Church Heritage Record 646651

Rectangular nave of three bays, raised on burial vaults, with west porch and bell-cote; chancel with (liturgical) south vestry.

Nave 35 ½ ft x 24ft (11m x 7.5m) Chancel 24ft x 17 ½ ft (7.5m x 5.5m)

Though the church was built on a new site, the existence of several Roman sites in the area and the proximity of the Roman road indicates the possibility of earlier archaeological remains of this and other periods.

The church building was probably by Sir Thomas Robinson, apparently begun in about 1761, under way when the estate was advertised for sale in 1765, but not completed and consecrated until 1776, when the architect was John Carr of York. 

Surprisingly for such a plain building, there were several later phases of work. In 1834 the church was repaired, and in 1855 it was reseated and the new altar rails were set up. A stone font was provided in 1862. The chancel and vestry were added in 1877 to designs by F.R.N. Haswell, builder William Briscombe of York, carpenter Mr Rookledge of York. In 1887 the plaster ceiling was removed and two windows were opened in the east wall, the monuments which had filled the former blind recesses were placed on brackets alongside.

Rokeby church is a good example of a modest but well-proportioned classical building of the mid eighteenth-century to which was added a hundred years later a chancel to designs by a local architect which show an unusual respect for the style and scale of the original building.

a small rectangle of stone characterised by a pedimented roof and plain block modillions at the cornice. The lower parts of the walls, up to a plain stringcourse, are of smooth ashlar, and the upper parts are of squared rubble. The west wall has a blind round-arched recess at each side of the porch. The porch itself is entirely of ashlar, with a moulded pediment which echoes the form of the body of the building and a round arches opening (originally without a door) with patera at each side of the arch. The moulded impost blocks of the arch return along the sides of the porch to the wall of the church , and it is approached by a flight of seven stone steps. Within the main pediment is a plain recessed circle, and over the pediment stands a pedimented bell-cote of stone with a round arch for one bell. The cross which surmounts it is a Victorian addition, replacing a weathervane. The side walls of the church each have three equal round-headed windows, very plain. The roof is slated.

Haswell’s chancel shows unusual sympathy for the building to which it formed an extension. It is narrower and lower than the original church, but the line of the plinth and the stringcourse continues round the vestry on the south side and the pitch of the roof is identical to that of the nave. The style is slightly richer than the original, with stringcourses at sill and springing levels of the windows and a more elaborate moulding at the eaves and round the east pediment, where the roundel is glazed. The east wall has three equal windows grouped together, and at the foot of the wall, which is unexpected tall because of the fall of the ground, is a doorway opening to a passage which runs straight under the chancel to the entrance of the burial vault under the nave. The north wall has three narrower windows, more widely spaced than those in the east wall.

The south vestry has a pedimented roof at right angles to the chancel. In the east and south walls are single arched windows with a stringcourse at sill and springing level, the latter continuing the line of the sill level stringcourse of the chancel. The vestry doorway is in the west wall and entrance to a former boiler house below the vestry is in the east wall, where there are also two small round arched windows.

The interior is approached through the small west porch which, like that at Glynde, has a plaster groin vault. The outer door is later. The windowless side walls are stone faced and light now only comes from the fanlight above the outer door. There are small wooden benches at each side. The inner doorway has a stone surround in the form of a rectangle with a moulded cornice at springing level of the round arch above the door and a larger moulded cornice along the top. The two-leaved door, with eight panels on each leaf, the upper four fielded and the lower four flush, is original, with old bolts and latch.

The nave is floored with stone flags at one level throughout and has plastered and whitened walls. The middle windows on each side have larger splayed rere-arches than the outer pairs of windows, which have straight jambs and arches, though all the window openings are the same size. The outer lights in the south side were opened in place of recesses in 1887, when the monuments from the recessed were replaced on the wall alongside. The open timber roof of 1887 has tie-beams with kingposts and modest carved bosses below each kingpost. The broad semi-circular chancel arch belongs to Haswell’s chancel, with an outer order broken only by a moulding at the impost and an inner order carried on paired consoles.

The chancel floor is paved with plain coloured tiles arranged diagonally in a reticulated patter, and is raised in three stone steps above the level of the nave floor. There is a stringcourse at sill level of the windows, but otherwise the walls are whitened like those in the nave. The stone window surrounds are left exposed. There is one step at the rails and another within the sanctuary. The floor tiles within the sanctuary are decorated with crosses. The roof is of three bays of similar profile to that in the nave, but somewhat more elaborate, with polygonal tie-beams and kingposts and console brackets. A round arch on the south, similar in size to the chancel arch, frames the organ and opens into the vestry, which has a floor at lower level.