The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
St Mary (medieval)
Parish church
The village of Brighstone is a little inland from the island’s SW coast and just to the S of the lateral chalk ridge. The church consists of a W tower, a nave, a N and S aisles, a S porch, a chancel, and a chapel to the S of the chancel (Page 1912, 213). The W tower is of uncertain date, the lower part may be of the 14thc, but the W doorway dates to the13thc, showing signs of being inserted from elsewhere. The three-bay N arcade is of the late 12thc with rounded piers, square thin abaci and thinly chamfered arches. The original N aisle was demolished and the arcade blocked, but reopened when the present aisle built in 1852. The wide S aisle is of c. 1500, but the windows in the aisle were altered in 1852. The S doorway is late medieval, set in a porch with a four-centred outer archway. The S chapel is probably slightly later than the aisle. The windows in the chapel are Victorian, whilst the four lancets in the N wall of the chancel are also of 1852 (Lloyd and Pevsner 2006, 98). The only feature datable to the Romanesque period is the N arcade of the nave.
Parish church
Woolley is a village about six miles S of Wakefield, and the church lies to the W of the village. The building consists of a chancel of three bays with chapels to N and S, an aisled nave of four bays, a S porch and a W tower. The church was extensively restored in 1871. Nikolaus Pevsner (1967), 558, describes the church as ‘Perpendicular throughout’; Ryder (1993), 180, thinks the nave walls may date to the 12thc. Romanesque sculpture is found on a reset tympanum, a reset shaft and a font.
Parish church
The present church was built in 1849 to designs by JH Hakewill. However, the font, decorated with triangular arches, probably dates from the late 12th century.
Parish church
South Kyme is a village about 12 miles NW of Boston on the River Slea (also called 'Kyme Eau'). The church lies to the W of the village and the discovery of six fragments dated between the late 8th and the early 9thc, now reset in the E end of the N wall, suggests that the site was previously occupied by an Anglo-Saxon church. The building, as it stands today, is primarily the remains of the 14thc W end of the S aisle and the S part of the nave of the Augustinian priory church. The building was partially rebuilt in 1805 and then extensively restored by Charles Hodgson Fowler in 1888-90. Romanesque sculptural elements consist of the S doorway, three reset capitals and a grave cover.
Parish church
The present building consists of a chancel and S chapel, rebuilt 1907-13; a 13th-c N transept and nave, with a late 13th-c W porch; a S transept rebuilt in the 15thc and 16thc; and a central tower, heightened in the 15thc.
Parts of the arches of the tower crossing may be 12thc in origin.
Parish church
Brilley is a small settlement consisting of a few houses and the church in the west of the county, 16 miles W of Hereford and under a mile from the Welsh border. It has a nave and chancel in one with a timber screen seaparating them and a timber apse arch further W. There is also a W tower and a N transept. The chancel, nave and N transept were built in the late 13thc. or early 14thc. The font is the only survival from a Romanesque building.
Parish church
This is a large church with a nave dating from the 13th and 14thc. The nave arcades were built in the early 13thc. but in the 14thc. were raised and therefore widened, probably doubling their height. The only possible 12thc. fabric is the capital of the east respond of the south arcade, which is a crude scallop. The crossing tower dates from the 14thc. and the chancel and transepts from the 15thc.
Parish church
Only part of the 14th-century church survived the Victorian building campaign. The new 19th-century church contains two items of Romanesque date; the bowl of the font and the capitals used to create the lectern.
Parish church
Broad Hinton is a small village about 5 miles SW of Swindon. The church dates from the 13thc with a 15thc W tower and a chancel that was rebuilt in 1879. It contains two carved, Norman stones set into the E wall of the nave.
Parish church
In South Somerset District, the small (population c.200) village of Isle Abbotts lies in the shallow valley of the river Isle, a tributary of Somerset’s principal river, the Parrett, their confluence being c.7kms NE, c.2kms upstream of the former Benedictine Muchelney Abbey which possessed this manor. It rests at a modest elevation (the church on ground c.18m above the OD) above the valley Alluvium on a promontory of Lias between the Isle (500m E of the church) and the Fivehead river (formerly the Earn) to the N and W (400m distant). Its neighbour Isle Brewers lies 1.5kms E across the river.
The scenery of this district is as gentle as its topography: generally pastoral fields defined by willows and hedges; against such an undramatic landscape the church’s tall (25m) ornate W tower in the celebrated Somerset style makes an imposing statement.
The village is only sub-nuclear, its buildings well separated by fields and orchards. In historical times its inhabitants were engaged principally in dairy-farming and livestock husbandry (cattle and sheep) as well as activities pertaining to a self-sufficient community — although there is evidence of a significant number being employed in South Somerset’s cottage-industry of gloving (as shown, for example, in the 1861 census returns). Given the current upsurge in cider-production, there are no doubt new orchards appropriately stocked and managed by such local concerns as the Burrow Hill company.
Any mill most likely used the Isle; Isle Abbotts villagers could have used the flour mill the short distance of 1km downstream at Isle Brewers although their route along a road would have been rather circuitous, away from the river. There was another mill upstream just over the parish boundary, in Ilton. A mill appertaining to Isle Abbotts itself is listed in the Domesday Survey but, as the village website says: ‘. . . there is doubt where it was situated. Possibly on the R. Isle at Millmoor where there are several sluices, or on the Fivehead river near some stone walling.’ Certainly, the name ‘Millmoor’ must give confidence; however, the author has been unable to find the name on a map.
This is an area of unclassified lanes subject to winter flooding not too far from several major roads: (in order of importance) the A303, linking London and the South-West Peninsula, at Ilminster (i.e., ‘Isle Minster’) 6kms S (measured to the original alignment rather than to the present bypass); the A358, connecting the A303 with Taunton and the M5 motorway, 5kms W; the A378, linking Langport and Taunton, at Fivehead 3kms N; and the B3168 road, from Ilminster to Curry Rivel (giving onward access to Langport via the A378), 4kms SE.
Major towns include the county town Taunton 12kms WNW, Langport 9kms NE, Somerton a further 7kms ENE of Langport and Ilminster 8kms S.
The church consists of a chancel, a nave with a N aisle and a W porch, and a W tower. Stylistically the church is largely Perpendicular and Decorated, and is built of coursed and squared blue and white Lias with Hamstone dressings. The 4-stage tower bears the initials of Abbot Broke of Muchelney, and can thus be dated to the early-16thc tower. It is adorned with figures of saints and pierced battlements and is justly celebrated. The font is the only Romanesque feature.