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- 1. St James, Brackley, Magdalen College School, Northamptonshire, England
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School chapel (formerly chapel to the Hospital of St James and St John) Brackley is a town in the far S of the county, sited in a loop of the Great Ouse, which forms the border with Buckinghamshire. It is an ancient site on the main road from Northampton to Oxford, and evidence of Iron Age and Roman settlement has been found in the town. There seem to have been two centres to it; one around St Peter's church towards the E of the present town, and the other on its southern edge, overlooking the river, around the site of the Norman castle, of which a motte 3m high and 40m in diameter survives. The church is a long single-celled building with a short tower attached to the N side, W of centre. There is no chancel arch, but the extent of the original chancel is marked by an arcade of four bays on the N wall, now blocked but originally giving onto a chapel. There was apparently another chapel on the N side of the nave, W of the tower, where a tall quatrefoil-section pier survives with the first few voussoirs of vault-ribs above its capital. The exterior masonry is much disturbed on the S side, where blocked doorways and a total lack of fenestration at the W end indicate the removal of conventual buildings which communicated with the church. An elaborate late-12thc. W doorway is the earliest dateable feature of the fabric, but most of the remainder suggests a 13thc. date, including the W window, the triple-lancets of the chancel S wall, and the simple lancets of the tower. Construction is of stone rubble. There was a restoration in 1869-70 by Buckeridge. The only Romanesque features are the W doorway and the font, both of c.1200.
- 2. St Kyneburgha, Castor, Northamptonshire, England
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Parish church St Kyneburgha's is described by Pevsner as the most important Norman parish church in the county (i.e. Huntingdonshire). An aisleless cruciform church was built in the early 12thc. and dedicated in 1124. In the 1220s a S aisle was added and the chancel replaced; in the 1260s the S transept was replaced by a large chapel with an E aisle; and early in the 14thc. a N aisle was added. A broach spire was added to the tower around 1350, and the nave clerestoreys were inserted in the mid-15thc. The tower is of ashlar, the rest of the church of stone rubble.
- 3. St Denys, Cold Ashby, Northamptonshire, England
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Parish church St Denys has a nave without aisles but with a clerestorey on the S side. It retains its wooden W gallery, now housing the organ. It has a W tower, a chancel with a 19thc. E window in a 14thc. style and porches covering the N and S nave doorways. The N porch was converted into a vestry in 1881, and the N doorway retains some of its 12thc. sculpture. The S porch is dated 1696. A stained glass window installed by the vicar Gregory Bateman in 1882 in memory of his wife shows the interior and exterior of the church.
- 4. St Margaret, Crick, Northamptonshire, England
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Parish church St Margaret's has a clerestoreyed and aisled nave with five-bay arcades and a wooden W gallery housing the organ. The arcades are largely 14thc., but the reused E respond and bays 4 and 5 of the S arcade are 13thc. with stiff-leaf capitals. The S doorway is under a porch. The chancel is 14thc., and has a N vestry at the E end. The W tower dates from c.1300, and has a broach spire with three rows of lucarnes. The church is largely faced in ashlar, the chancel and clerestorey in a warm yellow stone, the tower in red ironstone. The aisles are rubble faced. The church was restored by R. C. Hussey in 1840. The fabric, then, is almost entirely Decorated, but St Margaret's boasts an important 12thc. font, unusual in being supported by atlantes.
- 5. St Mary the Virgin, Culworth, Northamptonshire, England
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Parish church St Mary's stands to the south of a motte ringed by a ditch. It has a clerestoreyed, aisled nave with three-bay arcades. The aisles have been extended westwards alongside the west tower. The chancel was rebuilt in 1840 with a north chapel now housing the organ, and a north vestry to the east of that. The nave arcades are late 12thc., although the pointed, chamfered arches appear later than the piers and their capitals. Both arcades have 19thc. labels with figural label stops. The lower part of the tower and its arch, and the extensions to the aisles are c.1300, and the upper storeys of the tower and the nave clerestorey are Perpendicular. The S nave doorway is under a porch. Construction is of ashlar and roughly shaped, coursed stone. There was a general restoration in c.1880 by E. B. Law. The only Romanesque work is in the nave arcades.
- 6. St Mary the Virgin, Dodford, Northamptonshire, England
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Parish church St Mary's has a nave with a N aisle and a clerestorey on the N side only. The arcade, of four bays, is 14thc. The S wall of the nave has two plain 12thc. splayed windows, W one now blocked, and part of the plain arch of a doorway, and on the exterior is much herringbone masonry. These features are illustrated here but not described in view of their lack of ornament. The S porch is of two storeys. The chancel was rebuilt in the 19thc., and there is a tall 13thc. W tower. It contains an elaborately carved 12thc. font.
- 7. St Mary, Grendon, Northamptonshire, England
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Parish church St Mary's has an aisled and clerestoreyed nave with four-bay arcades. In each arcade the two western bays are 12thc., and the two eastern bays 14thc. The short 12thc. nave seems to have been lengthened eastwards in the 14thc., and the clerestorey was added at that time. There are two doorways: the 12thc. S doorway is elaborate and protected by a porch; the 13thc. N doorway very plain and unprotected. The chancel and its arch are also 14thc. The W tower is 15thc. (money was left for the fabric of the 'campanile' in 1453) and of five storeys, the two lowest with ashlar bocks in alternately brown ironstone and grey limestone courses. Above this the ashlar is newer and appears 19thc. The clock is dated 1862. The nave, aisles and chancel are faced in stone rubble. Romanesque sculpture is found in the W bays of both arcades and the S doorway.
- 8. St Bartholomew, Greens Norton, Northamptonshire, England
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Parish church (benefice of Greens Norton with Bradden and Lichborough) Greens Norton is a substantial village in the S of the county, a mile NW of Towcester and less than a mile from Watling Street, the main Roman road running NW out of London. The church is in the village centre. It has a W tower with a spire, an aisled nave and a two-bay chancel. The easternmost bay of the nave is separated from the two western bays by heavy piers which appear to represent the end of an aisleless Anglo-Saxon nave. They include long and short work and carry a cross wall with a blocked, triangular-headed window. A continuous hammerbeam roof over the E bay of the nave and the chancel renders the liturgical divisions of the church ambiguous. The only Romanesque feature is the font.
- 9. St Peter and St Paul, King's Sutton, Northamptonshire, England
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Parish church The church has a tall W tower with a slender spire supported by delicate flying buttresses and decorated with pinnacles and crockets. This late 14thc. work, described by Pevsner as 'one of the finest, if not the finest, spire in this county of spires'. It was partly rebuilt in 1898 and repaired in 1968. To the W of the tower is a Perpendicular porch. The nave aisles extend W alongside the tower. The N nave arcade dates from around 1300, and the S arcade has the same tall, spacious proportions, but in this the piers and arches of a 12thc. arcade have been reused. The chancel arch is also c.1300, but the chancel itself is 12thc., with internal wall-arcading, much restored and with arches that are entirely 19thc., and an external corbel table, completely reset. The font is 12thc., simple and unusually wide.
- 10. All Saints, Mears Ashby, Northamptonshire, England
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Parish church All Saints' has an aisled and clerestoreyed nave of four bays with arcades and S aisle windows of c.1300 but Perpendicular windows in the clerestorey and the N aisle. The chancel has a plain 12thc. doorway, and there is another, more elaborate but not much, re-set in the S nave aisle under a Perpendicular porch. A N vestry has been added to the chancel. At the W is a low tower with a bell stage of c.1250-1300. Construction is of irregular stone (aisles and tower) or ashlar (clerestorey and chancel). Included here are the S doorway and the font.
- 11. All Saints, Naseby, Northamptonshire, England
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Parish church All Saints' has an aisled and clerestoreyed nave with four-bay arcades. The three eastern bays of the S arcade are early 13thc., with quatrefoil piers and stiff-leaf capitals. The W bay is 14thc. and was added at the same time as the tower. The four-bay Narcade and the Naisle windows are of c.1320. The arcade also has quatrefoil piers, but with moulded capitals. The lower parts of the N arcade piers were encased in neo-classical plinths, perhaps in the 18thc. The nave has N and S doorways under porches. The present chancel dates from 1830. The W tower is 14thc. in its lower parts and Perpendicular above. The original spire was left unfinished, and the present one, recessed behind a battlement and equipped with three rows of lucarnes and a liberal application of crockets, dates from the restoration of 1859-60 by W. Slater. The only Romanesque sculpture is found on the font.
- 12. St Peter, Northampton, Northamptonshire, England
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Parish church St Peter's is the finest 12thc. church in the county, and its capital sculpture is one of the highlights of the Romanesque in England. There is no structural division between nave and chancel, and the exterior treatment is uniform throughout the length of the building except for the low W tower. Nave and chancel are aisled and decorated externally at clerestorey level with blind arcading and a corbel table. Within there is no chancel arch; the division between nave and chancel being marked by a low step and the position of the choirstalls. The chancel arcades are of three bays, and both aisles are now used as vestries. In both nave and chancel the clerestorey windows are fairly regularly spaced, but their spacing is greater than a bay but less than two, so their positions vary in relation to the piers. The chancel has no provision for vaulting or roof support whereas in the nave every second pier has a respond on the nave side, running up the wall to a capital at the top, and a transverse arch respond on the aisle side. The nave aisle arches are gone now, but arch springings are sometimes visible. Intermediate piers are cylindrical. The nave arcades are five bays long (two and a half double bays), and the beginning of another bay at the W end of either arcade indicates that the nave was originally longer. It was shortened from six bays in the 17thc. when the W tower was rebuilt approximately 3m E of its original position. There are N and S nave doorways, the N under a porch.
- 13. All Saints, Pitsford, Northamptonshire, England
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Parish church All Saints has an aisled nave with five-bay arcades, a chancel and a W tower. All of this is by Slater and Carpenter, dating from 1867-68, except the N nave aisle and the W tower, which are early 14thc. The only 12thc. feature is the important S doorway, with its figural tympanum. This is set under a 19thc. porch.
- 14. St Mary, Wansford, Northamptonshire, England
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Chapel of ease St Mary's has a nave with a two-bay N aisle without any windows and a S doorway under a porch. The square-ended chancel has a N vestry and organ chamber, and there is a W tower with a broach spire with two tiers of lucarnes. An 11thc. window in the W wall of the nave indicates an early date for the core building. The S doorway dates from the early 13thc., and the N arcade and tower are slightly later. The S porch is dated 1663, and at that date too the S nave wall was rebuilt. The clerestoreys to N and S were presumably added at that time too. At some point, probably in the 15thc., the chancel fell down, and the E nave wall was rebuilt without a chancel. Until the new chancel was built in 1902 on the old foundations, St Mary's was claimed to be the smallest parish church in England. Construction is of stone rubble and ashlar. The church boasts an exceptional font of the 1120s, which is the only feature described here.
- 15. St Mary the Virgin, Woodford, Northamptonshire, England
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Parish church St Mary's has a clerestoreyed nave with N and S aisles. The arrangement of the arcades is rather complex. There are six bays on the N and five on the S. The two east bays of each arcade correspond. The next pier W of each arcade is a short section of wall with responds to E and W and transverse arches across nave and aisles. W of this there are four bays in the N arcade but only three in the S, although the arcades are of equal length. This is because the S arcade has pointed arches throughout, and the N round arches. Of this ensemble, the earliest work is in the W section of the N arcade, say c.1190-1210. The two E bays of both arcades date from a decade later; pier 1 of each arcade is cylindrical with a moulded capital and the arches on the N are round, but on the S the round arches have been replaced by pointed ones with an unusual double hollow profile. This modification probably belongs to the later 13thc., and from this period too dates the entire west section of the S arcade. The E part of the present nave was, of course, the chancel originally, with chapels to N and S now integrated into the nave aisles. A new chancel was built to the E in the 13thc., but the present chancel is largely of 1866-67, and by James Fowler of Louth. The remainder of the church was restored in the same period, by William Slater of Northampton. The S nave doorway is covered by a porch, which also incorporates a tiny 13thc. chapel, once vaulted, open to the S aisle. The W tower dates from c.1250, and has a 14thc. ashlar broach spire.
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