Church Heritage Record 643030

Chancel (apsidal), 5-bay nave, western narthex porch, north-east vestry, south west baptistery, and north tower.

Nave 23m (70ft) by 12m (37ft).

This church is apparently the third to have occupied this site, the previous building having been a modest 19th-century chapel of ease, probably built c 1855.  Norman corbels from the earliest church are reportedly built into the belfry stage.

The area around East and West Heslerton is an archaeological site of national importance, with fieldworks and underground remains of a substantial Romano-British and Saxon proto-urban settlement.  The large-scale excavations here of the 1980’s and 90’s have changed our perception of the late Roman and early Saxon period.   There are plainly visible earthworks in the fields to the south and to the east of the church, probably Saxon, early medieval and post-medieval in date, including a moated enclosure directly adjacent.

The present building was designed in 1873 by G E Street for Sir Tatton Sykes of Sledmere House, who also renovated another 13 churches in the local area.  Building work was completed in 1877.  The original drawings are still held at the R I B A.  It was the most expensive church designed by Street in the area, and the only one where he was able to design a church from beginning to end. 

The church is in the Transitional style, with lancet windows throughout and a definite slightly exotic Italian feel. The most striking feature is the huge tower which rises from a square base with angle buttresses of two steep weatherings, into the octagonal broached spire reaching to a height of some 105 feet, with a weather cock on its pinnacle. 

The tower is of two stages, with angle buttresses of two weatherings to the top of the second stage.  The lower stage has windows of three stepped lancets in the north and west walls, with a pointed doorway beneath the latter, and a small sexfoil just above the vestry roof gable (see below). Across the top of the square base are three equally sized small lancets in each face, sandwiched between string courses. 

The octagonal belfry stage above has tall louvred belfry openings with continuous mouldings around the pointed heads, between which are statues of the four fathers of the Latin Church, St. Ambrose, St Augustine, St Gregory, and St Jerome. These are by James Redfern and were originally intended for the north porch of Bristol Cathedral. They caused a furore because the Dean considered them too papist, and Street rescued them and installed them here.

The walls of the main body of the church are pierced by simple pointed lancets, with six around the apse of the chancel, and three each in the nave walls.  The chancel, which is considerably higher than the nave, has slim buttresses of one steep weathering to each bay and larger ones with gablets at the west end. 

The vestry, which is attached to the chancel but has its own separate gabled roof with a massive chimney rising to the height of the chancel roof, has an east window composed of five stepped lancets.

The west gable above the steeply sloping narthex/porch roof is pierced by five stepped lancets.  The finial cross was recently restored after it blew off on Christmas eve 1997. The church has certainly had its share of inclement weather (it was raining hard during the visit); the east end cross was restored by Redman and sons of Cloughton in 1984, and the weather vane blew off in 1964 and was finally restored in 1992, by Sherburn Forge.

The porch (known as the “Howsham porch”) at the west end of the church is supported by two granite piers on dwarf walls flanking the steps up to the porch, with heavy italianate floriate capitals.  A round-arched doorway with sedilia with granite shafts, plain moulded capitals and chevron mouldings around the pointed head gives access to the nave, flanked by recessed lancets.  

the protruding south-west baptistery with tunnel-vaulted roof is to the immediate south of the western door, a sexfoil (as with all the windows, with very deep reveals) lighting the font behind a fine wrought iron gated screen.  The encaustic tiled floor is particularly elaborate here.

The nave has fine oak pews set into an oak boarded floor; the entire rest of the church floor is made up of encaustic tiles of high quality. The four western bays of the nave have a waggon roof, the eastern bay cross-vaulted in timber.  The windows have shafts with floriate capitals, as in the chancel (see below).

Moving down the nave, the tall pointed tower arch of two orders (inner order carried on shafts with moulded capitals, the outer roll-moulded) opens off to the north, with the door to the Vestry to the right; above this is a beautiful carving of the Annunciation, possibly also by Redman.  The tower space has a fine stone ribbed roof.  The organ case now partly blocks the view of this and of the fine stained glass in the north and, particularly, west window.

Two steps lead up to the chancel from the nave through a low stone wall with fine wrought iron gated screen. The choir stalls and clergy desk beyond are also original and of oak. The sanctuary is one step higher, with three more to the altar, above which is a polyptych (see below).  Double sedilia with granite shafts, plain moulded capitals and chevron mouldings around the arches, piscina.  The sexpartite stone-ribbed vaulted roof is carried on granite rere-shafts with, again, floriate capitals.