Barton-le-Clay Church Architecture

The church is a piecemeal development with most of the church dating from the 13th and 14th centuries, with some masonry in the nave that dates from the 12th century. The church is made up of a chancel, nave with north and south aisles and a tower to the west. It has rubble limestone and cobbles with some limestone dressings; the tower has flint and clunch and limestone chequer work. The font is believed to be older than the building itself and is thought to have been housed in a 12th century church which stood on the site of the present one. The cable moulding around the rim is the only original decoration, as the Tudor roses which ornament the eight side faces of the font were added in the 16th century. The nave is a mid-13th century expansion to an originally aisleless nave; the nave was given its aisles in stages during the 13th and 14th centuries. The north aisle has carved figureheads of the Twelve Apostles and a 14th century-stained glass window of St. James the Greater. In the 15th century the nave was heightened, and the present roof was added as well as some linen-fold pews. In this century the west tower was built, it has pairs of corner buttresses and a tierceron-star vault within it.