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I Location

II General Description

St Mary's has an aisled and clerestoreyed nave with three-bay arcades. Of these bay 1 of the S arcade is 13thc. and may, according to Pevsner, have been a transept arch originally. The rest of the S arcade and the entire N arcade are either 19thc. in their entirety or heavily restored work of the years around 1300. The clerestorey windows are 14thc. The S aisle has been extended E alongside the chancel to form a chapel, now in use as an organ loft and vestry. The chancel also belongs to c.1300. At the E end the lowest part of a tower remains, including a 14thc. window. The spire had fallen in 1703, and most of the remainder was demolished in 1967. In its place a bellcote was built on top of the west gable. A date stone of 1601 over the S doorway presumably records a restoration. The church is of ironstone and grey stone in roughly-coursed blocks. The only Romanesque feature is the elaborate late 12thc. S doorway.

III Exterior Features

1. Doorways

(i) S nave doorway

Round-headed, four orders.

The doorway is set forward from the wall by 0.3m on a frontispiece with a weathered top and central gablet. Below the gablet is a date stone of 1601. The embrasures have angled, chamfered socles.

Dimensions

First order

Plain jambs with angle rolls without capitals or bases, but flaring out slightly at top and bottom of the jamb. Imposts are hollow chamfered with a double groove on the face. The west impost is of red ironstone, badly eroded; the east of better-preserved grey stone. The arch has a slender angle roll, then a thinner roll and broad hollow on the face.

Second order

En-delit nook-shafts on bulbous bases with roll neckings. These stand on chamfered plinth blocks resting on the socles, and this arrangement also applies to the third and fourth orders. The capitals are worn with tall concave bells and crockets at the angles. Neckings are plain rolls and both imposts are of grey stone, as the first order. The arch has a keeled angle roll and face and soffit hollows.

Third order

The embrasures are as the second order, except that the west impost is of badly worn ironstone, and the east capital, while of the same general form, is more worn and appears to have had more foliage on its south face. In the arch is a row of centripetal face chevron, the points resting on an angle roll, and the chevrons emphasised by roll edges with a thin roll inside this. The soffit has a quirked hollow.

Fourth order. The embrasures are as the second order, except for the capitals. The west capital has a fleshy-lobed palmette on each face; the east has fleshy stiff-leaf volutes. The arch has a keeled angle roll and quirked hollows on face and soffit. There is a plain roll label.

VII History

Formerly a dependent chapel of Great Harrowden,now a parish church. The earliest reference to the chapel is in Bishop Hugh II's act of 1227.

Benefice of Great Harrowden with Little Harrowden and Orlingbury.

VIII Comments/Opinions

RCHME suggests that that doorway originally stood in the S wall of an aisleless nave. The crocket capitals and multiple mouldings including keeled profiles points to a date of c.1190-1200. The elaborate arrangement of stepped embrasures on straight slanting socles is an unusual one in this country, and did not become common in France until after 1200 (Baxter 2000). It presumably belongs to the resetting rather than the original design, as at Bourges.

IX Bibliography