
The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland

St Leonard (medieval)
Parish church
The village of Pitcombe lies 1.5 miles SW of Bruton. The ancient parish of Pitcombe, originally part of the minster parish of Bruton, occupied a crescent-shaped area to its S and SW. It included the village of Pitcombe in a valley at the centre of the crescent and the hamlets of Cole to the N, Honeywick and Hadspen to the W, and Hadspen House towards the S. The church (with the exception of the tower) was rebuilt in 1857-8 to designs by G. E. Street and has a chancel with N vestry, a nave with N aisle and S porch, and a W tower. The font is believed to be 12thc.
Parish church
Rodney Stoke 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 in Somerset. As The parish extends on to the high ground to the NE and SW across the moors of the valley of the Axe, which river now runs less than 2 miles SW of the church. This is an area steeped in history: the diocesan centre of Wells is only 5 miles SE, the once-royal centre of Cheddar only 2.5 miles NW, and the once-thriving lead mines on Mendip only 4 miles N. The church, which is built of coursed and squared rubble with freestone dressings, consists of a W tower, nave, N porch, chancel and N chapel. The Romanesque elements comprise a sculptured head on the W face of the tower and a possible font.
Parish church
South Ormsby is a village in the East Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, in the Lincolnshire Wolds, 7 miles S of Louth and 7 miles NE of Horncastle. The Hall, built by James Paine in 1752, is surrounded by wooded parkland in whuich the remains of a shrunken medieval village have been found. The church is to the S of the park on top of a small rise. It consists of a Perpendicular W tower, nave with S aisle, N porch, and 14th c. chancel with a chapel to the S. The S aisle was rebuilt in 1871-2 by James Fowler. At the W end of the S aisle is a reset Romanesque doorway. The Church guide and information in the church states that this doorway came from the church of St. Andrew at nearby Calceby when this later church was dismantled in 1756. At this time the two parishes were merged into one.
Parish church
Haugh is a village in the district of East Lindsey, Lincolnshire. It is on the E edge of the Lincolnshire Wolds, 2½ miles W of Alford and 8 miles from the coast at Mablethorpe. It is a small church consisting of nave and chancel, built of squared chalk and greenstone rubble with some brick patching, and has a blocked N doorway, a 14thc S doorway with an ogee head, and an 11thc chancel arch described below. The church was restored in 1873.
Chapel
Little now remains of the medieval chapel of St Leonard in Sand Hutton, a village about 6 miles NE of York. Only part of the S wall of the nave survives, situated behind the present parish church of St Mary, which was constructed during the 19thc. The remains include a small doorway and a window with tracery. The masonry surrounding the doorway has been supported by metal poles, though its survival looks precarious; the whole wall is overgrown with ivy.
Parish church
Burseldon almost appears an entirely Victorian church by Sedding in 1888, but conserving all of the medieval features that had survived alterations of 1828. This is essentially the W part of the nave walling, and probably part of the chancel also. The 13thc carved responds of the chancel arch also survive, but probably moved. The only Romanesque feature is the font.
Parish church
Broomfield is a village in the City of Chelmsford district of the county. less than a mile outside the main conurbation to the NW. The village is a mile from N to S, with the church just off its main road. St Mary's is a flint rubble church with much Roman brick re-used as quoins and as dressings for the tower windows. It is dominated by a handsome round W tower, probably 12thc, with a shingled spire, splayed at the foot. The nave and chancel are 11th -12thc, although the chancel was extended in the 15thc. There is a N aisle and a S porch, both rebuilt by Chancellor as part of a restoration of 1869-70 which also included the addition of a N vestry. A church hall (St Leonard's Hall) was added on the N side of the vestry by Tim Venn in 1996-97. The only Romanesque sculpture found here is a carved head reset in the exterior E wall of the chancel, and we are grateful to Richard Slaughter to drawing this to our attention.
Parish church
Madeley is in NW Staffordshire, just over a mile from the Shropshire
border and four miles E of Newcastle-under-Lyme. The parish was formerly an
extensive one, occupying the fertile, hilly ground as far W as the county
boundary. It consisted of the three villages of Great, Middle and Little
Madeley and Onneley, to the W. All of these lie along the A525 road from
Whitchurch to Newcastle. Madeley was apparently always the largest settlement.
The church is alongside the main road, with the Old Hall (now a 17thc.
building) immediately to the N. Old Madeley manor is a mile to the S, but
ruinous, and the new manor is in Little Madeley to the NE. Red and blue clay is
still extracted for brick manufacture, and coal was formerly mined at Leycett
colliery (closed 1957) and Silverdale (closed 1998). All Saints is a red
sandstone church with a nave with aisles, a S porch
and transepts, a chancel with a N chapel and a W tower.
The oldest part of the church is the 12thc. N arcade.
The S arcade and clerestorey
are ofc.1300, and both aisles have been widened; the N in the 14thc.
and the S in the 15thc., to judge from the windows. The nave aisles are of four
bays and extend partway alongside the tower to the W.
The S porch is 15thc. Its original entrance has been
blocked, and the modern entrance to the church is through a doorway cut into
the E wall of the porch, allowing the insertion of
lavatories at the S end. The N transept was added in the 14thc., and a lancet
at the W end of the N arcade wall (originally the outer
wall) indicates that there was no transept here before that. The S transept is
15thc., as is the N chancel chapel (now a
vestry). The chancel itself
was completely rebuilt in 1872 as part of a restoration by Charles Lynam of
Stoke-on-Trent. Views of the church before this restoration are in the William
Salt library. The tower is 15thc. with a 19thc. battlemented parapet with
finials. Romanesque sculpture is found in the N nave
arcade.
Parish church
Speeton is a village in North Yorkshire which lies mid-way between Filey and Bridlington. Formerly in the East Riding, it is now North Yorkshire's most easterly settlement. Pevsner & Neave describe the church as ‘The simplest of buildings…' and largely early C12 (Pevsner and Neave 1995, 708.) It has a small W tower, nave and chancel; the roof is continuous over nave and chancel. The church is about 110m above sea level and within a mile of the coast. It is no doubt sited in a hollow for protection from storms: there are no windows to the N or E, and there were none on the W wall until two were created in 1910. The nave is approx. 4.5m x 6.8m, the chancel about half that area.
No burials are apparent in the field and it seems there never have been any, corpses being carried to Bridlington priory (Sykes, n.d.). The church was never restored agressively, but there have been repairs and rebuildings on the old plan. In this way, two carved stones have been recovered from the W and the S walls. The VCH notes use of chalk along with the stone - there is a little in the W wall, but it is not visible as a major component as it is in some farm buildings in the village; chalk in this region is hard, but better kept for interior use in a church. In parts of the discontinuous double plinth the lower course includes cobbles from the beach.
Of our period are the round-headed bell openings in the unbuttressed tower; plain Norman chancel arch; font; two reset carved stones in N wall of nave.
Parish church
Scorborough is a hamlet in the East Riding of Yorkshire, about 4 miles N of Beverley. The church is by J. L. Pearson, built 1857-1859 to replace what Pevsner described as ‘a mean brick building’ (Pevsner and Neave, 1995, 671). Quiney considered it ‘among the great monuments of Victorian church building, not just in the East Riding, but in England as a whole.’ (Quiney, 1984, 29) It has a nave and chancel, and a large W tower. Outside is a font standing on what was once a pier base.