St Denys' Church is a medieval Anglican parish church in Sleaford, Lincolnshire, England. While a church and a priest have probably been present in the settlement since approximately 1086, the oldest parts of the present building are the tower and spire, which date to the late 12th and early 13th centuries; the stone broach spire is one of the earliest examples of its kind in England. The Decorated Gothic aisles, nave and north transept were built in the 14th century. The church was altered in the 19th century: the north aisle was rebuilt by the local builders Kirk and Parry in 1853 and the tower and spire were largely rebuilt in 1884 after being struck by lightning. St Denys' remains an active parish church.
The church is a Grade I listed building, a national designation given to "buildings of exceptional interest". It is a prime example of Decorated Gothic church architecture in England, with the architectural historians Sir Nikolaus Pevsner and John Harris noting that "it is a prolonged delight to follow the mason's inventiveness".. The church's tracery has attracted special praise, with Simon Jenkins arguing that its Decorated windows are "works of infinite complexity". Built out of Ancaster stone with a lead roof, St Denys' is furnished with a medieval rood screen and a communion rail, possibly by Sir Christopher Wren, and has a peal of eight bells, dating to 1796. The church also houses several memorials, including two altar tombs commemorating members of the Carre family, Sleaford's lords of the manor in the 17th century.
Description St Denys' Church is the parish church of the benefice of Sleaford (formerly called New Sleaford), which encompasses most of the market town of Sleaford in the English non-metropolitan county of Lincolnshire. The benefice is a vicarage and falls within the deanery of Lafford and the archdeaconry and diocese of Lincoln; as of 2015, the vicar is Rev. Philip Anthony Johnson, who was appointed in 2013. The church is located next to (and faces onto) the market place at the town centre. It is dedicated to St Denys; the Victorian clergyman and local historian Edward Trollope stated that this is a medieval form of St Dionysius, but does not elaborate on which of the several saints called Dionysius this refers to.. According to a pamphlet published by the parochial church council, St Denys is a medieval composite of Dionysius of Paris, Dionysius the Areopagite and Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite..
As of 2025, regular church services are scheduled for Sundays and Wednesdays. Holy Communion is conducted weekly at 8:00 am on Sundays, followed by Sunday School and an all-age family worship at 10:00 am. A parent and toddler group was scheduled for Wednesdays at 9:30 am.
History
Background and origins The Sleaford area has been inhabited since the late Iron Age; people settled around the ford where a prehistoric track running northwards from Bourne crossed the River Slea.. A large hoard of coin moulds belonging to the Corieltauvi tribe have been uncovered in this area and dated to the late Iron Age. It was occupied by the Romans,. and then by the Anglo-Saxons.. The place-name Slioford first appears in 852, meaning "crossing over a muddy stream", in reference to the Slea.. The settlement around the crossing came to be known as "Old" Sleaford in 13th-century sources to distinguish it from developments further west, around the present-day market place, which came to be known as "New" Sleaford. The origins of New Sleaford are not clear, leading to a theory that it was planted by the Bishop of Lincoln in the 12th century as a means of increasing his income, hence the epithet "New". The town's compass-point layout, the 12th-century date of St Denys' stonework and other topographical features offer evidence for this theory...
A speculative reassessment of Domesday Book (1086) material suggests that St Denys' origins may be earlier. Two manors called Eslaforde (Sleaford) were recorded in the Domesday Book, one held by Remigius, Bishop of Lincoln, the other by Ramsey Abbey. The Bishop succeeded a Saxon thegn, Bardi, and held 11 carucates with 29 villeins, 11 bordars, 6 sokemen, a church and priest, as well as 8 mills, 1 acre of woodland, of meadow and of marsh. Ramsey Abbey had been granted land in Sleaford and surrounding villages before the Norman Conquest of England; in Domesday its fee consisted of 1 carucate, 1 sokeman, 2 villeins and 27 acres of meadow. It was sokeland of the abbot of Ramsey's manor of Quarrington, where he held two churches.. There is no evidence for a second church at Quarrington, which suggests that the record is alluding to one in another of the abbot's manors for which Quarrington was an estate centre. The local historians David Roffe and Christine Mahany ruled out the possibility that this referred to Cranwell, another of the abbey's fees, and concluded that it is probably a reference to the church at Old Sleaford, which was granted by a knight of Ramsey to Haverholme Priory in c. 1165. Hence, the church possessed by the bishop in the other manor must have been a second church in Sleaford, and therefore could only have been St Denys' in what would become New Sleaford..
Expansion
Sleaford and its church were altered considerably in the 12th century, especially under Bishop Alexander of Lincoln; Sleaford Castle was constructed to the west of the town during his episcopate and work on the earliest surviving parts of the church may date to this period.. Facing onto the market place, the tower is the oldest part of the present church building and dates to the late 12th century, probably c. 1180. Its broach spire has been dated to the early 13th century, possibly c. 1220. A prebendary of Sleaford is recorded in the late 13th century whose office was probably founded by one of the post-Conquest Bishops, who were its patrons. The vicarage of Sleaford was founded and endowed in 1274; the record has survived and shows Henry de Sinderby being presented to the vicarage by the Treasurer of Lincoln and Prebendary of Sleaford, Richard de Belleau; the Bishop instituted him that March. The vicar could profit from tithes and oblations, and was given a house formerly occupied by one Roger the chaplain, but he had to pay £15 to the prebendary at the feasts of the Nativity and St John the Baptist. The prebendary otherwise retained his jurisdiction over the parish..
A period of rebuilding and remodelling occurred in the late Middle Ages. A chantry chapel, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, was founded in 1271 by the merchants Thomas Blount and John de Bucham, who endowed it with lands around Old and New Sleaford, and several surrounding villages. The chapel is located on the north aisle, and the chaplain was instructed to pray there for the founders at his daily mass.. The chantry priest's house is recorded in the 1440s as one of the oldest buildings in Sleaford; located in the churchyard, it became the Vicarage.. The tower was probably accompanied by a nave of a similar date, which was rebuilt in the Decorated Gothic style in the mid to late 14th century; the transept followed twenty or thirty years later, according to Trollope.. A clerestory was added in around 1430 and the chancel was remodelled at this time.
Early modern and later A diocesan return of 1563 recorded 145 households in the parish of New Sleaford,"General Settlement Record for New Sleaford" Heritage Gateway. Retrieved 1 December 2015. while the Compton Census (1676) reveals that New Sleaford had a Conformist population of 576 people, no "Papists", and 6 Non-conformists.. There is a widely held local tradition that St Denys' was used during the English Civil War (1642–51) as a barracks for parliamentary troops who destroyed the interior furnishings.. The local historian Trollope stated that the soldiers looted the brass eagle lectern (last recorded in 1622),. broke the stained glass windows and the organ, and stole valuables.. Whether this damage occurred or not, repairs to the windows and roof were carried out in 1657, paid for by public subscription. Galleries were also added to the church in the 18th century: the south in 1758, west in 1772, and north in 1783–84.. In 1772, Edward Evans, a ship's surgeon on HMS Egmont, donated £300 to replace the organ with one built by Samuel Green of London.
For most of the 19th century, the Anglican community dominated Sleaford's civic bodies, including the Board of Guardians, who oversaw the workhouse, and the Local Board of Health. Dr Richard Yerburgh and his son, Richard, were vicars in 1809–51 and 1851–82 respectively and had family connections with the local builders Kirk and Parry; Yerburgh and Thomas Parry (one half of the firm) were on the Board of Guardians and were labelled members of a "family party" by opponents during the Board's 1870 elections (they were nonetheless re-elected)... They and other local clergymen were key players in the establishment of National schools in Sleaford and Quarrington, which Kirk and Parry built. The Anglican congregation, at an estimated 700 to 800 people in 1851 (St Denys' had enough space for 743 people), was less than half of the size of the nonconformist community, which was probably larger than 2,000 and tended to flourish in poorer parts of the town...
The 19th century also witnessed two major restorations to St Denys'. As the congregation expanded, the need for greater space was met with the addition of a new north aisle in 1853. This coincided with a wider restoration project carried out at the cost of £3,500 by Kirk and Parry, which included the demolition of the galleries, the addition of a strainer arch and the relocation of the organ.. The church was damaged by an electrical storm in 1884 and parts, including the stone broach spire—one of the oldest in England—were rebuilt by Kirk and Parry in 1885–86. The old organ was sold in 1891 and St Hugh's Chapel and the choir vestry were dedicated to the memory of a local solicitor, Henry Snow, in 1906. Electric lighting was introduced in 1951–53 and extensive restoration work was carried out in 1966, when the organ was rebuilt, and in 1988. Fifty-four solar panels were added in 2008, at the cost of £70,000, and by 2011 were able to cover the church's electricity bill.
Architecture, fittings and grounds
St Denys' is constructed in Ancaster stone across four periods: the earliest sections in a transitional style between Early English Gothic and Decorated Gothic; the late medieval nave, aisles and chancel in Decorated Gothic; the later Perpendicular Gothic clerestory and chancel; and the Victorian neo-Gothic restorations. The earliest parts consist of the late 12th or early 13th-century tower and spire on the west side of the church, which have a combined height of . Its arched entrance exhibits features of both the Early English and Decorated Gothic styles. During the restoration, a 15th-century window was removed, placed in the churchyard and replaced by arcading and three circlets, deemed "somewhat absurd" by the architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner..