SOME NOTES ON HEYSHAM CHURCH

THE

AND PARISH

By E. M. Grafton

Read 14th January 1904

HE original foundation of the Parish Church of St. Peter, at Heysham, is of a very early date, probably the seventh or eighth century. Masonry of rude, axe-hewn stone, wide-jointed with almost imperishable mortar, small doorways with singlestone arched headings, on imposts of long and short stones, point to a pre-Norman origin. Parts of the western end, and a former portion of the north wall of the church, with a small arched door, removed in building the present north aisle in 1864, and rebuilt on the south-west side of the Churchyard, are of this character.

The plan of this first early Church would be that of the present nave, from the western wall with its blocked-in ancient doorway to the chancel arch and screen, where probably-judging from the few English remains of Churches of that date-would have been a screen wall with a small archway and arcading on each side opening into an apse or square-ended presbytery. The massive chancel arch is without moulding or ornament, except cabletwisted capitals or impost mouldings from which the arch springs; there are no pillars or piers distinct from the wall. These great stones are of

an early type, probably belonging to the oldest part of the Church.

What is now the south aisle would be the next addition, some centuries later, when the southern nave wall was mainly removed, and arches and pillars placed supporting the roof instead. The windows in the outer wall show the transitional forms of round-headed Norman, with small cusped trefoil-headed lights.

Later than this the small chancel was built to replace the still smaller, early eastern part of the Church, a guide to its date being given by the unglazed window, opening formerly to the outside, now into the modern continuation of the south aisle. The tracery of this window, of flowing Decorated type, approaches to the best English examples of what is known in France as Flamboyant, or like the forms of waving flames, dating this part of the Church about 1350.

It is considered by a well-known modern authority1 on Church architecture that the south aisle and chancel arch were rebuilt between 1400 and 1540judging from mouldings and slight indications of Perpendicular work; if so, much of the rough hewn stone, and to some extent the original type of work, seem to have been employed again.

There is no masonry or stonework of any later date till we come to the quite modern addition of the northern aisle and the tracery of both east and west windows, altered and inserted in 1864.

The older fittings of the Church are interesting; there are fragments of good wood-carving, probably Decorated, used again in the modern wooden screen; the font cover is modern, of Jacobean design, the font itself having little indication of date, but probably early from its solid plainness. There is no

1 Mr. Micklethwaite.

old glass. A very fine monumental slab,' now placed upright at the west end of the north aisle, is of good Decorated thirteenth-century work; the beautiful floriated Cross, springing from pierced Calvary steps, has head and arms terminating in foliations, groups of branches and leaves, of very good design.

Other slabs of stone preserved against the inner wall are of interest in showing the sequence of history, but of no artistic value, rudely cut and lettered, as is often the case in northern seventeenthcentury work. Two of these stones in the southeastern aisle record dates of the rectors of the parish of no special interest. Another in the eastern chancel wall is easily dated by its reference to William Ward as “Pastor of this Church," he being noted in the Oliverian Survey (of parishes in England during the Commonwealth) as "a Painful Pastor" of his flock.

A stone in the north wall has an inscription relating to the rebuilding of some portion of it in 1737 by the Rev. Thomas Clarkson, rector of Heysham and vicar of Chipping, curious for its reference to an old house "of the Greese in this town." This long low building, now divided into cottages, reached from the lower road by a flight of stone steps, from which it apparently takes its name, was once the rectory. The derivation of "greese from "gradus" has some parallels in the use of the word in an early New Testament translation, where it is found in Acts xx. 40-" Paul stood on the greese and beckoned with his hand unto the people "- and in some Lancashire records of the same date reference is made to the "turn greese," i.e. the winding stone stair of Eccles Church tower.

Taking together the amount of very early work in the present Church, with the still more remarkable ruin of the Church of St. Patrick in the upper

1 See lithographs, Cross, Plate No. II.