The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
St Michael and All Angels (medieval)
Parish church
Coningsby is a small town in the East Lindsey district of the county, 10 miles NW of Boston and 17 miles SE of Lincoln. The church stands on the High Street, and has a W tower, an aisled nave with a S porch, and a polygonal apse rebuilt in 1870. The tower is 14thc with a 15thc embattled parapet; the nave arcades are 13thc work and none of the fabric appears earlier than this. Romanesque sculpture is found on an inverted capital now used as a step for the 14thc font.
Parish church
Lilleshall is a village in the east of central Shropshire, 15 miles E of Shrewsbury. The high street runs to the S of the A518 between Telford and Newport, and St Michael's church stands towards its southern end. The village is best known for the ruined 12-13thc Augustinian abbey a mile to the S of the modern settlement, which is the subject of a separate report. The former Hall is now the home of Lilleshall National Sports Centre.
St Michael's is a sandstone building with a broad, long, aisleless chancel with a N organ chamber, a nave with a 5-bay N aisle and a S porch, and a W tower. Of these, the nave is late-12thc with its original shafted doorway protected by a 19thc porch. The chancel also has a 12thc S doorway, but the fabric is substantially of the 13thc, enlarged in the 14thc. The N nave aisle dates from c.1300 and the W tower is of 1500-50. In the mid-19thc it was necessary to rebuild the S wall, and this was done by John Norton in 1856. At this time a second doorway was reset towards the E end of the nave, and blocked. The features described below are the two S nave doorways, the chancel S doorway and the font,
Parish church
Figheldean is a village about four miles N of Amesbury on the River Avon. The church lies to the N of the village on the R bank of the river, and is a flint with limestone dressing building. The church consists of a chancel, a 13thc nave featuring arcades with round piers and double-chamfered arches, a S aisle and a late 12thc-early 13thc W tower. During the 15thc the church was extensively altered: the chancel and the nave were rebuilt, and the S porch and the S aisle were added in this period. Romanesque sculpture is found on the tower arch that dates from the late 12thc.
The building was restored several times in the 19thc: in 1858-9 Ewan Christian restored the chancel, and in 1859-60 John West Hughall restored the nave, added the N vestry and heightened the tower; the S porch was restored in 1902.
Parish church
Melksham is a town on the river Avon lying 10 miles E of Bath and 6 miles W of Devizes; in the Middle Ages the town was surrounded by Melksham Royal forest. The church lies to the W of the town and consists of a chancel, nave, N and S aisles (the latter added in the 14thc), N and S chapels built in the 15thc, a Perpendicular clerestory, N porch added in the 15thc, and W tower. Inside the chancel the outlines of intersecting decorative arcades on the N and S walls indicate that the chancel dates from the 12thc. The S wall of the chancel features traces of a piscina. A billet stringcourse and the clasping shallow corner buttresses also indicate that it is Norman in date though it has been refenestrated with Perpendicular windows.
Parish church
Marton-cum-Grafton is a village 6 miles NE of Knaresborough in North Yorkshire. The present simple church of nave and chancel, with S vestry and N porch, was consecrated in 1876. It replaced an even humbler medieval church situated a distance away from the village (at site of the graveyard on Church Lane, SE 416 623).
This new church reused much stone of the old one, including a sizeable quantity of 12th-c carved work harvested from the walls by the vicar, Mr Lunn, during demolition. 12th-c worked stone was reset in the entrance doorway to the nave, the vestry’s exterior doorway and interior, and in the reconstruction of a supposed chancel arch, now an internal doorway opening from the chancel into the vestry (the latter includes much new work).