Barmby Moor is a village about 1.5 miles W of Pocklington and 11 miles E of York. The present church consists of an undivided chancel and nave, with a N vestry and a S porch; the W tower is medieval. Inside, there is a Minton tile pavement in the chancel (Pevsner and Neave 1995, 271-2). The screens and wooden furnishings are largely by Ronald Sims; the additions in the chancel largely obscure the tiles. Except for the tower, the medieval church was entirely rebuilt in 1850-2 (Borthwick Vic. Ret., for 1865). The architect was Robert Dennis Chantrell, who also designed much of the glass. No faculty papers, for either the 1850-2 rebuilding or the reordering of the interior between 1980 and 2001, were found at the Borthwick Institute. To the E of the churchyard is the site of a moated manor house (now Barmby Manor).

The only remains of Romanesque sculpture are the voussoirs reset as part of the doorway to the basement boiler room.

The settlement (possibly Scandinavian) was established just to the N of the junction of Roman roads from York and Stamford Bridge to Brough.

Ulf son of Torall, a prince of Deira, gave Barmby to York Minster before 1066; he might be the Ulf who gave the horn in York Minster treasury. The Domesday Survey records that the archbishop had 7 carucates and 2 bovates; before 1233, this had passed to the prebend of Barmby (VCHER, III, 141). Also, the Domesday Survey records that the king had 6 bovates in Barmby as soke of his manor of Pocklington; by 1198 it had been granted to William le Poer.

The archbishop’s estate, as above, together with 3 carucates at Millington, had land for 6 ploughs, and 15 villeins had 9 ploughs there. At the Conquest it was worth £5, in 1086 it was worth only £2 (VCHER, III, 142).

Between 1100 and 1108 the archbishop of York and York Minster probably received Barmby Moor church by the king: although this specific grant is not mention in the sources, it is highly probable that, along with St Martin at Fangfoss and the mother-church of Pocklington, also Barmby Moor church was part of the grant. Apparently, the archbishop assigned these possessions to the dean, as confirmed bythe king between c. 1119 and 1129. Eventually Barmby became a vicarage and Fangfoss was related to it as a curacy. The advowson in the Middle Ages presumably belonged to the dean of York (VCHER, III, 144).

In 1831 the old church consisted of a chancel, a nave with a S porch, a W tower with a spire, and had two Norman windows in the nave (Allen, 1828-31, III, 409-10). The Yorkshire Gazette recorded that ‘The plinth indicated an early Norman or Saxon construction. The chancel door and that on the north side had plain semi-circular heads, with chamfered hood-mouldings; several of the windows were five feet high and only twelve inches wide; but other had been inserted of more modern form…’. The York architect, J. B. Atkinson, reported on its condition prior to demolition, describing it as 77’6” x 24’, with stone walls 16’ high, ‘of Norman date’; Wood Rees provides a drawing of the old church (1911, 31). However, another description Wood Rees also quotes is made only from a drawing. The architect of the new church, Chantrell, thought the nave footings were 13th-c, also the lower part of the tower (guide p.1).

The old tower, with its stone spire, has a 15th-c upper stage and west window; the lower stage is unbuttressed. From the drawing (Wood Rees 1911, 31; guide p. 2) the church could have begun as a modest early 12th-c nave and chancel, with W tower begun a little later. The nave doorway is hidden in the porch, and unfortunately there is no description of it. After the rebuilding, old stonework was sold to mend the roads, and mullions were built into pig sties as ventilators (Wood Rees 1911, 34).

St Martin church at Fangfoss had been rebuilt by Robert Dennis Chantrell, the same architect who restored St Catherine at Barmby Moor in 1850-2, but there was almost certainly more original work there to preserve. Barmby Moor and Fangfoss churches are both now part of the Barmby Moor group.