The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
St Lawrence (medieval)
Parish church
Revesby is a village in the East Lindsey district of the county, 11 miles N of Boston and 21 miles SE of Lincoln. It is a dispersed village, extending for approximately a mile along the A155 between Mareham-le-Fen and East Kirby, and has the site of Revesby Abbey, a former Cistercian House, less than a mile to the N of the village. The church is in the centre, on the S side of the A.155. It was built in 1889-91 by C. Hodgson Fowler, and A number of Romanesque architectural fragments bearing sculptural decoration is set into the interior walls of the W tower and vestry.
Parish church
Bapchild is a village on the old A2 about 1 mile SE of Sittingbourne. The church of St Lawrence has a nave and chancel with N aisle and chapel, a S tower with spire, and a S porch. Romanesque features include the nave arcade and N chapel. Note that the S tower has a blocked round-headed arch and a round-headed window with later tracery, suggesting that the lower level at least is of Romanesque date, but is entirely plain and contains no sculpture.
Parish church
Westbury-sub-Mendip is equidistant from Wells and Cheddar in Somerset. It is one of many small settlements strung out along the main A371 from Wells to Axbridge via Cheddar running along the SW scarp of the Mendip Hills. The parish extends on to the high ground to the NE; it also extends SW across the moors of the valley of the Axe. This is an area ‘steeped in history’ with the diocesan centre of Wells 4mi to the SE, the once royal centre of Cheddar only 4mi NW, and the once-thriving lead mines on Mendip a similar distance to the N. The church of St Lawrence is built of coursed and squared rubble and is quite central, adjacent to a farm and near the main A371 road. Dating from the 12thc., it consists of a W tower, nave with S porch and S aisle, S transept and chancel. The Romanesque elements include the blocked N nave doorway, tower arch, and a possible font.
Parish church
Wick St Lawrence stands at an altitude of about 9m on a modest outcrop of Blue Lias (between outcrops to either side on Middle Hope and on the NE edge of Milton Hill), between the rivers Yeo and Banwell. ‘Wick’ seems to have had the specialised sense of ‘dairy-farm’. The church of St Lawrence consists of nave, chancel, S porch, N vestry and W tower. It dates from the 15thc (including a pulpit relocated from Woodspring Priory) and was largely rebuilt and heavily restored following a lightning strike in 1791 by Foster and Wood of Bristol in 1864-65. It The font is Romanesque.
Parish church, former
Snarford is a village in the West Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, 9 miles NE of Lincoln and 6 miles SW of Market Rasen on the A46 that links these two places. The church is to the N of the village, on the site of the Deserted Medieval Village along with Hall Farm (see Lincs HER). It is a limestone building consisting of a nave, a chancel with a north chapel, and a west tower. The lower part of the W tower is 12thc. The remainder of the church is 14thc and 15thc. It was restored in the 19thc and was declared redundant in 1995. It is now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. Inside the tower are four round-headed or segmental arches, one on each wall, at a level just above the later pointed arch leading into the nave. Romanesque sculpture is found on the E wall arch, which has been reset; the other arches are plain.
Parish church
The church comprises, chancel with S chapel and N vestry, nave with S aisle and S porch, and W tower. The nave and chancel are 12thc, while the S porch, S aisle and tower are 14thc. The chancel was rebuilt in the 15thc (Historic England listing: 1309558). Romanesque sculpture is found on the elaborately carved S doorway.
Parish church
Whitwell is a village in the Bolsover district of NE Derbyshire, 10 miles E of Chesterfield but only 4 miles SW of Worksop, over the border in Nottinghamshire. The church stands on the NW edge of the village and has a nave with 12thc 4-bay arcades, a 12thc clerestorey and corbel tables. Gabled transepts were added to the 1st bay on each side in the 1st half of the 14thc. and the S porch is of a similar date. The chancel arch is 12thc work, and the chancel also has a corbel table surviving on the N side. The S corbels were lost when the roof level was raised in the 14thc. The chancel also has a 2-storey N vestry or treasury. The W tower is 12thc in its lower storeys and retains its original W doorway.
Parish church
St Laurence's has a three-bay aisled nave without clerestoreys. The N aisle and arcade date from 1850, the S has elaborately carved 12th-13thc. capitals, at the very least heavily restored in the 19thc., carried on piers of a variety of forms. The arches above are 13thc. The chancel was rebuilt by J. M. Derrick in 1848, with no chapels or vestries. The W tower is 12thc. in its lower stages, with a plain 12thc. doorway to the S, but heavy buttresses and a top storey were added, probably in the 15thc. In 1999 a kitchen and lavatory block was added to the N of the tower, communicating with the N aisle. The church also contains a font, stylistically 12thc. but suspiciously crisp and regularly carved.
Parish church
St Lawrence serves the large market town of Alton in E Hampshire. It is a capacious church, with a broad double-pitched roof covering the main vessels. The plan is sometimes described as a double nave, with the original nave now serving as a S aisle. To its E is a tower (formerly crossing tower) with an external stair turret, followed by a chapel (formerly chancel). A new nave and chancel were added to the N in the 15thc, with a Perp arcade replacing the former N wall. A porch and vestry project to the S, and an organ chamber to the N.
Two string courses on the exterior of the tower are carved with billet, zigzag and chip-carving. The four tower arches are carved with Romanesque capitals of late 11thc date, including animals, birds and heads. The Victorian font is located under the tower; its predecessor, a plain tub font, has been moved to the SE corner of the chapel (formerly chancel). Several decorated frieze or impost blocks are situated in the S wall of the S aisle (formerly nave).
Parish church
Empshott church is located in an elevated, secluded village of scattered farms and woodland in rural E Hampshire, S of Selborne. Although small reset windows in the N and S walls of the W porch and in the N wall of the chancel are considered to be Norman, the church dates largely from c.1200, with major campaigns of renovation and rebuilding c.1624-26 and c.1867-68.
The building comprises: a W porch; a W bell turret with a glazed lantern beneath the bell stage; a nave with elaborate roof trusses; N and S aisles which have been greatly reduced in width but retain four-bay arcades; a reinforced chancel arch, and a chancel which once opened into N and S chapels. The S chapel has been replaced by a vestry.
The nave arcades date from c.1200. Stylistically they are Early English, like the chancel, but the S arcade includes scallops and cusped fluting, indicating the transitional nature of the ensemble. A Purbeck font of similar date stands at the W end of the nave.