Church Of St Denys

Church of St Denys, York

Parish church comprising a 14th-century north aisle, 15th-century chancel and south aisle (incorporating a reset mid-12th-century doorway), and 1846-47 alterations including rebuilding of the west end with tower and reconstruction of the north and south arcades. The church was built by Thomas Pickersgill in the 19th century.

The building is constructed of magnesian limestone with tile and pantile roofs spanning three parallel bays with stone-coped gables. The plan consists of a two-bay continuous chancel, aisled nave with south door, west tower and vestry.

The exterior features a triple-gabled east end with offset buttresses and moulded plinths to the chancel and south aisle. The east window contains five lights with renewed panel tracery in a four-centred head, moulded sill string and hoodmould with grotesque mask. The north aisle window displays five lights with curvilinear tracery in a two-centred head and hoodmould, with a blocked round-headed doorway to the south. The south aisle window has four lights with panel tracery in a two-centred head, moulded sill string and hoodmould. The north side is articulated by three-stage buttresses on a moulded plinth, with three-light windows featuring reticulated tracery in two-centred heads, hoodmoulds and continuous moulded sill string. The south side repeats the north side with two windows; the third window was altered to accommodate the reset doorway.

The reset doorway is an 18th-century plank door on strap hinges, faced on the outer side with plain board. The doorway itself is round-arched with five orders featuring moulded imposts and cushion capitals carved with volutes, grotesque masks and scallops. The orders are carved with foliage, beakhead, chevrons, medallions of leaves and flowers, and lozenges enclosing quatrefoil flowers.

The three-stage tower has offset angle buttresses and a projecting south-east octagonal stair. A board door on C-hinges opens to the south in a two-centred double-chamfered opening. The west window contains three lights with curvilinear tracery. The second stage features lancets in double-chamfered openings on the north, south and east faces. The belfry has two-light louvred openings with ogee-headed lights in traceried two-centred heads with hoodmoulds. A moulded string course runs to each stage beneath the embattled parapet. The aisle windows display three lights with cusped reticulated tracery.

The interior contains north and south arcades of hollow-chamfered pointed arches springing from octagonal piers and responds. A tall pointed tower arch is blocked by a ground floor screen beneath the organ loft. The north wall of the north aisle contains a tomb recess in a pointed arch with filleted roll moulding, thought to be a Percy tomb.

Fittings include a reredos of faience incorporating Paternoster, Creed and Commandments panels. An octagonal pulpit with bordered panels was reset on a 19th-century pedestal with a 19th-century handrail. A cast-iron Victorian hatchment on a wood panel hangs on the north aisle west wall. Two boards recording rebuilding in 1798 and 1846-47 are displayed in the vestry, along with a cast-iron safe with Gothic mouldings on its door.

Monuments include a kneeling figure of Dorothy Hughes in the chancel north wall in a round-arched niche surrounded by heraldry and symbolic carvings. The chancel south wall displays an obelisk with tablet and female figure and urn to Robert Welborn Hotham and family, dated circa 1806, by Fisher. The north aisle north wall contains a white plaque on a marble slab to James Melrose (died 1837) by Plows, and a plaque to Rev John Walker, Rector (died 1813), and his wife Ann. Over the south door is a tablet to Dorothy Wilson (died 1717) flanked by Corinthian columns beneath a segmental pediment.

The church retains a considerable quantity of fragmented 13th, 14th and 15th-century stained glass. The nave roof is coffered with moulded beams and bosses, six of which are said to be cast-iron. The south aisle has four reset 12th-century grotesque corbels carrying renewed arch-braced trusses.