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Description

BITCHFIELD AND BASSINGTHORPE SK 92 NE BASSINGTHORPE 2/1 Church of St Thomas a Becket 20.9.66 (formerly listed as Church of St Thomas the Martyr) G.V. I Parish church. Mid C12, late C12, late C13, C14, C15, C16, C17, C19. Ashlar, squared and coursed limestone rubble, ashlar quoins and dressings. Stone coped slated roofs. Western tower, nave, south aisle, chancel, south porch. 3 stage late C13 tower has plinth, 2 chamfered offsets and octagonal ashlar broach spire with tiny lucarnes to each principal direction. The C13 2 light belfry openings have Y tracery, chamfered surrounds and hood moulds. The west window is a single lancet with hood mould. To the second stage a small rectangular light. The north wall of the nave has a battlemented parapet with corner pinnacles. A wide buttress against junction with the tower and 2 further stepped buttresses, behind the centre one the head of a blocked door can be seen (possibly to the now vanished Coney chapel). The eastern part is in ashlar. 3 light C15 window with panel tracery and pointed surround and C19 fixed light in square opening. Further east a large 4 light C16 window with cavetto mullions and concave chamfered rectangular surround. In the C13 chancel a moulded string, a single lancet and C16 single light with transom and chamfered surround. In the east wall a 3 light early C14 geometrical window with trilobe heads and roundels over. In the south wall a 3 light C15 window with cinquefoil heads to the lights and flat headed moulded surround, also a blocked archway to a vanished south chapel. The south wall of the nave has a blocked rectangular opening at low level and a wide 4 light C16 window with chamfered mullions and moulded surround with cornice over. Beyond the porch a C16 single light with moulded surround and hood mould. C16 gabled ashlar porch having Tudor arched opening with concave chamfer and hood mould. Side benches. Late C13 inner doorway, chamfered and pointed with hood. Interior. 3 bay late C12 south arcade with circular piers and responds, waterleaf capitals, octagonal abaci and double chamfered round arches with hobnail hoods. Late C13 tower arch, octagonal reveals and capitals, double chamfered arch. Wide mid C12 chancel arch having round shafted reveals, cushion capitals with floriate roundels in low relief, square reeded abaci, round inner order, a chamfer, a step and a billet moulded hood. Late C13 trefoil headed piscina to south aisle with a reset C12 gravestone having low relief incised cross to the back wall. Above the south doorway 2 reset late C17 stones recording churchwardens in 1675 and 1699. In the chancel a blocked early C14 double chamfered archway to a vanished chapel having octagonal responds. Beyond is a reset double piscina and on the north side a square aumbry and a further blocked opening. All fittings are C19. Octagonal font with panelled traceried sides, recut in C19. The Coney chapel, housing the monuments to the family of Thomas Coney (builder of the adjacent house) was still in being at the end of the C18, but all traces have now vanished. Listing NGR: SK9660428537

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