page_title: Adel, Leeds
section_title: Adel Church
hierarchical_section_title: Adel, Leeds / Adel Church
caption_attribution_description: English: Three faces from the corbel frieze around Adel Church, Leeds, UK, c. 1150×70, with Romanesque window bottom left.
context_page_description: Adel is a northern suburb of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. To its immediate south is Weetwood, to the west are Cookridge and Holt Park, to the east are Alwoodley and Moortown, and to the north are Bramhope, Arthington and Eccup.
  It forms part of the Leeds City Council ward of Adel & Wharfedale and the parliamentary constituency of Leeds North West.
  In common with many areas of Leeds it is not easy to define the boundaries of Adel, but Adel Church and the two schools are well to the east of Otley Road, the A660, although the post office is on that road. There is one public house in Adel, the Lawnswood Arms, and there is a restaurant/pub on the Otley Road around the corner from Gainsborough Avenue.
context_section_description: The Church of St John the Baptist, Adel parish church, is described as "one of the best and most complete Norman churches in Yorkshire". It is a Grade I listed building; the sundial, mounting block and several memorials are Grade II listed.
  It was built in Romanesque style around 1150–1170 and has been little altered since, although a bell-cote was added in 1838–39 by R. D. Chantrell. The doorway, protected by a modern wooden roof, has an ornately carved arch with animals heads and zig-zag patterns; inside, there are 81 decorative corbels on the north and south walls with animals and representations of Christ's baptism and crucifixion, and the chancel arch has 37 grotesque beakheads and zig-zag decoration. Above the south doorway, the gable was filled with panels with the Evangelists and Christ in Majesty.
  The medieval font has an oak canopy by Eric Gill, and possibly a leper's window survives in the chancel though the evidence for this is poor given the nearest Leper Colony was some distance away and other churches were much closer.
  The Romanesque bronze doorknocker, often referred to as a Sanctuary Ring, is a replica, as the original was stolen in 2002. It was 'probably made in York c. 1200 (cf. All Saints' Pavement, York)' and 'was of excellent quality ... with a monster's head, probably a lion, clasping the ring and a man's head protruding from its mouth'. The sculpture has been understood to represent the animal swallowing a person, a warning of mankind's fate at the Day of Judgment, but it has also been suggested that 'there is nothing exaggeratedly fearsome about this lion that we should assume the man is being eaten ... he could be waking up, taking a breath, coming out of the mouth rather than being chewed or swallowed'.
  Because of thefts of stones from the graveyard, all the church's paving stones are engraved with crosses.
  The paternal grandparents of the Duchess of Cambridge married at Adel Church in December 1946.
caption: Three faces from the corbel frieze around Adel Church, Leeds, UK, c. 1150×70, with Romanesque window bottom left.
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