Church Of St Luke And All Saints

Church of St Luke and All Saints, Darrington

This is a parish church of considerable architectural interest, combining Norman origins with significant medieval additions and nineteenth-century restoration. The building employs white magnesian limestone, mostly squared but with some rubble work, beneath slate roofs.

The church comprises an aisled nave that embraces a western tower, a south porch, a chancel, and a north chapel. The stout, square, three-stage west tower is Norman in origin. Up to its second stage, the aisles embrace it closely. The tower's west face displays a moulded four-centred arched doorway and above it a Perpendicular three-light window. At the second stage, a clock face adorns the south side, while the north side retains a small Norman window of two round-headed lights with a colonnette, now glazed. The third stage, set back from the lower levels, contains Norman belfry windows on the south and east sides—each comprising two round-headed louvred lights with a colonnette—and an altered or inserted two-light pointed window on the west side. The tower is finished with an embattled parapet featuring restored corner pinnacles.

The nave itself is relatively short, with full-height aisles. The roof on the south side is continuous across the aisle and nave. Early medieval features include small lancet windows at the west end of both aisles. The north aisle shows rubble masonry rising to half-height, with a blocked round-headed north doorway and, to the east, coupled lancets paired with a single lancet to the west.

The four-bay south aisle contains a gabled porch at the second bay, which is architecturally distinguished. This porch has a chamfered two-centred arched outer doorway, a cusped niche set in the apex, kneelers carrying tall slender pinnacles, an apex cross, and buttressed side walls with low parapets. The roof is constructed of stone, supported on two transverse arches. The inner porch doorway features three orders of shafts beneath a deeply moulded arch. The remaining bays of the south aisle are lit by large fourteenth-century arched three-light windows with reticulated tracery.

The upper portion of the north aisle, constructed of squared masonry, contains two large square-headed recessed windows—one of four lights and one of three—with hollow spandrels. At the east end, above the coupled lancets, sits a double-chamfered two-centred arched window of two cusped lights with a trefoil in the head.

The two-bay chancel is buttressed and decorated with friezes: the first bay displays quatrefoils whilst the second features blind arcading. A fourteenth-century two-centred arched priest door occupies the first bay. Two-light arched windows appear in the first bay, with one in the second. The east window is very large, with a two-centred arch, intersecting tracery, and Perpendicular secondary tracery.

The north chapel, probably a rebuilding of the fourteenth century, features a large two-centred arched east window with moulded surround and reticulated tracery. A prominent composite buttress reinforces the east corner, whilst a square two-stage stair turret stands at the west corner. Between these sits a recessed Perpendicular window of three cusped lights. The chapel retains some fifteenth-century stained glass.

Internally, the tower arch is round-headed with substantial demi-shafts carrying scalloped capitals. A small round-headed north doorway and a double-chamfered two-centred arch to the south aisle are evident. The three-bay arcades feature tall circular piers and double-chamfered arches, with keeled responds at each end. The north wall of the chancel contains a blocked lancet. A very small piscina and aumbry remain in the chancel. Of particular interest is the rood stair-turret, which includes an unusual small open-arcaded gallery running towards the chancel arch. Some traceried Perpendicular bench ends survive, along with four chancel stalls fitted with misericords.

The church contains several monuments of historical value. Two fourteenth-century effigies are preserved, one beneath an arch in the north wall of the chancel and another in the chapel. A monument to William Ferrer, who died in 1684, now in a damaged state, records his memory. In the north aisle, a marble wall tablet commemorates Alexander Blair of Aberdeen in Scotland and Merchant Taylor of London, who died in 1671, describing him as "that Just and Judicious Dealer".

The building was substantially restored in 1880 by the architect A. W. Blomfield. The aisles and chancel show alterations from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, whilst the north chapel represents probable rebuilding of the fourteenth century.