Church of St Alkmund

Church of St Alkmund

Parish church on Makeney Road, south side, Duffield. Dating from the early 14th century with additions and alterations in the 15th and 17th centuries, the building was substantially restored in 1847 by J.P. St Aubyn and again in 1896–97 by J.O. Scott. It is constructed of coursed squared sandstone with sandstone dressings, with Welsh slate and felted roofs and stone-coped gables.

The church comprises a west steeple, nave with aisles, outer south aisle chapel, south porch, north transept, chancel, and north vestry.

The early 14th-century tower is of three stages (four to the west), divided by chamfered string courses. It has angle buttresses with five set-offs and pilaster strips linking them to the battlemented parapet. The north and south sides feature a trefoiled lancet to the middle stage, a clock face above, and two-light bell-openings with cusped Y-tracery. The west side has a doorway with roll moulding and hoodmould, a two-light window above with almost round arch and cusped ogee tracery, then matching the north and south sides. The east side has similar bell-openings. The tower is topped with a recessed octagonal stone spire and a weather cock of 1719 by Robert Bakewell.

The south aisle has Decorated-style east and west windows dating from 1847, when the roof was given its steep pitch. The shallow gabled south porch has a plain parapet, a double chamfered doorway with moulded capitals and chamfered hoodmould, a single rectangular window to the west, a two-light chamfered mullion window to the east, diagonal buttresses, and a 19th-century three-light window with flat head and cusped ogee lights to the right.

The projecting shallow gabled south chapel dates to 1896 by Scott and features a parapet with a frieze of wavy decoration and Decorated-style windows. The chancel has three two-light windows with cusped ogee tracery under flat arches, a low single chamfered priest's door, two tall buttresses, and a five-light Perpendicular east window with panel tracery.

The gabled north vestry has a tall chimney, a doorway with Caernarvon arch, and a pair of trefoiled lancets to the east. The north aisle has an east window of three stepped lancets, and between the vestry and north transept is a window of two lancets with a trefoil above. The north transept has an east window with Y-tracery, a north window of three stepped lancets, and a west two-light Decorated window.

The north aisle, with its steeply pitched roof raised in 1847, has two three-light windows of cusped ogee lights under a flat arch to the north, a doorway with wave moulding, and a west window with Decorated-style tracery.

Interior

The interior features three-bay north and south arcades with octagonal piers and abaci, double chamfered arches (those to the north with round arches). The tower arch is treble stepped with keeled responds and stiff leaf capitals. The chancel arch is double chamfered, with the inner order dying into the imposts and the outer order having nook shafts to the west. A single chamfered arch leads to the north east chapel, and a double chamfered arch to the north chapel. The south chapel has a Perpendicular-style two-bay arcade with castellated capitals.

The nave roof is low-pitched with tie beams on corbels. The aisle roofs are scissor-braced, dating from 1847. The south chapel has a panelled roof with foliage bosses, and the vestry has a barrel-vaulted panelled roof.

Monuments and Furnishings

Three 18th-century wall tablets are in the south aisle and another in the north aisle. The north chapel contains an unusual monument to Anthony Bradshaw (died 1614, set up in 1600), featuring a frieze dividing a rusticated-pillared substructure from the superstructure, with an inscription plate and obelisks surmounting. The frieze displays incised demi-figures of the husband in the middle, two wives at the outer corners, and twenty children between them, with four sons to the left of the father and sixteen daughters in two tiers to the right; all figures have initials beside their heads.

The north east chapel contains a monument to Sir Roger Mynors (died 1539) and his wife, with alabaster effigies on a tomb chest decorated with saints in round-arched cusped panels. Various 18th- and 19th-century tablets are in the chancel, along with a low ogee tomb recess to the chancel north.

The chancel furnishings, panelling, reredos, choir stalls, rood screen, chapel screens, and pulpit are all by Scott. The stained glass in the chancel windows may be by Kempe. The font is an octagonal panelled piece, possibly of the 17th century.