page_title: St Botolph's Church, Quarrington
section_title: Architecture and fittings
hierarchical_section_title: St Botolph's Church, Quarrington / Description / Architecture and fittings
caption_attribution_description: English: St Botolph, Quarrington. According to the church’s booklet, ‘A Short History by Christopher J. Micklethwaite’, the present church structure dates back to the 13th-century when the first Rector listed was Alexander de Brauncewell in 1218. The tower was built about 1325 and apart from the replacement of four pinnacles in 1887 restoration has been minimal. The Perpendicular styled font dates from the late 14th-century; however its cover is dated 1856. The raised quinquangular apse with its unusual style was designed and built by Charles Kirk (1825-1902), in 1862. Charles was head of a family firm of builders and architects at one time based in Sleaford and responsible for much 19th-century railway and ecclesiastical architecture and the restoration of the latter. He was a devout churchman and churchwarden of Quarrington and the tall candlesticks commemorate him. The wooden altar and reredos were carved by Jones in Willis in memory of Myra Brooks. The reredos in the Lady Chapel are wrought iron gates which date from 1889 and once provided access to the former vestry. The space in this has been taken up by the present organ and so a vestry and sacristy has been provided in the bottom of the tower.
context_page_description: St Botolph's Church is an Anglican place of worship in the village of Quarrington, part of the civil parish of Sleaford in Lincolnshire, England. The area has been settled since at least the Anglo-Saxon period, and a church existed at Quarrington by the time Domesday was compiled in 1086, when it formed part of Ramsey Abbey's fee. It was granted to Haverholme Priory about 1165, and the Abbey claimed the right to present the rector in the 13th century. This right was claimed by the Bishop of Lincoln during the English Reformation in the early 16th century, and then passed to Robert Carre and his descendants after Carre acquired a manor at Quarrington. With capacity for 124 people, the church serves the ecclesiastic parish of Quarrington with Old Sleaford and, as of 2009, had an average congregation of 50.
  Recognised for its age and tracery, the church has been designated a grade II* listed building. It has a tower and spire with a nave and north aisle ending at a chancel at the east end. The oldest parts of the building date to the 13th century, although substantial rebuilding took place over the following century.
context_section_description: St Botolph's Church has a west tower adjoining a nave with a north aisle; at the end of the nave is a chancel with a chapel on the north side. Owing to its age, the "excellent" tracery and a "very good" 14th-century door, the church has been listed at grade II* on the Statutory List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest in the United Kingdom since 1949, recognising it as "particularly important ... of more than special interest".
  Incorporating a window and two light openings for the bell, the tower and its spire have been dated to the mid-14th century, although its pinnacles were replaced in 1887. The antiquarian Edward Trollope did not like the spire's design, saying that it "looks as if it had slipped down". Built in a Decorated Gothic style, the tower joins to the nave with a triple-chamferred arch. 
  The nave has been heavily restored and contains elements from a range of periods. The architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner refers to the south wall as "puzzling" because of the tracery—it is unclear what is "Victorian fancy" and what is "correct restoration". The wall itself is 14th-century (Pevsner suggests about 1300) and incorporates a priest's doorway with mouldings, capitals and a bust of a man; the windows to its east have been restored, but follow a 14th-century reticulated style, although unusually they feature hexagons with pointed trefoils: "the oddest patterns", as Pevsner puts it. The north aisle is from the 13th century, although a 12th-century doorway sits between its late-14th-century windows. At the eastern end of the nave is the chancel, which has a polygonal (quinquangular) apse and was constructed between 1862 and 1863 by Charles Kirk the Younger in memory of his parents, the elder Charles Kirk and his wife Elizabeth. Its windows were made by Ward and Hughes.
  Both Pevsner and Historic England regard the interior as high, relative to the Church's small size. The nave has arcading across three bays with chamfered arches and capitals; the arcades on the north side are Early English and, dating to the 13th century, are the earliest visible parts of the church. Historic England suggest that this nave was likely added to an earlier, now-lost nave. The westernmost arch is wider and shorter than the rest, giving what Trollope called "a very awkward appearance". The chancel arch follows a 13th-century style, although it was built with the 1862–63 work. Inside the chancel, shafts with floral capitals adorn the walls, while the tiled flooring and painted roof give it a "rich" appearance. The nave includes 19th- and 20th-century windows by H. Hughes (1877) and Burlison and Grylls, while another (dated 1917) commemorates the Barrett family. Morris and Co. worked on a window in the north aisle in 1935.
  The church's fixtures include a 19th-century pulpit and choir stalls, and a chancel screen in a Decorated style; a font from the 14th century has foliage designs on the bowl, but lacks a base. The earliest record of an organ at St Botolph's is from 1867, when one was opened for the chancel by Bevington; it has since been moved to Pointon. In 1915, the church paid for an organ bought from N. E. Snow to be fixed by Cousans at the cost of £130. The present organ, however, was built in 1929 by J. J. Binns and has two manuals and a pedalboard.
  Some of the memorials in St Botolph's date to the 18th and 19th centuries, although a plaque commemorating one Thomas Appleby dates to 1683, and several other 17th-century tablets were noted by Gervase Holles. A tablet to Romaine Hervey (d. 1837) by J. J. Saunders is inside the church; elsewhere in the grounds are tombstones belonging to the Sharpe and Kirk families and markers to the Shannons, including the artist Charles Haslewood Shannon (d. 1937), whose father, Rev. Frederick William Shannon, was rector of Quarrington and Old Sleaford from 1861 to 1910. The churchyard contains the Commonwealth war graves of four British Army soldiers of the First World War and four Royal Air Force airmen of the Second World War.
caption: The spire
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