Church Of St Mary

BOLTON-ON-SWALE BOLTON-ON-SWALE SE 29 NE 5/6 Church of Saint Mary 4.2.69

GV II*

Church. C14, C15 and C16, restored 1857. Restoration by G Fowler Jones. Rubble with ashlar dressings, Westmorland slate roof. West tower, 3-bay nave with aisles, south porch and north chapel, 3-bay chancel with organ chamber and vestry to north. Tower: late C16. 3 stages. Diagonal buttresses to west with carving to offsets. Stair turret in south-east corner with light vents. Ground-floor west window: 3 trefoil-headed lights below semicircular head with tracery in spandrels; label with head stops; double-chamfered jambs. Light vents to north, west and south of ringing chamber, Clock to west. Belfry openings: crossed cinquefoil-headed lights with continuous decorated lintels, with hood-moulds. Ashlar battlements with coats of arms. Porch: C19, gabled. Doorway of 2 chamfered orders. Inner doorway: C14. Pointed arch, chamfered; label with large smiling heads on stops. Aisle windows: C19; 2-lights with cinquefoil heads under segmental arches. Flat-headed 3-light trefoil-headed east window with reticulated tracery. Clerestory windows: C19 paired lights. Chancel: C15. C17 chamfered, quoined, flat-headed priest's door, flanked by flat-headed 3- light cinquefoiled windows. C19 3-light east window with reticulated tracery. Vestry: hollow-chamfered, flat-headed, single-light east window. C19 kneelers, coping and gable crosses. Interior: early C14 3-bay south arcade, with double-chamfered pointed arches on circular columns with heads on responds. North arcade: C19, 4 bays, matching that to south. C19 double-chamfered chancel arch. Tall double-chamfered tower arch, the inner arch on angular responds. Ribbed vault to ringing chamber. North vestry: C15. 4 chamfered ribs forming half of a pointed arch; hollow-chamfered doorway with basket arch from chancel. Early C14 trefoiled piscina in south aisle. Sanctuary: encaustic wall tiles by Eden Nesfield, 1877. Similar tiling in Carpenter chapel, with bas relief plasterwork of 1905 depicting agricultural and maritime scenes. Set in south wall at west end: parts of 4 medieval tomb slabs with elaborate crosses. Beside pulpit, part of Anglo- Danish cross-shaft with rope moulding. C16 parish chest at west end of nave. Monuments: large black marble tablet in architrave on south wall near chancel arch, set up after 1743 to commemorate death in 1670 of Henry Jenkins aged 169; on north wall of sanctuary, tablet with Latin inscription to Rev John Noble, first headmaster of Scorton Grammar School (qv) d1767, with frieze of books, and above cornice a bust flanked by distraught cherubs; on north aisle wall, tablet to John Wastell of Scorton, Master in Chancery d1659, and family; on east wall of north aisle, several monuments to Crowe family of Kiplin, including Robert Crowe, d1818, by Taylor of York. VCH I, p 156.

Listing NGR: SE2523999168