Church Of St Mary

SK49NW RAWMARSH HIGH STREET (west side)

5/18 Church of St. Mary

8.10.62 GV II

Church. Rebuilt 1839 by J. P. Pritchett; tower rebuilt 1869 incorporating remains of an C11 or C12 doorway; chancel extended, organ-chamber and vestry added c1896 by Platts of Rotherham (Cater, p13). Coursed, squared sandstone, Welsh slate roof. West tower, 4-bay nave with aisles, lower single-bay apsidal chancel with north organ chamber and south vestry. Gothic revival, largely in Early English style.

Tower: 3 stages. Heavily-restored Norman south door with 3 orders of colonnettes within recess. Stair-turret to south-west corner. 2-light window to 2nd stage. Paired belfry openings with louvres and hoodmoulds. Clock beneath quatrefoil-pierced parapet. 8 pinnacles.

Nave: buttresses to angles and between bays. Chamfered band beneath coupled lancets, hoodmoulds with carved-head stops. Groups of 3 lancets to each bay of clerestorey.

Chancel: angle buttresses. Vestry gabled and at right angles to chancel with group of 3 lancets beneath corbelled parapet with gable cross. East window of 3 lights above apron with blind quatrefoils. Corbel-table to coped gable with cross.

Interior: nave arcades double-chamfered, octagonal piers. Chancel arch: tripartite responds and carved capitals to moulded arch. Decorative roof trusses with cusped-headed panels. Brass dated 1616 to south of chancel arch: to John Darley of Kilnhurst, depicts 4 sons and 4 daughters kneeling before his coffin. Wall monument dated 1667 in north aisle: to Maria, daughter of Thomas Wentworth; inscribed plaque flanked by Corinthian columns beneath broken pediment with heraldic device. Cross base and shaft beneath tower, probably C12 (Ryder).

P. M. Cater, A History of St. Mary's Church Rawmarsh, 1981.

P. F. Ryder, Saxon Churches in South Yorkshire, 1982, pp116-117.

Listing NGR: SK4359095927