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St John the Baptist, Hooton Roberts, Yorkshire, West Riding

Location
(53°28′6″N, 1°16′20″W)
Hooton Roberts
SK 484 971
pre-1974 traditional (England and Wales) Yorkshire, West Riding
now South Yorkshire
medieval York
now Sheffield
  • Barbara English
  • Rita Wood
9 September 2011

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Description

This is a small church of nave and chancel with parapets, a W tower buttressed at the junction with the nave, and a chapel on the S side. It stands on a hill in the village, near the former manor house. Built of ashlar and rubble, there are signs of an older church in the exterior of the nave (which was once lower) and the S aisle. There is Romanesque capital sculpture on the arch leading to the chapel on the south side of the chancel, and a fragmentary late-11thC tomb slab.

History

The vill is in Domesday Book, but no church nor priest is recorded. The advowson of the church is first mentioned in 1272. It remained a rectory, passing by descent to various lay families (Thompson and Clay 1933, 147).

Features

Exterior Features

Doorways

Interior Features

Arches

Chancel arch/Apse arches

Furnishings

Tombs/Graveslabs

Comments/Opinions

Pevsner (1967, 268) writes: ‘the arch between chancel and S chapel proves a Norman date. Fat late C12 responds with Transitional capitals. All of one step and one chamfer. It is likely that this was the original chancel arch.’ Ryder (1982, 93), says ‘ a small church with some Norman or Transitional work, much Victorianised.’ Similar, though not identical, features have been seen on capitals at Bolton-upon-Dearne (overhanging scallops), Brodsworth (heavy ornament) and Rawmarsh (doubled leaf tips).

A print dating from the first half of the 18th century, reproduced in the ‘church notes for visitors’, shows the church next to the manor house, which then was occupied by members of the Wentworth family, earls of Strafford. A copy of this print (by Joseph Smith, engraved by Thomas Bowles for Thomas Lord Malton, KB) can be seen online at the Government Art Collection site; the print is in Toronto, Canada.

Bibliography

Borthwick Institute Faculty Papers, Fac. 1875/12.

N. Pevsner, revised by E. Radcliffe, The Buildings of England: Yorkshire: The West Riding, Harmondsworth 1967.

Fasti Parochiales , A. H. Thompson and C. T. Clay, eds, I part I (Deanery of Doncaster), Yorkshire Archaeological Society Record Series 85 (1933).

J. Raine, 'The Dedications of the Yorkshire Churches', Yorkshire Archaeological Journal , 2 (1873), 180-92.

P. F. Ryder, Saxon Churches in South Yorkshire, South Yorkshire County Council Archaeology Monograph no.2. Sheffield, 1982.