St Sampsons

St Sampson's, York

A parish church, now a day centre, located on Church Street. The building was originally known as the Church of St Sampson, Girdlergate. It retains a late 15th-century tower that was incorporated into a major rebuilding of 1845–48, designed by Frederick Bell in magnesian limestone. A third stage was added to the tower in 1910. The church was made redundant in 1969 and converted to a day centre in 1974.

The exterior consists of a 2-bay chancel with an east vestry, and a continuous 3-bay aisled nave with north and south doors, all set on a weathered and chamfered plinth. The church is encircled by diagonal and intermediate 2-stage gabled buttresses with offsets. The triple-gabled east end features 2-centred windows of 3 lights, a chancel window with cusped intersecting tracery, a north aisle window with curvilinear tracery, and a south aisle window with cusped ogee-headed lights and panel tracery. A sill-string runs beneath the chancel and north aisle windows. The vestry has a board door to the south in a shouldered opening, and a 2-light chamfered mullion window to the north in a chamfered opening.

The westernmost bay of the north side contains a reset 15th-century traceried door in a moulded 2-centred arched doorway. Windows across the north and south sides are of 2 cinquefoiled lights in square-headed double chamfered openings; those in eastern bays have ogee heads with panel tracery above embattled transoms, whilst others have 2-centred heads and mouchette tracery. All windows and doorways are topped with hoodmoulds on block corbels. The south side repeats the north side arrangement, with a pointed south door of six raised and fielded panels set in a re-used moulded doorway.

The 3-stage tower is embattled and buttressed. The west face has a 4-light window in a pointed chamfered opening beneath a hoodmould on foliate stops. The belfry openings to north and south are paired louvred lights with trefoiled heads, deeply recessed in splayed round-arched openings. To the west is a restored canopied niche containing a statue of St Sampson. Each face of the third stage has an opening of 3 trefoiled lights, blocked below a chamfered transom by stone panels pierced by cross-loops and louvred above, with panel tracery in the 4-centred head. The aisle windows are of 3 lights in chamfered openings with 2-centred heads; the north aisle window has cusped intersecting tracery, whilst the south aisle window has cinquefoiled lights and panel tracery.

The interior features 5-bay north and south arcades of double chamfered pointed arches springing from octagonal piers with moulded capitals and chamfered bases. The westernmost columns are attached to the tower piers, which are octagonal and ogee-stopped onto square chamfered bases. The tower arches die into the piers, with the inner order to the east arch springing from heraldic demi-angels. A single order rere-arch to the west window springs from a similar angel to the north and from a defaced angel wing to the south. A pointed board door in a narrow doorway beneath a hoodmould at the east end of the south aisle leads to the vestry. At the east end of the north aisle is a trefoil-headed piscina. Blocking the chancel arch on the east side is a reset octagonal stoup with a pendant base and lead-lined basin in an arched recess, alongside a shaped marble tablet commemorating the church's rebuilding in 1848. A benefaction board with an architrave and broken pedimented head, repainted in 1844, is also present. The 19th-century roofs incorporate re-used 15th-century bosses. The church is covered with parallel roofs of tile and pantile, whilst the vestry has a stone slate roof.