Church Of St John The Baptist

POLLINGTON BALNE MOOR ROAD SE 61 NW (south side) 8/19 Church of St John the Baptist 14.2.67 (formerly listed as Church of St John) GV II Parish church. 1853-54 by William Butterfield for William Henry Dawnay, seventh Viscount Downe. Built by Charles Ward of Lincoln. Restorations of 1887 included new vestry, organ and screen. Red brick in English bond with sandstone ashlar dressings. Welsh slate roof, wooden shingles to spire. Gothic Revival style. 5-bay aisled nave with west tower, north porch, south chimney with later boiler-house extension, single-bay chancel with vestry adjoining north side. South aisle: 2 pointed 2-light traceried windows with single narrow square-headed window, tall projecting buttressed stack with iron straps to upper corniced shaft. North aisle: 2 twin pointed 2-light traceried windows. West end has 3 large buttresses with a pair of pointed 2-light traceried windows between, the central buttress rising to a moulded ashlar corbel bearing quatrefoiled relief panel and string course, supporting a short, partly-projecting bell turret with sill string course to wooden-framed belfry with single pointed arches to each face, short spire and wrought-iron weathercock. Chancel: small square-headed single-light south window, pointed 3-light traceried east window; twin east lancets and pointed 2-light traceried north window to vestry. All windows have geometric tracery with pointed trefoiled lights and pierced trefoils or quatrefoils. Tall gabled porch has open timber-framed entrance with pair of C20 doors in recessed pointed arch beneath tie-beam and series of stepped trefoiled arches; pair of inner doors with strap hinges in pointed chamfered arch, roof with arch-braced collars. Continuous steeply-pitched roof to nave, aisles and chancel; exposed rafter-ends throughout. Interior. Nave open to chancel. 3-bay nave arcades of pointed chamfered arches on cylindrical piers and responds, continued with similar narrower single north and south openings to chancel. Segmental-pointed recess (former fireplace) to north aisle. Trefoiled piscina with pierced cinquefoil. Dentilled brick cornice below wall-plate; 9 -bay collared rafter roof with arch braces and king posts; panelled wooden font cover. Octagonal ashlar font on carved pedestal with trefoiled and quatrefoiled panels to bowl. Octagonal wooden pulpit. Red and black Minton tiles to nave and chancel; red, black and yellow tiles to sanctuary, some bearing Downe crest or monogram. Contemporary with the neighbouring vicarage and school (qv), and with similar groups at nearby Hensall (North Yorkshire) and Cowick (qv). Pollington church is the only one of the 3 to retain its dramatic chimney. N Pevsner, The Buildings of England: Yorkshire, The West Riding, 1959, p 89. P Thompson, William Butterfield, 1971, p 105. J Killeen, A Short History of Cowick Hall, 1967, p 27-29. R Dixon and S Muthesius, Victorian Architecture, 1978, p 49 and p 208. Photographs in NMR.

Listing NGR: SE6110619219