The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
St Clement (medieval)
Parish church
Fiskerton is a village in the West Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, 4 miles E of the centre of Lincoln on the N bank if the River Witham. The church is on the S side of the High Street and is an imposing and confusing building. At the W end is a round tower, rare in Lincolnshire and disguised by a 14thc remodelling involving ashlar cladding, massive buttresses and an additional bell storey. The nave has N and S aisles and there is a rectangular chancel with N and S chapels. Much of this dates from the thirteenth century, and parts of the chancel and S aisle were reconstructed by Ewan Christian in 1863. The N nave arcade, the N chapel arcade, the scallop frieze in the S chapel, and fragments of capitals built into the E wall of the N aisle and the S chapel arch are Romanesque.
Parish church
Of the aisleless, cruciform church, the upper part of the tower survives with its four (reduced) internal openings and Romanesque windows. Aisles were added to the nave c.1200 both N and S, but the former was later dismantled. The chancel was remodelled in the 13thc and again in 1835. The only Romanesque sculpture at the site is the loose voussoir recorded here, seen in 1984.
Castle chapel
Of the castle there remain parts of 12thc. walling at the postern gate of the Piper Tower and part of the gatehouse tower, but nothing extensive and certainly nothing sculptural (Roberts, 2002, 405a). Most of the 12thc. fabric was of Magnesian limestone, ashlar but including some herringbone work, and is now mostly internal. A cellar in the inner bailey, later extended, may originally have been Norman work with a stair vice for access (Roberts 2002, 120, fig. 81). The most significant remains of the Romanesque period are the foundations and a few courses of the chapel in the inner bailey, at the opposite end from the motte.
Despite the chapel’s apparently ‘free’ location, it is not correctly orientated but points 30 degrees N of E. Stonework of the chapel rises to about four courses, and has been neatly patched with pebbly cement. No plinths are exposed, but the apse had the unusual detail of shafted pilasters. The chapel is, at first sight, a small version of Birkin church, or Steetley chapel (Derbyshire) since the stilted apse, the presbytery and the nave are all present. However this resemblance may be misleading. The nave still awaits excavation below some 2m of spoil and Victorian landscaping covering the bailey.
The materials used for the castle and the chapel are Coal Measure sandstones and Magnesian limestone. The stone is broadly characteristic of various phases of building, according to Roberts (2002, 85): Anglo-Saxon remains tend to involve sandstone; Magnesian limestone for 12thc. work; sandstone again from the 13thc. century; both types are available in Pontefract.
The current estimate of the size of the chapel is approx. 25.6m long overall; nave approx. 12 x 10m; chancel 9 x 7.5m; apse 4.6m long (Roberts 2002, 87b). This is surprisingly similar to the size of Birkin church.