St John the Evangelist and St Mary Magdalene Church is a

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the Church (building), church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in com ...

in the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

Diocese of Sheffield in

Goldthorpe Goldthorpe is a village in the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley, in South Yorkshire, England. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire. It was anciently a small medieval farming village, Goldthorpe is recorded in the ''Domesday Book ...

, near Barnsley, South Yorkshire, England.

Background

The Church of St John the Evangelist and St Mary Magdalene, in

, near

Barnsley Barnsley () is a market town in South Yorkshire, England. It is the main settlement of the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley and the fourth largest settlement in South Yorkshire. The town's population was 71,422 in 2021, while the wider boroug ...

South Yorkshire South Yorkshire is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the north, the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north-east, Lincolnshire ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

was built in 1916. It is an early example of a

ferro-concrete Reinforced concrete, also called ferroconcrete or ferro-concrete, is a composite material in which concrete's relatively low ultimate tensile strength, tensile strength and ductility are compensated for by the inclusion of reinforcement having ...

building and is now a Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

. Commissioned by

Charles Wood, 2nd Viscount Halifax Charles Lindley Wood, 2nd Viscount Halifax (7 June 1839 – 19 January 1934), was a British Anglo-Catholic ecumenist who served as president of the English Church Union from 1868 to 1919, and from 1927 to 1934. In 1886, he was a former part o ...

, a former owner of

Hickleton Hall Hickleton Hall is a Grade II* listed Georgian stately home in Hickleton, South Yorkshire, England, about west of Doncaster. For more than 50 years (until 2012) it was a Sue Ryder Care home. It was being converted to luxury apartments, and is n ...

, it was designed by

Alfred Young Nutt Alfred Young Nutt, MVO, ISO (5 May 1847 – 25 July 1924) was an English architect and artist, who was Surveyor to the Dean and Canons of St George's Chapel, Windsor in the late 19th century. Early life Alfred Young Nutt was born in 1847 in t ...

in 1914. Nutt had been recently forcibly retired as

Surveyor Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. These points are usually on the ...

to the

Dean Dean may refer to: People * Dean (given name) * Dean (surname), a surname of Anglo-Saxon English origin * Dean (South Korean singer), a stage name for singer Kwon Hyuk * Dean Delannoit, a Belgian singer most known by the mononym Dean * Dean Sw ...

and

Canon Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the material accepted as officially written by an author or an ascribed author * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western canon, th ...

s of

St George's Chapel, Windsor St George's Chapel, formally titled The King's Free Chapel of the College of St George, Windsor Castle, at Windsor Castle in England is a castle chapel built in the late-medieval Perpendicular Gothic style. It is a Royal Peculiar (a church und ...

. Its strange

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

style is unique in this part of

and is distinctly odd for a

Dearne Valley The Dearne Valley () is an area of South Yorkshire, England, along the River Dearne. It encompasses the towns of Wombwell, Wath-upon-Dearne, Swinton, Conisbrough and Mexborough, the large villages of Ardsley, Bolton on Dearne, Goldthorpe ...

mining Mining is the Resource extraction, extraction of valuable geological materials and minerals from the surface of the Earth. Mining is required to obtain most materials that cannot be grown through agriculture, agricultural processes, or feasib ...

village. It was the first large church in England to be built almost entirely in reinforced concrete, including all the principal internal furnishings within the church (which are of finely-finished concrete), the Presbytery, which is attached to the church, and even the boundary walls. The experimental nature of this construction, however, meant that the composition of the concrete allowed acidic water to leach through and rust the metal core of the walls. By the 1990s the church structure was showing significant signs of degradation and had to be substantially reinforced, with the

Heritage Lottery Fund The National Lottery Heritage Fund, formerly the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), distributes a share of National Lottery funding, supporting a wide range of heritage projects across the United Kingdom. History The fund's predecessor bodies were ...

part-funding the repairs. The church was re-hallowed in June 2002.

Interior

The Church consists of a South West Tower, Porch, West Gallery, Nave, North and South Aisles and a

Chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the Choir (architecture), choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may termi ...

with

Apse In architecture, an apse (: apses; from Latin , 'arch, vault'; from Ancient Greek , , 'arch'; sometimes written apsis; : apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical Vault (architecture), vault or semi-dome, also known as an ' ...

. There is a

Lady Chapel A Lady chapel or lady chapel is a traditional British English, British term for a chapel dedicated to Mary, mother of Jesus, particularly those inside a cathedral or other large church (building), church. The chapels are also known as a Mary chape ...

on the south side of the chancel, with

vestry A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government of a parish in England, Wales and some English colony, English colonies. At their height, the vestries were the only form of local government in many places and spen ...

on the North side. Viscount Halifax was a prominent

Anglo-Catholic Anglo-Catholicism comprises beliefs and practices that emphasise the Catholicism, Catholic heritage (especially pre-English Reformation, Reformation roots) and identity of the Church of England and various churches within Anglicanism. Anglo-Ca ...

layman and his taste in church adornment is reflected in the Italianate detailing, classical

baldacchino A baldachin, or baldaquin (from ), is a canopy of state typically placed over an altar or throne. It had its beginnings as a cloth canopy, but in other cases it is a sturdy, permanent architectural feature, particularly over high altars in ca ...

altar canopy and simple

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

Basilica In Ancient Roman architecture, a basilica (Greek Basiliké) was a large public building with multiple functions that was typically built alongside the town's forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in the Greek Eas ...

church plan with

campanile A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell to ...

.Architect's Report, Wiles and Maguire Ltd., June 2002
/ref> The baldacchino canopy is supported by four black pillars with gilded

capital Capital and its variations may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** Capital region, a metropolitan region containing the capital ** List of national capitals * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Econom ...

s, under which there is a large

Crucifix A crucifix (from the Latin meaning '(one) fixed to a cross') is a cross with an image of Jesus on it, as distinct from a bare cross. The representation of Jesus himself on the cross is referred to in English as the (Latin for 'body'). The cru ...

in black with burnished

halo HALO, halo, halos or haloes may refer to: Most common meanings * Halo (optical phenomenon) * Halo (religious iconography), a ring of light around the image of a head * ''Halo'' (franchise), a sci-fi video game series (2001–2021) Arts and en ...

- a copy of a work by

Donatello Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi ( – 13 December 1466), known mononymously as Donatello (; ), was an Italian Renaissance sculpture, Italian sculptor of the Renaissance period. Born in Republic of Florence, Florence, he studied classical sc ...

. The

tower A tower is a tall Nonbuilding structure, structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from guyed mast, masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting ...

is a Venetian-styled campanile, above which there is a four faced clock, each face six feet in diameter. To the clock were attached bar-bell chimes which could be rung independently of the mechanism, but these fell into disuse and were removed in the 1950s. According to Pevsner, the pulpit bought by the church in 1931 is 18th-century

Flemish Flemish may refer to: * Flemish, adjective for Flanders, Belgium * Flemish region, one of the three regions of Belgium *Flemish Community, one of the three constitutionally defined language communities of Belgium * Flemish dialects, a Dutch dialec ...

. The church formerly had a

chapel of ease A chapel of ease (or chapel-of-ease) is a church architecture, church building other than the parish church, built within the bounds of a parish for the attendance of those who cannot reach the parish church conveniently, generally due to trav ...

dedicated to

St Michael Michael, also called Saint Michael the Archangel, Archangel Michael and Saint Michael the Taxiarch is an archangel and the warrior of God in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. The earliest surviving mentions of his name are in third- and second- ...

, based at the neighbouring village of Highgate. This was closed in 1983 and the altar and crucifix installed under the tower. In 2006 a

stained glass window Stained glass refers to coloured glass as a material or art and architectural works created from it. Although it is traditionally made in flat panels and used as windows, the creations of modern stained glass artists also include three-dimensio ...

was installed commemorating the village's

coal mining Coal mining is the process of resource extraction, extracting coal from the ground or from a mine. Coal is valued for its Energy value of coal, energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to Electricity generation, generate electr ...

heritage.

Lady Chapel

There is a side-chapel dedicated to

St John Saint John or St. John usually refers to either John the Baptist or John the Apostle. Saint John or St. John may also refer to: People Saints * John the Baptist ( – ), preacher, ascetic, and baptizer of Jesus Christ * John the Evangelis ...

and

St Mary Mary was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother of Jesus. She is an important figure of Christianity, venerated under various titles such as virgin or queen, many of them mentioned in the Litany of Loreto. ...

on the south-east corner of the church. During the refurbishment of the church in 2002, two pictures which hung above the

altar An altar is a table or platform for the presentation of religion, religious offerings, for sacrifices, or for other ritualistic purposes. Altars are found at shrines, temples, Church (building), churches, and other places of worship. They are use ...

were discovered to be works by Sienese master,

Sano di Pietro Sano may refer to: Geography * Sano, Kentucky, U.S. * Sano, Tochigi, Japan * Monte Sano Mountain, a mountain in Alabama, United States ** Monte Sano State Park * Wai Sano, a volcano in Flores, Indonesia Fiction * Sano (''Rurouni Kenshin''), a ch ...

. Valued at about £300,000, these were removed to the safe keeping of

York Minster York Minster, formally the Cathedral and Metropolitical Church of Saint Peter in York, is an Anglicanism, Anglican cathedral in the city of York, North Yorkshire, England. The minster is the seat of the archbishop of York, the second-highest of ...

.Article from

Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was foun ...

about the two early

Italian Renaissance The Italian Renaissance ( ) was a period in History of Italy, Italian history between the 14th and 16th centuries. The period is known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread across Western Europe and marked t ...

painting

/ref>

Current use

The church is joined in pastoral care with St Wilfrid's Church, Hickleton, St Wilfrid's Church, Hickleton.

References

External links