Details
HOWDEN CHURCHSIDE
SE 7428
(south side)
12/98 Minster Church of St
Peter and St Paul and
16.12.66 Chapter House
GV I
Collegiate church including the Grammar School and attached chapter house.
Begun c1270-1275 with transepts. Nave finished c1300 with west front
completed between 1306 and 1311. Choir, also often referred to as chancel,
completed between 1320-1340. Chapter house begun 1340-49, and recommenced
after a long intermission in 1380, with the addition in the early C15 of a
ground-floor chapel or vestry and its vestibule, 2 chambers above and an
access stair. Tower begun late C14, with upper stage of late C15. Grammar
school c1500. Restored 1840's and 1850's. Restoration of chapter house
underway at time of resurvey (1987). Endowments: by John de Howden (d1272);
of £10 by Henry de Snaith, Canon of Howden, Lincoln and Beverley for Chapter
House in 1380; of £40 by Walter Skirlaugh, Bishop of Durham for tower in
1406. Magnesian limestone ashlar, copper and timber roofs. 6-bay aisled
nave with grammar school to two westernmost bays on south side and porch to
third bay; central tower with north and south transepts, both with east
chapels; 6-bay aisled choir with chapter house, linking passage and chapel
or vestry to south. West front: pointed doorway with thin shafts, leaf
capitals and thin filleted rolls flanked by 2 panels of blind arcading with
quatrefoils to spandrels. Above is a tall 4-light window, with lights
grouped in pairs and an inserted Perpendicular transom; tracery of pointed
trefoils and quatrefoils, with a large cusped quatrefoil enclosed in a
square with convex sides to the apex. Above the window is a crocketed gable
with cusped statue niche, and flanking it are 2 panels of blind arcading
with 3 trefoils to their apexes and crocketed gables. The nave is flanked
by gableted buttresses with 2-light blind arcading with figures under
canopies. Surmounting the buttresses are hexagonal pierced turrets with
crocketed spirelets. The aisles each have 3-light windows with tracery
circles divided into pointed and rounded trefoils. Blind parapets flanked
by buttresses surmounted by turrets similar to those of nave but differently
aligned. To extreme right is the west window of the Grammar School with an
inserted pointed C19 three-light window, an outer buttress and a low
pediment above the parapet. Aisles: 3-light windows throughout. The
westernmost bays alternate between Y tracery infilled with quatrefoils and
pointed trefoils, and pointed lights with a group of 3 pointed trefoils
above. The easternmost bay has tracery of 3 encircled quatrefoils. The
bays are divided by stepped, gabled buttresses. Above is a corbel table of
heads and foliage, in alternate bays beneath a plain parapet. Paired 2-
light clerestory windows with quatrefoil tracery. South porch: 2 storeys,
south doorway of 2 orders with narrow shafts, leaf capitals and filleted
rolls beneath a crocketed gable with beast stops. Above is a square-headed
2-light window with trefoils above each light. Porch flanked by buttresses
with crocketed finials. To the left are the 2 bays of the grammar school
with low small trefoiled windows and above them large 4-light basket-arched
windows with Perpendicular tracery cut by 4-centred arches. To extreme
left: a narrow door beneath a 4-centred arch. South transept: south doorway
of 2 orders with shafts, stiff leaf capitals and roll-mouldings. Above a 4-
light window with lights grouped in pairs, inserted Perpendicular transom,
and encircled quatrefoils and a large encircled sexfoil to head. Small
quatrefoil above. Flanking stepped gabled buttresses. West side: two 2-
light windows with encircled quatrefoils and stepped gabled buttresses.
East side: chapel, whose south front has 2-light windows with encircled
quatrefoils, but whose east front has inserted 3-light Perpendicular
windows. North transept: north front similar to south transept south front
except that shafts and capitals are absent from the doorway which has
continuous roll mouldings. The west side is the same as that to the south
transept. The windows on the east side are blocked and the polygonal east
chapel is ruinous. Tower: octagonal stair turret to north-west angle.
Lower stage has very tall 3-light double-transomed windows with flanking
stepped and gabled buttresses. Upper stage: 3-light single-transomed
windows. String courses between stages. Embattled parapet. Choir now
ruinous: 3-light windows with 3 quatrefoils where tracery survives. East
end: tall central window with no surviving tracery has gable above breaking
into upper 4-centred-arched window, flanked by climbing statue niches. The
whole is flanked by stepped buttresses with statue niches to each stage.
Aisles: pointed windows with no surviving tracery with crocketed gables
above, and outer stepped buttresses. Chapter house: 3-light windows with
Perpendicular tracery where surviving, with crocketed ogee gables above.
Stepped buttresses to angles with shields to upper sections. Foliage frieze
with moulded cornice above. C20 timber roof. Interior: west end of nave
has blind arcading with shafts and leaf capitals to paired trefoiled arches
with quatrefoils in the spandrels. Very tall arcade on quadripartite
filleted piers with octagonal capitals. Part of Norman corbel table reset
in north-west wall of arcade. Very plain clerestory with inner passage.
Decorated octagonal font with ogee gables and finials. 2 medieval parish
chests to north aisle. Fine C20 pulpit with richly carved sounding board by
Elwell of Beverley. Compound crossing piers have round capitals and
octagonal abaci. Very fine Decorated pulpitum with basket-arched central
opening with open work quatrefoils to jambs and arch, crocketed ogee-arched
gable with finial and quatrefoil to tympanum. Flanking pairs of statue
niches containing contemporary figures and balustrade above with open
trefoiled lights above doorway and blind trefoiled lights above niches.
Screens in transepts are part of original pulpitum with 4-centred-arched
doors flanked by statue niches containing figures originally in east wall of
choir. South transept: C14 statue of the Virgin; brass to a knight of 1480;
chest tomb with shields and beasts heads, now supporting late C13 statue.
North transept: royal arms of 1718. Saltmarshe Chapel: decorated tomb
recess with ogee arch and finial flanked by statue niches with nodding
ogees, containing recumbent figures of a knight, possibly Sir John Metham
(d1311) and his lady, not original to the recess. Chest tomb in centre has
trefoiled panels to sides containing figures, and supports recumbent knight
in chain mail, possibly Sir Peter Saltmarshe (d1338). Choir interior:
anomaly to west end where there are early round capitals to responds which
have later been raised and given leaf capitals. The lower capitals may
represent the arcade of the earlier choir. Niches to jambs of main east
window. Cusped ogee-arched doorway with dogtooth to hollow-moulded jambs
leads to passage to chapter house which has quadripartite vaulting. Chapter
house: stalls have cusped ogee arches with crockets and finials and
quatrefoil diaperwork to their backs. Perpendicular screen across north
window. Alex Gordon Partnership, Howden Minster Chapter House - Analysis,
1986; Keeton, Revd B, A Guide Book to Howden Minster, 1982, Pevsner N,
Yorkshire: York and The East Riding, 1972, Sharland J S, The Collegiate
Church of St Peter, Howden, 1967.
Listing NGR: SE7478128253
