Church Heritage Record id18525

Nave with north and south aisle, tower over part of south aisle, north vestry, chancel with north chantry chapel.

Nave 27ft 6in by 16ft 

Aisles each 8ft wide

Chancel 18ft by 11ft 

Chantry chapel 20ft 6in by 18ft .

The church was mentioned in Domesday Book. The west wall shows some Saxon work and there are two Norman windows and a Norman doorway in the south aisle. The arcades are thirteenth - century, the west window of c. 1310. The chantry chapel north of the chancel dates from soon after the death of Archbishop Rokeby in 1521. The tower was shortened and finished with a pyramidal tiled cap in 1935 , E.H. Walker and M. Thompson being the architects and William Anelay of York builders . Previously it had a parapet and pinnacles and Y - traceried bell - openings , all apparently of 1828. The church was restored in 1864 by J.M. Teale, Anelay of York builders, at a cost of £291.

The body of the church is small and compact and of rather unusual massing as a result of the tower rising from the slope of the south aisle roof directly above the porch. The two - light south aisle window close by on the right, with a trefoil as tracery, is entirely of 1864 but said to be an accurate copy of what was there before. The east wall of the aisle has a small Norman light , and this goes with the south doorway within the porch, with one order of shafts carrying moulded capitals and an arch with two slight chamfers and with the west window of the aisle, which is also a small Norman light. Quoins in the east and west walls of the nave, however, show that the substance of the nave is older still. The west nave window is of c.1310, of three lights with intersecting tracery, and there are bands of herringbone masonry in the wall which suggest Saxon origins for the building. The north aisle is separated by a buttress on a moulded plinth, much more sophisticated and Perpendicular in style. The masonry is ashlar and the window has two lights with four - centred heads and recessed spandrels but no label, the corner is a diagonal buttress ahd beyond this lies the vestry, linking the church visually with the brick cottage to the north - west.

The exterior of the chancel is relatively insignificant, with a three - light square - headed east window and two smaller square - headed windows in the south wall and a simple parapet with moulded edge. The chantry chapel on the north is much more dominant, extending further east and altogether on a larger scale. It is, moreover, ashlar faced rather than rubble built, and was evidently intended to impress. The east facade has a wide five - light window (blocked since the eighteenth century but still with its original stanchions and saddlebars in places and fragments of old glass embedded in the mortar of the tracery lights). The base of the wall stands over a heavily moulded plinth and there are substantial angle buttresses which formerly rose above the embattled parapet into pinnacles, but these have long been missing. In the space between the head of the window and the parapetted gable is a carved shield of arms of a Bishop, doubtless that of Archbishop Rokeby under whose will the chapel was erected (he died in 1521). Above this is an empty statue niche in the centre of the parapet. The north wall of the chapel is of two bays, each with a four - light window with panel tracery and moulded label, and the design of the plinth and buttresses is continued from the east wall. The lower moulding of the parapet has small carved florets at intervals .

The stonework of the interior walls is left exposed, and the scale of the building is quite small. The south porch leads into the narrow south aisle under the tower, which is supported on massive oak beams, and thence under the south arcade into the nave. The arcades are of two bays with semi - circular responds and round arches carried mid - way on octagonal piers with square bases and capitals. The arches are quite undecorated, even by chamfers. Some disturbance of the masonry above the arches of the north arcade suggests that there may once have been a clerestory, but all trace of this has vanished. The roof is nineteenth century and of simple scissor - braced design. Otherwise there is little to say of the nave, save that the windows stand within plain reveals, the later windows with simple mouldings (for example in the north aisle) at the shoulders and there is a piscina with a round arch and square drain in the south aisle. The chancel arch is of two chamfered orders and is now filled by a timber screen. This was formerly across the arch between the chancel and the Rokeby chapel, and another screen of similar date and style still closes the eastern arch of the north aisle which opens into the chapel. The chancel is small, again with unplastered walls, and with a floor paved with stone slabs and tiles one step lower than the nave. The east window and two south windows are all filled with relatively modern stained glass and choir stalls have been removed to make more space. A piscina with square drain and aumbry seem to have been entirely renewed in 1938 .
The chantry chapel built shortly after 1521 is without doubt the most refined part of the building, and is approached from the north aisle or chancel through arches with mouldings which carry through rudimentary moulded capitals to the floor, The north wall is arcaded below the windows, with cusped heads to the blind orches, and the scheme is interrupted under the eastern of the two windows by Archbishop Rokeby's tomb chest under a canopy. The east window has long been blocked by a monument commemorating a death in 1699. The organ has now been removed to another church and the improvement to the appearance of the chapel is considerable. The floor is mostly made up of ledger slabs and the roof, which seems basically to be contemporary, with foliage carving at the inter sections of the moulded beams and a prudent central boss , may have been somewhat restored. It is difficult to tell without closer inspection, but the colour of the timber seems rather fresh - this might be the result only of rather energetic restoration . Each side of the east window are damaged niches for images with carved canopies sheared off flush with the wall.