The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
St Mildred (medieval)
Parish church
St Mildred’s is situated in a relatively isolated position in the N of the Isle of Wight to the east of the Medina estuary. Whippingham church was entirely rebuilt between 1854 and 1862, replacing a structure which had been modified by John Nash in 1804-06, but which was essentially a medieval building (Lloyd and Pevsner 2006, 293). This church was illustrated by Tomkins in 1794 (reproduced in Cox 1911, 157). This view of the church from the S shows a nave with a blocked-up round headed arcade arch to the left of the porch and a rectangular three light window under a drip moulding below a small gable to the right, a long chancel lit by a triangular headed window and with what appears to be lancet window, the chancel being accessed by a square headed doorway, an un-buttressed western tower with a saddle-back roof, and a gabled south porch. Three remaining Romanesque features are built into the external walls of the Victorian S porch, a lintel, a chevron voussoir and a billet voussoir. Further Romanesque features are the two short lenghts of chevron reset in the external east elevation of the Victorian church: a voussoir above the window of the S chapel flanking the chancel, and a voussoir above the window of the N flanking chapel.