All Saints

The choice of this hilltop site was clearly seen as significant, as over time Darfield became the centre of a large parish which drew in the Houghtons, Billingley, Wombwell, Worsbrough, Ardsley and Kendray. The presence of the parish oak chest with seven locks witnesses to this union.

Just inside the main south porch entrance is the large stone font, reminding people of baptism as the way of welcome into the congregation of disciples. The carved wooden lid to the font is matched by the carving above the pulpit, bringing together the ministries of word and sacrament.

Some of the Jacobean box pews have brass name plates from previous generations to show who was ‘renting’ that pew, and the seating points people towards the Holy Table in the sanctuary where the death of Jesus Christ has been remembered through the centuries.

Stones from an earlier Saxon church have been incorporated into the Norman structure, some in quite unusual, or random, places. Other interrupted arches and windows show how the building has changed over the years.

Throughout the church you will see carved Saxon and medieval stones re-used as building stones, our favourite is the dragon. In the Lady Chapel is a fine alabaster tomb of a knight and lady dating from about 1400. On the walls are numerous splendid memorials from the last three or four centuries. The tower holds eight bells, two of which date from before 1500.

The churchyard is huge and has two memorials to mining disasters, the Lundhill Colliery Disaster of 1857 and the Houghton Main Cage Disaster of 1886. It also holds the grave of Ebenezer Elliott, renowned as the ‘Corn Law Rhymer’.

This church is the parish church of Darfield parish, which includes the smaller settlements of Gt Houghton, Lt Houghton, Middlecliffe and Billingley.