Church Heritage Record 643130

5-bay nave with north porch and west belcote, 2-bay chancel with shallow north porch and south vestry.

Nave 12m (42ft) by 6.5m (21ft).

The church is late 12th-century in origin, rebuilt by J B and W Atkinson in 1865, whereby the ground plan would appear to have been maintained.  The north doorway is in situ, the south doorway has been built into the porch in front of it; other parts of the original building, for example the corbel table, have also been reused.  The church is filled with an eclectic collection of post-Reformation furniture, collected by Robert Denison (from whom Admiral Dunscombe, the builder of the present house bought the estate in 1841) during his travels in London and Europe in the early 19th century.

The church, churchyard and the surrounding area to the south and east comprise an important archaeological site dating from the Early-Late Medieval period, including the deserted medieval village of Kilnwick Percy, abandoned in the 18th century. 

This is a compact and attractive church, restored in an ornate Norman style, whereby the reused original elements indicate that the church may originally have been almost equally ornate. The north porch doorway in particular is of a degree of invention which makes it of considerable importance for the student of the development of Yorkshire Romanesque, if this term can be used. Before one enters and is impressed by the furnishings, it is important to appreciate the church building itself, and its carefully crafted setting as a set-piece within the landscaped grounds of the hall.

The church is nicely proportioned, the gabled double belcote corbelled out from the west wall, not too big or tall to overpower the building but serving to give it a little vertical emphasis and announce it to the visitor on their approach. It has a wheel cross finial, similar now probably missing from the porch and chancel gables. The west front underneath is pierced by a central round window with chevron and a hoodmould with stops above two round-headed windows with nook-shafts, scallop capitals, and chevron ornament around the head. The church stands on a chamfered plinth. There are short central and clasping buttresses of two weatherings. The gables have stone copings throughout.

The nave walls are pierced in each bay except the north-west by round-headed windows as described above, with buttresses of two weatherings to each bay. The nave corbel table incorporates original corbels carved into beast and human heads (filled out by copies), reminiscent of the more famous example at nearby Garton-on-the-Wolds St Michael. 

The chancel has two round-headed windows with nook-shafts and roll-moulding to the heads in the south wall, and one such window and a similar round-headed priest’s door in a shallow projecting porch with a corbelled-in roof in the north.  The east window is a stepped 3-light with round arch heads in the same style, and a small round window in the gable head with chevron round the frame.

The interior is whitewashed, blistering and flaking in many places, especially at the east end, the chancel plaster being grooved to resemble ashlar. The nave roof is arch-braced with collars, the members enriched with chevron carving and taken down to carved stone corbels with nailhead. The mostly restored chancel arch is of two orders, the inner order supported on raised colonettes on corbels. The chancel has a waggon roof. The floors are of quarry tiles, with encaustic tiles in geometric patterns in the chancel.

The nave is tightly packed with bench pews, mostly plain but the eastern pair with carved figures to the ends, and carved front panels with caryatids, sunbursts and the date 1633. A cut together reading desk, a chair, the pulpit, the choir stalls, the communion rails, the altar table and the dado are composed of or embellished with carvings of the 17th (mostly) and 18th centuries, much of it Flemish, and of good to excellent quality and art historical significance. Various classical motifs and biblical scenes are depicted.  An interesting added idiosynchracy is the fact that where there was not enough to go around, carvings were copied in cast iron, notably two of the figures supporting the communion rails and the dado frieze.