The village well is dignified with a domed roof raised on tall columns,
put up about seventy years ago by the previous Sir Tatton to the memory
of his father, Sir Christopher Sykes; the inscription telling how much
the Wolds were transformed through his energy ‘in building, planting,
and enclosing,’ from a bleak and barren tract of country into what is
now considered one of the most productive and best-cultivated districts
of Yorkshire. The late Sir Tatton Sykes was the sort of man that
Yorkshire folk come near to worshipping. He was of that hearty, genial,
conservative type that filled the hearts of the farmers with pride. On
market days all over the Riding one of the always fresh subjects of
conversation was how Sir Tatton was looking. A great pillar put up to
his memory by the road leading to Garton can be seen over half
Holderness. So great was the conservatism of this remarkable squire that
years after the advent of railways he continued to make his journey to
Epsom, for the Derby, on horseback.
A stone’s-throw from the house stands the church, rebuilt, with the
exception of the tower, in 1898 by Sir Tatton. There is no wall
surrounding the churchyard, neither is there ditch, nor bank, nor the
slightest alteration in the smooth turf; and now that all the
gravestones have been laid flush with the grass, the church stands among
the trees for all the world as though it had merely strayed into the
park, and was not fixed to the ground at all. Local opinion made
numerous comments on this wiping out of the churchyard, but the
villagers have received so many good things from the same hands as those
that thus disturbed the memorials of their ancestors, that they have no
grounds for complaint.
The church, designed by Mr. Temple Moore, is carried out in the style of
the Decorated period in a stone that is neither red nor pink, but
something in between the two colours. The exterior is not remarkable,
but the beauty of the internal ornament is most striking. Everywhere you
look, whether at the detail of carved wood or stone, the workmanship is
perfect, and without a trace of that crudity to be found in the carvings
of so many modern churches. The clustered columns, the timber roof, and
the tracery of the windows are all dignified, in spite of the richness
of form they display. Only in the upper portion of the screen does the
ornament seem a trifle worried and out of keeping with the rest of the
work.
Sledmere also boasts a tall and very beautiful ‘Eleanor’ cross, erected
about ten years ago, and has reached a certain fame from Sir Tatton’s
cattle and horses.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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