Church Of All Saints

SE 31 09 DARTON CHURCH STREET (South side)

8/81 Church of All Saints 13.11.63

GV I

Church. C16, the chancel is dated 1517 and was built by Thomas de Tykyll, Prior of Monk Bretton Priory. Gritstone ashlar. Welsh slate nave roof, lead aisle roofs. West tower, 4-bay clerestoried nave with lean-to aisles, south porch, 2-bay chancel with north and south 2-bay chapels, the latter slightly shorter. Perpendicular style. Tall, 2-stage tower of smoother ashlar with diagonal buttresses. Moulded west doorway, 3-light west window. Tall, transomed, 2-light bell chamber openings. Crenellated parapet (pinnacles were removed in 1967). The rest of the church is also crenellated. 3-light south aisle and south chapel windows with arched heads. Large 5-light transomed east window. 3-light north-aisle windows with depressed-arched lights and square heads. Similar 2-light clerestory windows whose hoodmoulds have figure-head stops in lighter coloured stone.

Interior: Original door within south porch. 4-bay nave arcades on octagonal piers with sunk-quadrant moulding to the arches. Similar tall, tower arch. Chancel arch on corbels with nail-head decoration (possibly earlier). Rood stair in north wall. 2-bay chancel arcades with double-chamfered arches and octagonal piers. Original Perpendicular roofs to nave and chancel. The chancel wall-plate is inscribed in good raised lettering: "Ad Laudem Dei et Omnium Sanetorium istum Cancellum de Novo construxit, Thomas Tykyll Prior Monasterii Monk Brittaniae, et hujus ecclesiae patronus; et eundem complete finivit Anno Domini Hillessino quingentessimo decino, septimo." Oak parclose screens to north chapel and part of south chapel. A north chapel window contains glass of early Clb date (Pevsner) showing St Mary Magdelene holding the alabaster ointment box. In the north (Beaumont) chapel is a pedimented marble tablet of 1731 with a seated cherub at its base. In the south chapel is a marble monument to John Silvester of Birthwaite, d. 1722, tripartite in form with a central standing figure and a seated female figure to each side, one with 2 children. A cartouche of 1689 is on the south wall. The floor of this chapel is paved with medieval grave slabs carved with crosses. soak communion rail of c1700 (Pevsner) with a bow front forming a gateway.

The parish of Darton was founded in 1150 and the first church, built on the present site, was by John de Laci, Earl of Lincoln, and Sir John de Sothill.

N Pevsner, The Buildings of England, 1967

Listing NGR: SE3111009914