Church Of St Botolph

The Church of St. Botolph is a parish church dating back to around 1150, originally built as a chapel of ease to All Saints, Pontefract, by Henry de Lacy, lord of the manor. The church was substantially rebuilt in the 18th century with endowments from the Ingram family of Temple Newsam, who then held the manor of Knottingley. Further alterations occurred in 1873 with the addition of a west tower and again in 1886 when the chancel was rebuilt. The church is constructed of magnesian limestone, with the nave and chancel rendered, and has stone slate roofs.

The church comprises a four-bay nave in a simple classical style, a south porch, a chancel, and a west tower. The nave features round-headed windows with imposts and keystones; the second bay incorporates a square, flat-roofed porch with a round-headed doorway and side-wall windows mirroring the window above. The four-stage west tower has angle-buttresses to half its height and set-back upper stages, with a single lancet window to the first stage, a circular window to the second, a clock face on the third, a pair of louvred lancets to the belfry, and an embattled parapet with corner pinnacles. The three-bay chancel has lancet windows, and a two-centred arched east window of three lights with bar tracery and a wheel in the head.

Inside the 18th-century nave, which is a single vessel, is a wide round-headed chancel arch. The west wall reveals the deeply-splayed reveal of a blocked round-headed Norman window, a remnant of the former, narrower chapel. Numerous wall monuments are present, including a sandstone tablet to William Savile of Criddleing Park (died 1691) in the north wall of the chancel, featuring a pedimented aedicule, carved bird, and incised skull-and-crossbones. The south wall of the chancel contains two marble tablets, one to Arthur Ingram (died 1733) with a painted inscription, and another to Revd. Mr. Goodricke Ingram, a Fellow of Trinity College Cambridge (died 1755), both with pedimented aedicules surmounted by coats of arms. Two obelisk wall monuments are set into round-headed panels in the south wall: one to Lydia, wife of John Banks (died 1792), with a bas-relief urn, and another to Ann, daughter of John Banks and Lydia his wife (died 1781), with a bas-relief of a child weeping over an urn. Galleries and box pews were removed in 1887.