St Peter's Church, Barton-upon-Humber

The church lies immediately east of the remains of a near circular enclosure which contained a hall. This is, on average, 820 ft in diameter and was originally surrounded by a ditch and timber palisade known to date to before 900. An early pagan Saxon cemetery, believed to be linked with this enclosure and dated to the first half of the seventh century, was discovered at Castledyke, south of the church, and was used to bury high-status individuals. In 669 Saint Chad founded a monastery in neighbouring Barrow-upon-Humber. An Anglo-Saxon charter dated 971 suggests that Barton became a grange attached to this monastery. The earliest graves on the site of the church date from the ninth century,…

The church was originally turriform: the ground floor of the tower served as the nave. The tower shows typical features of Saxon architecture: walls of rendered rubble, with decorative pilaster strip work, and long and short work. The pilasters do not provide any possible support – some are only very shallowly set into the wall. They are cut from Roman ashlars. Oak beams survive at two levels in the tower; these would originally have supported higher floors. The first floor must have been a gallery, as there are no windows at ground floor level. Other historic monuments include the fifteenth-century chancel effigy and rood screen, and wall monuments from the late sixteenth century. as is…