Church Of Saint Bartholomew

Church of Saint Bartholomew

Parish church dating from the 13th century with significant phases of construction and alteration extending through the 16th, 17th, 19th and 20th centuries. The building comprises a west tower, nave, north and south aisles, north porch, and chancel. It is constructed principally of ironstone and limestone ashlar with chalk and brick, beneath slate roofs.

The 14th-century west tower is of three stages. It features a moulded plinth and setback stepped buttresses refaced in 1910. A Gothic-style window has been inserted into the blocking of the original west door. The first floor contains single 20th-century rectangular lights. The second floor displays paired cusped trefoil-headed bell openings with quatrefoils above, set between triple chamfered paired arches. The parapet incorporates cusped quatrefoil sunk panels beneath a concave-moulded string decorated with floral ornament.

The north aisle has two late 15th-century windows of three lights featuring recut cusped trefoil heads beneath flat arches with hood moulds. The north porch dates to the 19th century and has a pointed arched outer doorway with a chimney to a boiler positioned in the angle between the porch and aisle wall. The north door is a reset 14th-century opening with hollow chamfering and hood mould, its pointed head decorated with a grotesque figure repositioned above.

The chancel's north wall displays the lower portion in ironstone with the upper section constructed of chalk blocks. Its base plinth terminates at the building line east of the north aisle. Two 19th-century windows of two lights in 14th-century Gothic style occupy this wall. The chancel's east wall, constructed in ashlar, contains a heavily restored late 13th-century three-light window with Y tracery. The south chancel wall is ironstone near its plinth but transitions to late 18th-century brick higher up, with a 19th-century two-light window inserted into it.

The south aisle, constructed in 1847 in ashlar, contains an east door to the vestry and features one two-light copy of a 14th-century window and two copies of 15th-century three-light windows on its north side. A heavily recut 14th-century door at the west end retains early details including reveals, head, hood mould and label stops; the date 1692 inscribed on the eastern reveal internally likely marks an earlier restoration campaign. The west wall contains a further two-light 15th-century style window.

The interior reveals three bays of a mid-13th-century south arcade with circular shafts and bases, octagonal capitals and double chamfered pointed arches springing directly from the abaci. The north arcade, matching the southern arcade in design, was constructed in 1908. A 14th-century tower arch has chamfered reveals and double chamfered almost four-centred head without capitals. The tower vault is a fine quadripartite moulded ribbed structure with decorated vaulting boss and corbels. The chancel contains 1908 fittings, whilst the nave and chancel roofs date to the same period.

A recut 13th-century archway on the south side of the chancel provides access to the vestry. The 14th-century font is octagonal with recessed decorative panels containing cusped curvilinear quatrefoils. Its original base features cusped three-centred arches with sunk spandrels.

Monuments include two 15th-century matrices for large brasses, now robbed, positioned at the east end of the nave. In the north wall of the north transept is a fragment of a cut back 13th-century cross fleury, possibly from a monument. The north wall of the chancel bears a wall plaque to John South, died 1591. This is a square marble plaque within a marble frame, featuring a circular pendent motif below and two obelisks flanking a cartouche of arms above. The central panel is flanked by vertical margins containing ribbons, incised skulls and hourglasses. In the north wall of the north aisle, a recessed circular marble frame with guilloche decoration contains a portrait bust of Alice South, died 1605. The figure is shown with clasped hands in prayer, wearing a ruff and cowled head, with a rectangular inscribed marble plaque of decorative frame beneath.