steeples. but they keep getting loooonger

Earls Barton, Nhants, probably built c.1050 as a "burh geat" in order to qualify the Saxon lord as a thegn in early 11thc law. It's complicated ok. but.

including the much later crenellated parapet, 20.9 metres

West Walton, Norfolk. Built 1240s detached lest crappy fenland caused it to topple onto the church (in fact you can see the first stage isn't straight and the next stage corrects the settle). Detailing reflects a cathedral-scale church elevation.

inc perp pinnacles, 27.51 metres

Lowick, Northants. Dateable by documentary evidence to 1470s. Octagon lantern a nod to nearby royal collegiate church of Fotheringay.

29.21 metres

Nantwich, Cheshire. Probably 1380s. Octagonal lantern plonked on earlier crossing piers.

31 metres (circa)

I mean you don't wanna push it too high when your crossing has crap like this

Barnack, near Peterborough. Another pre-Conquest tower, which used to be dated in the 10thc but is now often put later. The precocious stone spire (early 13thc) is possibly a replacement of an original wooden staged spire popular in Carolingian France.

34.72 metres

Castor, also near Peterborough. A sumptuous early Norman tower (possibly complete by dedication 17 April 1114 as recorded on a stone in the chancel) topped with a probably 15thc splay-foot spire. Lovely trefoil openwork parapet too.

35.13 metres

Fleet, Lincolnshire.
Again, the fens, so it stands apart from the church in case it gets a bit wobbly. I think you can see that it is.
Tower probably late 14thc, spire with flyers 15thc.

36.58 metres

Witney, Oxfordshire. 13thc all-of-a-piece over the crossing, probably after the Austin Priory of St Frideswide, Oxford (now Christ Church Cathedral). Quite plain until you get to the spire with the mighty corner pinnacles.

46.86 metres

Ludlow, Salop. Bequests made for funding the crossing tower as early as 1450 and as late as 1500. Very simple Perp detail and one could say it's much taller than it really needs to be. Especially for that risky thing that is a crossing tower.

47.85 metres

Rushden, Nhants. The parish used to swear blind this beautifully lacy and steeple, prominent from the A45, was 192 feet tall (58.2 metres), until someone got a plumb line....

49.98 metres

Brant Broughton, Lincs, also suffers from exaggeration, this time from the A17.
In the Pevsner, its height is given as 198 feet (60.4 m). An earliest published estimate in 1834 gave it as c.170 feet (51.8 metres). It is actually...

50.8 metres

Ewerby, Lincs. Tower, like Brant Broughton's of the "Heckington school" of masons active in the 1320s. Broach spire added probably added shortly after (unlike BB's which is much later 15thc).

50.83 metres

St Mary, Stamford, Lincs. A richly detailed mid 13thc piece, topped with a whopper of a early 14thc broach, with prominent lucarnes looking like little birdboxes and contemporary statues still in their niches.

51.23 metres

Patrington, East Riding. Raised in the later 14thc over crossing of this ever-ambitious church, the plain tower and spire is enlivened by an openwork crown, which was almost immediately diminished by clumsy corner buttresses when it clearly wasn't going to stay put

53.29 metres

Kettering, Northants, c.1450. A very slender Perp piece, especially the pert bell openings over the panelled ringing chamber. However, it has the drawback of being in Kettering.

54.41 metres

St Mary de Castro, Leicester. Tower mid 14thc, rather cheekily inserted inside the massive 13thc outer S aisle. Needle spire of the 15thc type, rebuilt in 1785.

54.56 metres...

... or at least it WAS until it was taken down 2009 for structural issues and they never put it back up. Boo Leicester!

Heckington, Lincs. Bristling with gables and grotesques, the oft-forgotten grand finale to this important church. The broaches of the spire are oddly merged with the corner pinnacles, looking a bit of a mess you can't unsee. The painted-on clock is a larf.

56.41 metres

Hemingbrough, East Riding. The bland low crossing tower with equally-bland but ridiculously long spire as if they suddenly felt they needed to prove something

58 metres (circa)

Oxford, St Mary. The rather plain tower of the late 13thc supports an early 14thc spire that's buttressed by four pinnacles with an absurd amount of pinnacles, gables and ballflower work. Top 14.6 metres of spire rebuilt 1895.

58.32 metres

St Nicholas, Newcastle. Built in the 1470s, impressive girth to support the unusual crown spire. Far more popular in Scotland (St Giles Edinburgh) but possibly pioneered by St Mary le Bow in London in the mid 14thc, renewed 1515-6, but destroyed in the Great Fire.

59.18 metres

St Giles R.C. Cheadle, begun in 1841 and topped out 27 June 1845. Surprise! Didn't say they were all going to be medieval! Important to compare Revival steeples, problem is less people bother measuring them. There's a lot of contemporary sources saying 200 ft tho so

60.69 metres

All Saints, Margaret Street, Fitzrovia. Begun 1850, complete by 1859. Unlike any so far, the superstructure of this steeple is not stone, but a timber frame covered with shingles (would love to see inside!!). It is visible from Parliament Hill.

69(nice).19 metres

Chesterfield, Derbyshire. 13thc crossing tower, belfry added mid 14thc, timber spire covered w herringbone leading in 1360s. Contraction of unseasoned timbers w unequal thermal expansion on lead made it warp comically.

Still tallest medieval timber spire in England.

70.1 metres

Big leagues now!
Newark, Nottinghamshire. Initial tower to nave height and ringing chamber in fancy Early English Lincoln orbit work, finished with 14thc belfry and broach spire visible for miles around.

70.69 (... nice) metres

addendum all the sculpture on Newark's tower is mostly original 14thc work. if it was up for auction everyone'd be cooing over it. as it is, it's for the birds

Canterbury Cathedral Priory, crossing tower, 1490-1503. I don't have any good photos of the outside, but I do have from the crossing wall passage and inside the belfry which - did you know - is lined with brick!

71.98 metres

York Cathedral (I call it that because I'm annoying), crossing. Previous tower (prob w timber spire), part of Archbish Walter de Grey's transepts collapsed 1405, replaced with m.e.g.a.c.h.o.n.k.e.r prob ready for the big consecration ceremony 3 Jul 1472

72 metres (no pinnacles!)

Oh ho! Another curve! St Mary, Hulme, Manchester. Prominent from the Mansfield Cooper Building art history library. Built 1853-46. Clearly owes a lot to Newark (as does Salford St John R.C., 1844-8, similar height). Sadly now apartments.

73.46 metres

STOP!

it has come to my attention I forgot say what a steeple is. the word essentially comes from "steep". it does not not strictly need to be pointy. however, most of these structures consist of a square tower and a separate superstructure in the form of an octagonal spire.

Hence A.E. Housman is absolved from inaccuracy in his Salop Lad poem LXI "The Vane on Hughley Steeple". Hughley does have a steeple, even if it's not much of one. But it doesn't have a north side full of suicides either.

.... CARRY ON!

Wakefield, All Saints. Ha! You didn't expect this one either, did you? Yes the tower's reclad (1858) and the steeple's rebuilt (1860) but did that put you off Oxford St Mary!? A helluva sight round the Calder valley. Became a cathedral 1888.

75.3 metres

Lichfield Cathedral, crossing tower, originally early 14thc on c.1200 crossing. Unfortunately its 3 spires were perfect to triangulate shots, and central spire destroyed by a parliamentary cannonball May 1646. Rebuilt in the 1660s. Above the belfry roof it's hollow!

76.8 metres

St Augustine, Kilburn, London. 1870-8. Mostly brick but the spire and other dressing are of Bath limestone.

77.42 metres

Redcliffe, Somerset (at least until it was incorporated into City of Bristol over the Avon 1373). W tower begin mid 13thc and erupted into 14thc ballflower frenzy, tho each stage prob a generation apart. Spire hit by lighting 1446 and truncated until rebuilt 1870 to

79.83 metres

Boston, Lincs. The Stump. W doorway goes w 1309 nave build but moved to front new tower 1420s. Internal vault of 1st build absurdly high: not sure where the bells were ever meant to go! As for the 1510s lantern: was it a cutback from a spire or base for one? Still,

81.61 metres

Edinburgh Episcopal Cathedral, crossing. Foundation stone of church laid 21 May 1876, opened 25 Jan 1879. Weren't many opportunities to build a cathedral in Victorian Britain, but this was one. Sorry Truro, passed you now but I wasn't convinced by measurement I had.

82 metres