The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
St Margaret (medieval)
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, at which time the medieval S
arcade was reopened.
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 19th-century timber chancel arch sits on short shafts with reset 12th-century capitals. The nave, though restored in 1874-6, is Norman in origin, with an early 12th-century 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.
Parish church
The church consists of a chancel, nave, W tower and S porch. The Savile transeptal chapel was added by T.C. Hine, who restored the church in 1873. The two-light square-headed chancel window isc.1400 whilst the pointed chancel arch is probably 100 years or so earlier. In the floor of the nave is a 14thc. grave slab of unusual design. The tower bears a repair date of 1663, and an epitaph to William Chappell, Bishop of Cork and Ross, who spent some time at Bilsthorpe during the Civil War and died in Derby in 1649. The only Romanesque feature is the font.
Parish church
Binsey is a small village by the River Thames about 1.5 miles NW of Oxford. Although this little church is now within Oxford City, it is hidden away along a narrow wooded lane, half a mile N of Binsey village. Its earliest datable stonework is the round-headed S doorway of the late 12thc. It is uncertain whether the porch was built at the same time (as suggested by Sherwood and Pevsner), or added in the 13thc remodelling (as posited by Clark). The church has always been a two-cell structure and much of it was rebuilt, at least from waist height, in the 13thc. The present church comprises a chancel, a nave and a central bell-cote. The S doorway is the surviving main Romanesque feature, and the plain font probably also dates to the 12thc.
Parish church
The hamlet of Alstone lies some 4 miles W of Tewkesbury. In 1844 Alstone was transferred from Worcestershire to Gloucestershire, but remains within the diocese of Worcester. The church, which is situated in the middle of the settlement, consists of a nave, a chancel, a N aisle and a S porch with a modern timber belfry over the E end of the nave. The nave has been rebuilt, as has much of the chancel; the responds of the chancel arch and the S doorway remain in position from the 12thc building. The remains of a 12thc piscina have been incorporated into the S wall of the chancel.
Parish church
The church comprises a nave with a W porch, a W
bell-turret, a 13thc. S arcade
and a simple two-bay
chancel.
The plain W doorway has a tympanum in a raised
surround.
Parish church
East Tilbury is on the N bank of the Thames, alongside a reach of the river known as the Lower Hope. Alongside the river at this point is the Coalhouse Fort, a coastal defence dating from 1861-74 in its present form, and from this a road runs inland to East Tilbury, with the church less than half a mile from the coast. It is a fascinating if not a beautiful building, consisting of a 13thc chancel with stepped E lancets, a nave with a N aisle containing a N porch, and the remains of an arcade visible on the S wall. On the N arcade wall a blocked round-headed window above pier 1 confirms that the aisle is a later addition. At the W end of the former S aisle an arch leads to the lower storey of the former tower, destroyed by the Dutch fleet in 1667. The arcade was blocked and the S aisle removed after this. The ground storey of the tower is now a vestry, but in 1917 another tower was begun by men of the London Electrical Engineers using heavy blocks of Kentish Rag taken from the Coalhouse Fort. In 2015 a timber kitchen extension was built on the W front, and in the course of this work the remains of a 13thc W doorway with dogtooth ornament were discovered and conserved. From the exterior the building is dominated by the enormous tiled roof that covers the nave and N aisle.
Parish church
The church was restored in the 19thc., leaving few traces of the
medieval structure. Two windows and a buttress on the N side are of 12thc.
date. The church contains a Romanesque font.
Parish church
St John's is an aisleless church of c.1100 or slightly earlier, originally with an apse but now with a square-ended chancel, nave and W tower. There is herringbone masonry in the fabric, and N and S nave doorways of c.1100, the latter under a medieval timber porch. There is a blocked 12thc. window in the S nave wall at the W end. The S chancel doorway is plain but later 12thc., and there is a contemporary composition of two round-headed lancets with an oculus above in the chancel E wall. The W tower is late 14thc.