St Catherine's, Barmby Moor

There is some speculation that the earliest church in the village was dedicated to St. Peter but there is reference to a dedication to “St. Katherine” in 1252. The present nave was built in 1850-52 but the church it replaced was Norman and the tower remains the oldest part of the building.  Following the rebuild, not a single item from the furnishings and fittings of the medieval church remained and although William Wood Rees, a former vicar and author of A History of Barmby Moor called this “an unintentional piece of vandalism”, the present simple rectangular shape of the whole made the more recent restoration and re-ordering of the 1980s-90s much easier.

There are six bells, rung from a ringing chamber above the choir vestry, tuned to the key of A major. The three smallest bells were cast with financial assistance of the “Ringing in the Millenuim” National Lottery Fund in 1998 and bear inscriptions from Tennyson’s In memorium.

In the churchyard there is a monolith (menhir, or hoar-stone) a few metres south of the main door entrance, which may mark the location of a pre-Christian place of worship.

The church has strong links with Barmby Moor CE School, who come into church for special services on festive occasions and at the end of term. The vicar regularly leads Collective Worship and teaches sessions of RE in school and the children’s work is often displayed in the church.