 style tracery, and stained glass, described below. The aisle has a simple, timber lean –to roof.

The nave has a large west lancet window and three Victorian windows to the north. The large Victorian roof has tie and collar beams, connected by diagonal struts, each cusped, as well as a purlin, ridge beam, and wind braces. The panels between the minor rafters have been plastered. The nave walls have been plastered and paints, and the flooring includes timber and stone flags.

The chancel is also plastered and painted, with timber floors, and chancel and sanctuary steps. The east and south windows have been described above, and contain stained glass. It has a timber, scissor truss roof. Glass partition inserted into Victorian chancel arch.