Doors and windows outside churches usually have a hoodmould (also called the dripstone or label) over them to direct rainwater down the sides. The hoodmould often ends in an undecorated or decorated block termed a stop. If decorated it is commonly of human heads. At Harby church, out of the total 21 doors and windows, 10 have stops decorated with a human head, one has stops of foliage design. The Harby windows and doors have been given numbers clockwise around the church, starting at one on the south wall next to the east window and finishing at the east window which is 16 .
The design of the windows gives a date to the time of when that window was originally made. As in most parish churches, there has been extensive renovation and Harby church has written records of this taking place in later Victorian times. The aim of this renovation included the replacement of worn stonework by new stones in the manner of the old. Telling which stone is original, which Victorian replacement is usually easy from the crisp edges to the new stone. Other ways of determining the date are the type of stone, as it is unlikely that the original and the Victorian masons used stone from the same quarry. Hand lens inspection by an expert can tell this but no such expert was available for this study. The lichen growth on the stone may also be an indicator of age. Finally there is the setting of the stone in the other stonework which may be askew and show later insertion. The action of weathering operates more on the exposed areas on the west of stonework and to the west of the building with the driving of the rain in the prevailing wind. The Victorian stops have the characteristic that they have the detail mainly visible from front view, little on the sides, the stone used is rectangular in shape and the largest dimensions of the head are similar to the dimensions of the stone that went into the wall, there was apparently an economy not to use a blank of stone larger than necessary. Original stops have the stone that fits into the wall larger than the maximum dimensions of the head and of an irregular shape and the head detail visible from side view is as intricate as visible from the front.
