Description

BARKBY
SK 60 NW MAIN STREET (North Side)

6/8 Church of St. Mary

1.6.66
GV I

Parish Church. Mainly late C13, with some conservative Victorian restoration
work. Mainly ironstone but some use of granite in the C19 work. West tower
and spire, nave with 2 aisles and clerestory, chancel. Tall tower of 4 stages,
the 2nd is ashlar, and a different type of stone. Slight angle buttresses.
West doorway with paired shafts and hood mould. Single light with shafts in
second stage, paired traceried many shafted lights with quatrefoils to bell
chamber in top stage. Parapet frieze with grotesque masks etc. Tall broach
spire (C14) with paired foiled lucarnes and 2 quatrefoil frieze bands. South
aisle is a C19 restoration, renewing existing features, and built of granite
rubble with limestone sill course and window tracery. The tracery of the 3
principal windows, and the one above the south doorway, represent a fine collection
of Decorated tracery forms. Frieze with geometric masks at eaves level. South
door in coped gabled porch, the archway a continuous moulded shaft, no capitals.
Aisle is wide and has a pitched roof with coped gables. Clerestory is ironstone
rubble with some white ashlar work, and with 3 light windows. Chancel is earlier
in the C13 than the rest of the fabric, and is built of small ironstone rubble.
North and South sides are identically arranged, with small shuttered low-side
window to west, then paired lancets, a small doorway, and a Y traceried window.
East window also has Y-tracery, and is rather narrow. Victorian granite vestry
to North. Moulded stone eaves cornice, and heightening in brick. Angle buttresses
to the South East, with Victorian pinnacle. North aisle is buttressed ironstone
rubble or cobble stone. Its east window has five foiled lancets and a segment
of circle cutting them, in a squared head with stilted hoodmould. Was this
the original design, or has the window been subsequently cut through? There
is some evidence that the roof-pitch of the aisle may have been changed. Of
the north windows, each is of a different and ornate Decorated design, the
easternmost for instance, has three foiled lancets with 2 quatrefoiled squares
above. Sill course forms hoodmould to north doorway. Inside, the church gives
the impression of great space; both the aisles and the chancel are rather wide,
and the strucutre is also high. Nave of 4 bays, a late C13 arcade of triple
chamfered arches on octagonal piers. Roof is perhaps C15 - tie beams with tracery
panels above, low pitched. Cl8 gallery to west on slim woodern columns and
with elegant cantilevered staircase. It contains a gothick organ case of 1899
and over it is a narrow musicians gallery. Wide Perpendicular chancel arch,
forming a shallow curve, with traces of painted decoration on the mouldings.
2-light traceried window above the chancel arch.

Various C18 and early C19 memorials to members of the Pochin family in the
north aisle. One, to Charlotte Pochin, d 1732 is by Rysbrack. Hatchments
also in north aisle. Diminutive font, possibly C18. An octagonal basin on
an octagonal shaft; very elegantly moulded and proportioned. Old working clock
mechanism in south aisle, removed there from the tower.

Listing NGR: SK6367409856

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• St Mary's Church, Barkby at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q7594271

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  The green guide for historic buildings: how to improve the environmental performance of listed and historic buildings
• 
  Sussex: West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  For the Record
• 
  Gloucestershire 1: The Cotswolds: Cotswolds Pt. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Cumberland and Westmorland)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1967)
• 
  Somerset: North and Bristol: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)