Church Of All Saints

The Church of All Saints is a parish church of the 13th and 15th centuries, restored, located on the south side of Barnsley Road in South Kirby. It is constructed of dressed magnesian limestone with lead-clad roofs.

The building comprises a west tower, a nave with north and south aisles, and a chancel with north and south chapels. Externally, all elements are in the Perpendicular style.

The four-stage tower has diagonal buttresses with crocketed finials on the offsets, a weathered plinth, and dripbands on four levels. The restored west doorway features set-in shafts and two orders of moulding, with nail-head ornament on the head and a hollow-moulded hoodmould with angel stops (worn) and ogee cresting. A four-centred arched west window, boarded at the time of survey in 1987, sits above. A small looplight opens to the third stage. The tall transomed three-light belfry windows have restored tracery and hoodmoulds with figured stops. Gargoyles sit in the band above, and the parapet is embattled with crocketed pinnacles at the corners and in the centre of each side. Clock faces appear in the north and south sides of the third stage.

The three-bay south aisle is buttressed. Its first bay carries a two-storey porch with moulded plinth and diagonal buttresses with moulded offsets. Very prominent corner gargoyles and crocketed pinnacles flank a two-centred arched doorway with deep moulded surround including a slender shaft. The hoodmould bears large figured stops (worn). Above the doorway is a row of five carved shields (worn), then a restored niche containing a seated statue beneath a cusped ogee canopy with crocketed finial. An oversailing parapet with ridged coping crowns the porch. Small two-light windows appear in each side wall, and an inner doorway has a deeply moulded surround and hoodmould with large figured stops (worn). To the right, the aisle displays two large restored four-centred arched three-light windows with hollow-moulded reveals and hoodmoulds with block stops. Buttresses finish with very prominent gargoyles and crocketed diagonal pinnacles, and a plain parapet runs along the top. The two-bay south chapel, continuous with the aisle, has slightly lower but similar windows with carved stops (worn). Its buttresses terminate at half-height but carry tall diagonal pinnacles pierced by carved gargoyles and finished with crocketed finials above an embattled parapet. The east end contains a two-centred arched three-light window with Perpendicular tracery and a hoodmould with large carved stops (worn).

The north aisle is similar to the south aisle except that its first bay has only a small shallow gabled porch (dated 1913) protecting a round-headed inner doorway with shafts and hollow-moulded surround. Buttresses here lack pinnacles and the parapet lacks gargoyles. The chancel has a rebuilt east wall containing a large two-centred arched five-light window with Perpendicular tracery. The north chapel has a round-headed east window of three cusped lights with Perpendicular tracery above, and in its north wall a square-headed three-light window of similar design.

The interior displays 13th-century characteristics. The two-bay nave arcades consist of circular columns with simple moulded octagonal caps and matching responds (those at the west end embraced by tower piers, the south respond keeled). Wide two-centred double-chamfered arches with broach stops span between them. A pointed two-centred chancel arch opens to the chancel, with double-chamfered arches to the chapels; both die into the walls, and the left-hand arch is depressed and lower. A panelled cove on a brattished beam surmounts the chancel arch. The nave roof features moulded cambered beams supported by short shafted wallposts. Coffered aisle roofs carry roll-moulded beams and carved bosses; those in the north aisle include carved corbels representing musicians and other figures, mounted in a brattished wallplate.

The chancel and its north and south chapels form a continuous space interrupted only by two-bay arcades terminating in short walls at the east end. Both arcades have octagonal columns and double-chamfered arches, but the north arcade is lower. The north chapel possesses a coffered roof of hollow-moulded beams with very large carved bosses, now gilded. A former doorway between the chancel altar and north chapel has been blocked with a relocated monumental slab to Maria, daughter of Francis Armytage (died 1665), featuring raised decoration including four shields of arms. Above this, several early 19th-century wall monuments to members of the Allott family of Hague Hall are mounted.

The north chapel contains fine aediculated wall monuments to members of the Wentworth family of North Elmsall: (i) Henry (died 1668), with a carved crown including shield and helm; (ii) Thomas (died 1653), with a Corinthian architrave and Latin inscription; (iii) Agnes (died 1668) in an Ionic architrave with open pediment and Latin inscription; (iv) Sir John (died 1720), a marble tablet in a pedimented architrave, signed by Rysbrack.