St Margaret (medieval)
Parish church
Stanstead St Margarets is a village in the East Hertfordshire district, 4 miles E of Hertford and 2 miles SE of Ware. The church is in the village centre., and is a single cell buildingwith a bellcote over the W gable. Construction is of flint rubble with stone dressings. The building is 12thc. in origin, see the round headed window E of the S doorway, but it was rebuilt with a N aisle in the early 14thc, the aisle was later removed. to house a college with 5 chaplains. This was dissolved in 1431 and the aisle removed but remains of the arcade are still visible on the exterior. The church was restored from 1807 including the addition of the bellcote. Two N vestries were added in the later 19thc. The only Romanesque feature recorded here is the S nave window.
Parish church
Langton is a small village in East Lindsey, 1½ miles W of Horncastle. The church is at the E end of the village and is a small building of greenstone, limstone and red brick. The original church on the site was medieval and had a W tower, whise foundations are visible at the W end. It was restored in 1750 and again, by W. Scorer, in 1890, so that now it is mostly his work. It is a small church with nave and chancel only. A coped coffin lid bearing sculptural decoration was reset into the rebuilt W wall of the nave in 1891; previously it had been located in the chancel pavement, and this is the only Romanesque feature.
Parish church
Middle Chinnock is 3 miles NE of Crewkerne in generally undulating country, an area of South Somerset notable as good farming country. Chiselborough Hill rises abruptly to the N of the Chinnock stream; the chalk hills of Dorset are not far to the S. The small, compact, settlement of Middle Chinnock is only a field away from the larger village of West Chinnock. The church of St Margaret is at the S end of the settlement, packed together quite closely with the rectory, manor house and farm. The medieval nave has a porch and W tower, and the plan at this end of the church seems unchanged. It had transepts added in 1836 and has a chancel that was restored in the 1860s. Remains from the Romanesque period include the S doorway to the nave, and a font. There are also re-set carved stones in the exterior walls of the N transept and chancel.
Parish church
Ormesby St Margaret is a large village, lying 7 mi NW of Great Yarmouth and 20 mi NE of Norwich. The village is between the Broads and the coast, and not far inland from Caister-on-Sea. The parish church is situated at the seaward end of the village above the Yarmouth road. The church of St Margaret has a nave and chancel of 14thc origin, much-restored in the 19thc, with west tower of c.1500 and later north aisle and vestry. It is made of flint and chert rubble with limestone dressings. The only Romanesque feature is a reset Norman doorway in the 15thc south porch.
Parish church
The village of Upton Noble lies between Bruton and Frome in Somerset, 300m E of the main A359. Upton Noble, being near the W lip of the shallow valley to its E, has a good view of the border with Wiltshire. The border with Wiltshire, running along a N-S greensand ridge clothed with the remnants of ancient Selwood Forest, is only about 4mi E; the area still feels like a frontier zone, which is how it seems to have been treated in Saxon times (for example, defining the E limit of the diocese of Sherborne). The church of St Mary Magdalene (formerly St Margaret), which lies in the centre of the village, consists of a nave and chancel with a S chapel linked to a S tower porch. Romanesque elements comprise the S doorway, the font and a piece of exceptional re-set sculpture in the form of a crucifix.
Parish church
Sibsey is a village in the East Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, 5 miles N of Boston and 26 miles SE of Lincoln. The village is in the Licolnshire fens and is the centre of a thriving farming area. The main street of the village is the A16 which runs N from Boston to Louth and Grimsby. The church is in the village centre on the E side of the main street.
It consists of a W tower, an aisled nave with a S porch, and chancel with a N vestry. Of these the 4-storey tower is 13thc in its 3 lowest stages with an embattled 15thc top storey. The nave aisles were added in the 12thc, and a clerestorey in the 15thc. In 1840 the nave piers and responds were heightened, dramatically altering the interior elevation. The chancel was rebuilt in 1855, by Kirk but contains late-medieval features. Construction is of ashlar with some red brick patching. Romanesque sculpture is found in the N nave doorway and in the S and N nave arcades.
Parish church
St Margaret's church is situated in the Norfolk village of Breckles, which lies about 20 mi W of Norwich. The village is bypassed by the main Thetford to Watton road, standing on higher ground on a quiet parallel lane. The church sits a few hundred metres south of Breckles Hall, a historic Elizabethan house.
The parish church is built of flint with ashlar dressings and tiled roofs. It comprises a circular west tower of Saxon or early Norman origin, a later medieval nave, and a chancel largely of the 14thc, all restored in 1856. The tower retains a low semicircular tower arch with decorated imposts carved with cable, interlace, and serpent motifs above a substantial roll moulding, which Pevsner says is pre-Norman. Externally, the tower rises to an octagonal Perpendicular belfry stage with flushwork decoration and trefoiled bell-openings, added in the late 15th or early 16thc. The nave is principally 15thc, lit by large panel-traceried windows and entered through a south porch. The chancel preserves 14thc work, including a three-light east window of stem-and-leaf tracery type and trefoiled side windows, together with a piscina.
The principal Romanesque feature is the font, probably dating from c.1120. The bowl is richly carved on all faces, and the corner shafts also carry carved ornament recalling pre-Conquest decorative traditions. There is also an abandoned font outside.
Parish church
The late 12thc. W tower was rebuilt in 1950 after bomb damage, and vestries were added to either side. The nave and aisles were rebuilt in 1835, following a fire, but the chancel is medieval. The vestry and organ chamber on the S side of the chancel date from 1893.
The W doorway dates from 1950, when the tower was rebuilt following bombing. It is in a Norman style but does not incorporate any original work.
Parish church
This small church consists of a chancel, a nave, and a large double-storied N porch, that was meant to carry a tower (Pevsner, 282). The 19thc timber chancel arch sits on short shafts with reset 12thc capitals. The nave, though restored in 1874-76, is Norman in origin, with an early 12thc S door. A slab that is now part of the altar is also Norman.
Parish church
The seven South Elmham villages; St James, All Saints, St Nicholas, St Cross, St Margaret, St Michael and St Peter, to which may be added Homersfield, sometimes referred to as South Elmham St Mary, lie in a scattered group between Bungay and Halesworth in NE Suffolk, to the W of the Roman road known as Stone Street. North Elmham (the centre of the see until 1071) is over 30 miles away, to the NW of Norwich, and both apparently took their name from Aethelmaer (bishop of East Anglia 1047-1070) the landholder before the Conquest. This is not certain; Tricker suggests that the name meant villages where elm trees grew. The land here is flat, generally arable and sparsely populated; the villages rarely more than a few houses clustered around the church without shops or pubs. St Margaret's village consists of a scattering of houses and the church along a minor road running on the S side of the Beck, a tributary of the Waveney. Alongside the church to the S is the parkland surrounding South Elmham Hall. The hall itself is 0.6 m SW of the church, in the neighbouring parish of South Elmham St Cross (qv). The church is of flint, with a nave, chancel and W tower. The nave is 12thc., with a S doorway and a S window of that date. The S doorway is protected by a two-storey porch of knapped flint and brick, probably 15thc. The N doorway is blocked and has a pointed segmental head. Perpendicular windows were added to the nave in the 15thc., one on the S side and two on the N. There is a N rood stair. The chancel is 15thc. to judge from its windows and an ogee-headed wall tomb on the N side. Also on the N is a 19thc. pseudo-chapel of knapped flint, housing the organ and a vestry (Pevsner considers it early 14thc., and it is certainly in that style). The chancel arch is 19thc. The tower is 14thc., with a very tall tower arch, a W window with flowing tracery, 14thc. bell-openings, a polygonal SE stair and diagonal buttresses with flushwork. The top of it is flat and leaded. The church was thoroughly restored in 1838. The S doorway is the only feature with Romanesque sculpture.