The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
St Michael (medieval)
Parish church
The medieval cross is located W of the church of St Michael. The present church was built in 1609, so the cross was probably associated with the medieval church, which was described as a ‘mean, low, ruinous building, and often destroyed by the Scots’ (Bulmer, 1884). The 1609 church was restored in 1868.
Only three of the arms of the cross survive, although fragments of stone show where the ring and upper arm began. Before 1816, the head of the cross had become detached from the shaft, but the fragments had been put back together, with the help of metal clamps, by 1860.
Parish church
Taddington is situated high on a limestone plateau of Derbyshire's Peak District, along the former route of the A6, which now bypasses the village to the north. The church tower and spire date to the 14thc and the body of the church is 14th to early 15thc with late 15thc re-windowing. The whole church was restored in 1891.
The only Norman feature is a cross shaft and socket stone in the churchyard, described in Historic England's List Entry (1009051) as of 'probable 11thc' date.
Parish church
St Albans is a city in Hertfordshire by virtue of the cathedral (formerly St Alban’s Abbey), although in terms of its population it is only the 4th largest settlement in the county, after Watford, Hemel Hempstead and Stevenage. The city is situated centrally in the county, 2 miles outside the M25 on the N side, and midway between the A1 and the M1. St Michael’s parish is on the W edge of the city, in Verulamium Park. The church now consists of a chancel with a N vestry, nave with a N aisle having a tower at its W end, and a Lady chapel on the S side of the E part of the nave, with a porch at the centre of the S side and a vestry at its W end. The building’s development is a complex one. A 2-cell Saxon church has a foundation date of 948. Remains of round-headed windows in the original nave walls seem too large to represent the original fenestration, but they certainly predate the piercing of the walls to provide 3-bay aisles in the 12thc. The chancel was lengthened at this time, and in the 13thc the nave walls were heightened and provided with clerestory lancets. A W tower was also added at this time and the Lady Chapel was added at the E end of the S aisle by widening it and modifying the arcade bays. Evidence of the tower falling into disrepair and the loss of the S aisle from the 18thc led to major restorations. The first general restoration was by George Gilbert Scott in 1866, and he also added the S porch. Then from 1898 a more drastic restoration was undertaken by Lord Grimthorpe, who added a vestry on the site of the lost S aisle, demolished the tower and rebuilt the W end of the nave,building a new tower at the W of the N aisle and the N vestry to the chancel. The church is faced with flint and also includes Roman brick, notably in the pre-Conquest nave windows. The arcades are described below. A small early medieval interlaced carved stone cross set in the N arcade wall was introduced from Italy in the 20thc.
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. South Elmham St Michael consists of a few houses along the minor road running S from St Peter's to Home Farm, which marks the end of the village. The church is off this road to the E. It comprises nave, chancel and W tower, all of flint but mortar rendered on nave and chancel. Both nave and chancel have been raised, with courses of brick at the top of the walls. A mark on the W wall of the tower shows an earlier, steeper roofline. The nave has a 12thc. S doorway under a timber-framed porch, mortar rendered on the exterior. The N nave doorway is blocked and gives no indication of its date. The nave windows date from c.1300 and have two lights with Y-tracery. The chancel S and E windows are of the same c.1300 type (there are no N windows), and the priest's S doorway and piscina are contemporary. There is no chancel arch. The tower, of unrendered flint, has W window and bell-openings of c.1300, and the tower arch is tall and narrow. The only Romanesque sculpture is on the S doorway.
Parish church
The church consists of a 13th-century chancel, late 13th-century S aisle, a N aisle of 1755, and a W tower of 1725. The chancel arch appears to date from the 12th century and is extremely wide and flat, as if it has been reset. The S door has 12th-century jambs and a Perpendicular head, one of the most bizarre combinations in the county.
Parish church
The church has a 13thc. chancel, nave and N transept. The chancel was extended and the nave enlarged in the 14thc. The S aisle, W tower and S porch are Perpendicular (1400–50). The church was restored in 1723, and again in 1878, by J. P. St Aubyn, when the vestry was added to the N side of the chancel. (Pevsner, 212; Historic England listing:1104976) The font and a pillar piscina are the only Romanesque features.
Parish church
A flint and stone church with 12thc. nave (possibly rebuilt in the 13thc.), 19thc. S aisle, early 14thc. chancel and S transept, 15thc. W tower and 19thc. S porch. The church was substantially restored and rebuilt in 1871-3 by G. F. Bodley. During the reconstruction of the S aisle of the nave the 12thc. doorway was reset and the simple N doorway of the nave was also reused. The chancel retains 13thc. windows.
Parish church
Linton is 8 miles N of Skipton in Yorkshire. Near the river Wharfe, where there is a famous set of stepping stones, the squat medieval church of St Michael has N and S aisles enclosing nave and chancel, and a square bellcote at the W end of the nave roof. Restored 1861 (Leach and Pevsner, 2009, 574). Part of the N nave arcade and chancel arch responds are 12thc., while the chancel arch itself and the S arcade are 13thc. There is a plain 12thc. font. and some reset capitals.
Parish church
About 1810, W. Close, in an unpublished document, described the doorway of the old church at Pennington as: ‘the great doorway on the south is a circular arch with a cheveron or zig-zag moulding’. The nave and W tower of St Michael’s Church were re-built in 1826-7. Following this, in 1924-6, restorations were carried out and a polygonal chancel and S porch added. Stones carved with chevron have been built into the exterior of the S nave wall and inside the S porch. Also re-set inside the porch is a scalloped capital and a carved stone with foliate forms and shield-like motif. Built into a stone bench in the churchyard S of the church is a base, while inside the church is the upper section of an early grave cover and a carved tympanum. The tympanum was found in 1902 being used above a doorway of an outbuilding at Beckside Farm in Lopperworth, Pennington. It was subsequently moved into St Michael's Church.
Parish church
The hamlet of Newton Purcell is 5 miles NE of Bicester, near the Buckinghamshire border. From the architectural evidence, a church existed here by the mid-C12th. It is now a small stone structure covered with pebble-dash rendering, comprising a continuous nave and chancel with a bell gable at the W end. The original church was largely destroyed by the ‘repairs’ of 1813, and the restoration by C.N. Beazley in 1875-6 amounted to a rebuilding using the original foundations. The nave doorway, with a chip-carved lintel and a tympanum carved with a dove and serpents, was moved from the N to the S side and is now the only remaining Romanesque feature.