Church Heritage Record 630154

West tower, 3-bay aisled nave, chancel with north vestry, north and south porches.

Nave 15.5m (50ft) by 9m (28ft), chancel 13m (42 ft) long.

The church has a long and complex history, which would repay a detailed study of the archives and the fabric.  There was almost certainly a church here in the later Anglo-Saxon period; there are carved stones said to date to the 7th century built into the internal north aisle and chancel wall, a cross and fragments of interlace (9th-century?) in the external fabric of the present church, which was built around 1245; the first mention of a church in Wensley is in 1199. The chancel is substantially of this date, but the nave and aisles appear to have been remodelled in the early 14th century, along with the north porch; the south porch was rebuilt in the 15th, the vestry added, and the roofs and the aisles raised, with armorial shields added to the buttresses. 

The tower was substantially rebuilt in 1719, but it may have been part of the 13th-century, certainly the 14th-century church. There appears to have been at least one early 19th-century phase of restoration, for example the introduction of box pews c 1820, but there was no major Victorian restoration; the church today appears externally unchanged from a depiction of 1856 in the Church of England magazine. The chancel was restored in 1905, the nave and aisles in 1926; at some point a boiler room was added on the south side of the tower. In 1969-70 further restoration work was carried out, including on the pulpit, and a new altar was installed at the east end of the south aisle. 

The furnishings and fittings are of Saxon, Medieval (some brought after the Dissolution from Easby Abbey), Jacobean, Carolean and Georgian/Regency date (it must be noted that at times quite widely differing dates have been given for some of these), and represent an extremely important collection, particularly in the light of the recent loss of the Cosin furnishings at Brancepeth St Brandon. 

There are several houses in the village of post-medieval origin and substance, and the fine bridge is of late medieval origin, though rebuilt at the beginning of the 19th century.  The surrounding area is an archaeological and ecological site of regional and national importance.

The slightly raised position of the church on the bank of the river is emphasised by the graceful west tower, with the clear lines and elegant dimensions typical of the early 18th century. It is of three stages, with shallow clasping buttresses to the bottom stage only, flanking a tall narrow west window of two segmental-arched lights. The narrow first stage is pierced by single-light chamfered windows to the ringing chamber in the west and south faces, a matching door giving access to the nave roof on the east face, and a clock on the north face. There are four small lights to the stair turret on the south side. The belfry stage has 2-light louvred openings similar to the west window but simpler, under a plain parapet with small obelisks at the corners. There is also a flagpole and brass cock weathervane.

The west walls of the aisles are pierced by a single-light round-headed window with a double-chamfered surround. The aisles stand on a stepped plinth, and there is a string course at window sill level. The three unequal bays (the western bay is wider) are divided by shallow offset buttresses continued up above the plain parapets to form crocketted ogee niches containing armorial shields, probably added in the 15th century; those in the north aisle have crested tops to copings resting on small decorated corbels. The eastern two bays are pierced by 2-light Y-tracery windows with trefoil-cusped lights within hollow-chamfered surrounds, under hood-moulds with head stops. 

The aisle east windows are of three trefoil-headed lights under a plain hood-mould within a hollow-chamfered surround. The aisles have plain parapets with roll moulding to the coping, above a thin blind strip of walling above the aisle roofs. There are fragments of medieval grave slabs incised with swords and crosses laid against the walls.

The west bay of both aisles is taken up by a porch. The south porch dates to the 15th century. It is gabled, with stepped diagonal buttresses. The pointed doorway has continuous alternate hollow and roll moulding under a hood-mould. A sundial in the gable is dated 1846. There is roll moulding on the coping. Inside there are stone benches, the south doorway has a pointed arch with hollow-chamfered continuous moulding with a hood-mould over. A pointed roof scar is visible above the porch, indicating a 14th-century predecessor; the lead roof slopes up to this scar.

The north porch would seem to be part of the early 14th-century rebuild.  It has a gabled façade with stepped diagonal buttresses, pierced by a pointed doorway with hollow-chamfered continuous mouldings under a hood-mould with weathered headstops.  

The chancel would appear to be substantially of the early 13th century (c 1245). The south façade has two shallow offset buttresses between three double-chamfered lancet windows, the westernmost with a mullion, the middle one over a priest’s door with a pointed chamfered surround.  The east window is a 5-light with trefoil-headed lights and trefoils above the outer lights, basically plate tracery. The church is built into a slight north-south slope down to the river and this is reflected in the string course under the east window, which is stepped down and around the south-east buttress.  The roof has a shallow pitched gable, which has clearly been raised slightly at some point, probably in the 15th century.  There is a cross finial.  The north side has a small low-side lancet to the sanctuary, the rest is taken up by the two-storey vestry, probably of the 15th-century, with a square-headed 2-light window with trefoil cusping to arch-headed lights to each floor.  

Moving inside, the church preserves a strong antique feel, with stone-flagged floors and plastered, creamy-white walls; there is little in the way of Victoriana, rather the furnishings and fittings mostly range in date from the 16th to the early 19th century, representing a fine collection of furniture in particular, though there is much else of interest.  The low-pitched nave and chancel roofs with tie-beams however have been replaced, probably in the early 20th century, while the aisles have plaster ceilings.

Looking west, the tower arch is pointed and double-chamfered, probably of the early 14th-century.  Looking east, it is matched stylistically by the tall double-chamfered 3-bay arcades, carried on octagonal piers with moulded bases and caps. 

The chancel arch is pointed and double-chamfered, therefore also part of the early 14th-century remodelling. Across it is a 15th-century oak screen, with thin traceried divisions. The south chancel windows have deep double chamfers with shafting and bold dog-tooth, the latter a motif repeated in the sedilia of three pointed arches, very fine. Adjacent, and contemporary with these, is a 13th-century piscina with trefoiled head and irregular trefoils in the spandrels, this much restored.