
The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland

"healaugh"
Parish church
Healaugh, one of two villages of this name in Yorkshire, is 3 miles NNE of Tadcaster in the Selby district. Nearby are the remains of Healaugh Park Priory (Augustinian, founded 1218). The church of St John the Baptist (originally, St Helen), sited across a hilltop ridge, has a nave with W tower, chancel, north aisle and north chancel aisle. Its plan is still substantially 12thc, however. The E wall and E end of the chancel S wall are later, perhaps partly due to structural weakness developing on this sloping site. The upper parts of the tower are later too, and a crack has been patched over the S doorway.
Sculpture is found on two doorways, an extensive sculptured corbel table to N and S, the chancel arch, and the capitals of the N arcade.
Parish church
A large church of greyish white limestone with a tall spire about a mile and a half from Selby Abbey. To the NE, the Victorian extension of Selby along Brook Street, with hospital and schools, comes close, and to the SW is Brayton itself. The church has green spaces immediately around it; most of these areas are known to flood seasonally; the churchyard itself has an area that floods quite often. Since the 12th-century parts of the church are unlikely to have much footings, and certainly no damp course, the parts of interest to this Corpus are seen to be suffering worst from efflorescence (rising damp) and algal growth (constant damp), not only externally but on internal walls as well. The decay is accelerating, as comparing the earlier photos with the recent ones may demonstrate. The church comprises W tower, aisled nave, S porch; chancel and N vestry. The unbuttressed tower is largely of 12thc date, up to and including the corbels on the four sides. The chancel arch also remains largely intact except where restored. The S doorway of three orders was reset from its original position when the S aisle was added. The N arcade was cut in the N wall of the Norman nave. The nave and chancel seem unusually spacious, this is perhaps because there is no chancel step but only a step at the sanctuary.
A restoration by J. L. Pearson, c.1877 or so (Borthwick Instituete Fac.1877/3) repaired damage but was not excessively zealous; Pearson probably added the porch, but, as at Riccall, this has added to the problems of damp. Previous work done about 1868 is likely to have been responsible for some of the over-heavy restoration treatment on the chancel arch, such as tinkering with heads, and the bolder label.
Traces of medieval paint remain on S arcade bay 3 (that is, on a surface later than the Romanesque), on 12thc work on the N side of the tower arch, nave face of third order, and on a medallion of the S doorway. Internally, on the W wall of the nave above the tower arch, can be seen the original roof line, and also a rectangular opening, now blocked. There is a similar rectangular opening in the wall above the chancel arch. This too is blocked. The quality of the sculpture is high, the state of preservation generally good inside the church, but worsening on the doorway due to damp from ground water and the lack of a damp course combined with the restricted circulation of air within the porch. To summarise, items of interest here are the S doorway, chancel arch, tower arch, font, and corbels on the tower.
Parish church
The village of Wighill is 6 miles E of Wetherby and close to the River Wharfe.
The church was originally a two-cell structure. The present nave is based largely on the plan of the original 12thc. church. The form of the original chancel is unknown, and there is now a long chancel, similar to the church at Healaugh. Bilson (1915) says the rectangular chancel dates in part from the 12thc. and that it was later extended. The N nave arcade is late 12thc. and belongs with the late 12thc. N aisle. Further additions include a N chancel chapel, a W tower, and a vestry (Leach and Pevsner 2009, 755-56; there is a plan in Bilson (1915) opposite p.108).
Leach and Pevsner (2009, 755) say that the 1912-1913 restoration was by W. H. Brierley. Borthwick Faculty 1912/6 relates to the general restoration and improvements (Bilson, 1915). An appeal leaflet for the restoration is in the Leeds Local History Library.
Romanesque sculpture can be found on the S doorway and on the N arcade. Pevsner (1959) says that this S doorway is "one of the most sumptuous and one of the best preserved amongst the group of Norman doorways in village churches near York" with rare carved scenes of the Crucifixion and the Descent from the Cross on its capitals.
Parish church, formerly Benedictine house
Nun Monkton is a settlement 8 miles N of York. The church is the main survival from the priory founded before 1154, and is approached from the SW on a private road up an avenue leading directly towards the W facade. The five bays of W part of the present church are the only visible remains from the priory. The W facade is 12th-century in the lower stage, with doorway and statuary; the W doorway opens into the tower which is enclosed in the aisleless nave. The E wall is a 19th-century feature; it did not exist in this position at the time of the visit by Sir William Glynne (Butler 2007, 308-10). The E end of the present church was added in 1873, incorporating the remains of the easternmost doorway in the S wall. (See Leach and Pevsner 2009, 610-11).
There are three doorways in the S wall of the nave of which the E is the most elaborate but mostly restored; access to the exterior S wall was restricted in 2014. Plan of church in Poole 1844 shows a straight E wall limiting the early work to five bays; sources of earlier illustrations are given in Bilson 1915, 107; three illustrations of the pre-restoration building are given in Butler 2007, 308-10).
Romanesque sculpture is foound on the E doorway, S wall, and on the W facade.
Parish church
The small quiet village of Newton Kyme is situated in pasture near the river Wharfe a mile or two above Tadcaster. The church, adjacent to Newton Kyme hall, and presumably built in Tadcaster limestone, comprises west tower, nave, N aisle, and chancel with a chapel in the NE angle. The building has been modified and added to over centuries, and presents ‘a confusing building history and an irregular-looking interior’ (Pevsner). For the sculpture-seeker also, there is plenty to puzzle over.
Parish church
Ryther is a village almost equidistant between Tadcaster and Selby in North Yorkshire. The church is in a quiet and open situation not far from the river Wharfe. It has a simple nave and chancel, perhaps of pre-Conquest origin, together with S aisle, S porch and a vestry made in the W end of the aisle. Mostly limestone, but quite a lot of gritstone. The wide S aisle was added about 1300 according to Pevsner; this has three bays, and in this are the best of the four or five medieval altar stones.
A leaflet in the church mentions a rebuilding of the chancel in 1843, and restorations in 1861 and 1898. For the restoration in 1898, by Hodgson Fowler, the papers (Borthwick Fac. 1897/16) do not include any drawings before work commenced. At this restoration it was proposed that the roofs were taken off and the gables taken down at least as far as solid old work, and rebuilt; a brick tower was to be taken away, the W wall of the nave refaced perhaps as a consequence, and the S porch renewed. Instructions in the specification say 'All old carved and moulded work that may be found or is in the part to be pulled down to be carefuly preserved and built into the porch walls as directed to show it'.
There is definitely Romanesque interest in the dozen or so reset pieces which are outside on the walls and buttresses of the S aisle, the W wall of the aisle, and inside the porch. Almost all are listed below as Features are in the exterior walls of the south aisle. Pevsner notes two reset window-heads, late Saxon or early Norman, in the N wall of the nave, and there is another twelfth-century slab on that wall too. The doorway to the chancel, at least in part of the late 12th century, is restored. Inside the church, the chancel arch is of uncertain date, and the font too.
Parish church
This is a church without a tower, standing isolated in a ring of trees, south of its village across the main east-west road. When it was built, it was near the Humber, but reclamation means it is now 5km or more away (VCHER V, 148, with map). It has a nave, chancel, rebuilt south aisle and a south chapel now used as a vestry, with a compact, almost domestic, late medieval interior. Morris 1919, 331, says ‘well-restored’, the architect was Temple Moore (Borthwick Institute, Faculty papers 1888/7; plan in Miller 1937, 183; Pevsner and Neave 1995, 756).
Miller 1937, following James Raine, associates the unusual dedications at Winestead (St Germain) and Patrington (St Patrick) to a ‘Culdee’ mission. Ingram (no date) mentions visits of Germain, bishop of Auxerre, to Britain in the 5th century, as recorded by Bede, and suggests an early Christian settlement at Winestead. Selby Abbey was dedicated to St Mary and St Germanus, following the arrival of a monk from Auxerre in the Norman period. Pevsner and Neave 1995, 756, use the shortening 'St German'; the Diocesan Directory gives the dedication as 'St Germain'.
The north and south walls of the twelfth-century chancel remain and, of the nave, the north wall and part of the west walls are of the Romanesque period. These walls are 5ft (1.5m) thick according to Miller, and of ‘late Norman or Transitional date’ according to the architect, Temple Moore, 1895, 85. The corbels on the south wall of the chancel were found in the walls at the restoration, and their original positions cannot be known. ‘Pieces of round-headed windows, with engaged shaft, like the one in the north wall of Halsham, and a fragment of an arch with zigzag ornament’ mentioned by Miller (1937, 181) were not found, nor were they known to the churchwarden. From the wording, these could have been loose pieces, as they are contrasted with the ‘built in’ corbels.
Parish church
The churchyard is bordered on the SW and the S by the river Derwent, which is still tidal here. However, the river is deep down in its channel and so it is hidden in the luxuriant growth on its banks which can hardly be seen from the churchyard. The riverside once had a wharf and a warehouse nearby. There is an 18th-century bridge which spans the river to the N.
The church is composed of an aisled nave, a long chancel with a N chapel, and a W tower all of a Gothic styles. These enclose a possibly 12thc nave and its surviving chancel arch.
The chancel arch, of three orders and an ornamented label, is a lively work but suffering from damp which is forcing iron stain out of the stone. The E wall of the nave is something of a jumble, which might explain the damp. Remains of windows in the wall between the nave and the chancel, higher than the chancel roof, are noted in Pevsner and Neave 1995, 359. They are a loose capital, and two fragments reset in the chancel wall, which may have come to light during the 1894 restoration, when at least part of the S aisle wall was taken down. Part of the corbel table of the N nave wall remains in situ in the N aisle, but the corbels themselves are broken away. There is an uncommon string-course on the chancel N wall.
Parish church
Riccall is a village about 3.5 miles N of Selby and 9 miles S of York. The church of St Mary lies to the centre of the village and is built of local Magnesian limestone. The building consists of a late 13thc chancel; nave with clerestory and 15thc battlements; late 12thc and early 13thc nave arcades; N and S chapels off the chancel, and a Norman W tower with bell-openings of c.1170-90. Between 1862 and 1877 the church was restored by John Loughborough Pearson, who rebuilt and heightened the tower, rebuilt the roofs and, significantly, rebuilt thye porch and the S aisle wall. During this rebuilding the S doorway was not taken down but left in place, propped up (see photograph).
The church is known for its ‘Yorkshire School’ doorway, c.1150-60. The doorway is thought to have been reset twice, first when a S aisle was made in the late 12thc or early 13thc (see off-centre round-headed slit window at W end of S aisle), and again when the aisle was widened to the present limits in the 15thc. At the second rebuilding if not before, the original sequence of voussoirs was lost, as is clear from the disruption of the conventional order of Adam, Eve and the serpent in the tree (order one, voussoirs 4, 5 and 2); there are other discrepancies. Between voussoirs 6 and 7 of the first order is a triangle of mortar causing a slight pointedness in the arch.
Parish church
The village lies along a stream springing from the foot of the Wolds. The church has west tower with spire, aisled nave, and chancel. It is a 19thc. building but retained parts of the medieval church. With tasteful fittings, fine mosaic floor and well-placed lighting, the interior effect is very good. The architect was J. L. Pearson for Sir Tatton Sykes, and the work was done about 1858-9. The sculptural remains for this corpus are confined to the S doorway and the chancel arch: the structure of the chancel itself is said to be ‘Norman too, though few traces remain’ (Pevsner & Neave 1995, 331); 12thc. worked stones have been identified reused in the fabric of the N aisle wall (L. A. S. Butler).
The south doorway is a round-headed doorway of four orders and label, rebuilt by Pearson using 50-60% of the old work in the arches. It is easy to tell the old from the new by the colour of the stone. The new parts he supplied follow the old work, clearly so in areas that are of continuous pattern, but where the entire stone is new the content is also credible (Wood 2011). The chancel arch was reconstructed from finds in the Victorian rebuilding, but the jambs may have remained in place, under a pointed Gothic arch.