St John and St Mary Magdalene Church, Goldthorpe

St. John and St. Mary Magdalene Church, in Goldthorpe, near Barnsley, built in 1916, is an early example of a ferro-concrete building.

Commissioned by Lord Halifax, a former resident of Hickleton Hall, its strange Italian style is unique in this part of South Yorkshire and is distinctly odd for a Dearne Valley mining village.

It was the first church in England to be built almost entirely in reinforced concrete, including all the principal internal furnishings within the church (which are of finely-finished concrete), the Presbytery, which is attached to the church, and even the boundary walls. [English Heritage, State of the Historic Environment Report 2002, Yorkshire] The experimental nature of this construction, however, meant that the composition of the concrete allowed acidic water to leach through and rust the metal core ofthe walls. By the 1990's the church structure was showing significant signs of degradation and had to be substantially reinforced, with the Heritage Lottery Fund part-funding the repairs. The church was re-hallowed in June 2002.

According to Pevsner, the pulpit bought by the church in 1931 is 18th century Flemish [N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England, Yorkshire:The West Riding, Harmondsworth, 1959, 2nd edn. 1967.] .

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