The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
St Nicholas (medieval)
Parish church
This cruciform church of limestone rubble stands high above the west bank of the Cherwell, 8 miles north of Oxford. It now comprises the chancel, built up due to the sloping ground, central tower, N and S transepts, and a clerestoried nave with a S aisle. The N and S walls of the nave may be partly pre-Conquest. Although it was probably originally aisleless, on the N side remain two blocked arches, visible both on the outside and inside walls. These may represent either porticus arches, or arches of a N arcade built c. 1120. Whatever their nature, the extensions were demolished in the early C13th.
A similar situation may have pertained on the S side because the S arcade and aisle were also built or rebuilt at the time of the demolition, when also the chancel was extended eastwards and the nave westwards. The N nave doorway of c. 1120 is thought to have been reset within the NW blocked nave arch also at the same time. The arch of another early Romanesque doorway, decorated with roll mouldings, is now set in the E wall of the churchyard. On the nave interior there are small round-headed arches, one each on N and S walls, just below the clerestorey windows. The W bay of the chancel on the S side still retains a C12th pilaster buttress. A further Romanesque detail is the three beakheads reset on the S face of the second stage of the tower.
Parish church
The church has a 12thc. font, south door and two windows in the chancel. However, most of the church dates from the 13th and 14thc. and there is a distinctive, late medieval bell-turret. The sanctuary was added in the 19thc. There is a faculty plan by Chancellor and Hill in Bristol Records Office.
Parish church
Condicote is a small Cotswold village 3 miles NW of Stow-on-the-Wold. The church, which is built of rubble, lies in a central location in the village on the N side of a large village green. The building consists of a chancel, nave, S porch and a 19thc. vestry N of the chancel. Much of the fabric from the 12thc. building survives, including the S doorway and chancel arch. In addition there is Romanesque sculpture set in the S porch, possibly from a N doorway, and Romanesque string courses reset into the exterior W nave wall as well as part of the string course on the N wall of the chancel still in situ. There are also corbels on the corners of the chancel.
Parish church
Set next to perhaps the most stunning churchyard tree in the county, this church, with its steepled W tower, three-bay nave with N and S aisles, and chancel is primarily from the first half of the 14thc. Pevsner notes a restoration done in 1907. Romanesque elements consist of six reset fragments in the S porch, reused fragments in parts of the 13thc N arcade, possibly the font, and part of the chancel arch.
Parish church
Linley is in farmland in the E of the county, 4 miles NW of Bridgnorth and a similar distance E of Much Wenlock. It consists of the Hall, a lodge and the church, reached via an unmade road from the Hall. Its woodland setting on steeply rising ground is attractive but can make photography difficult. The church consists of a simple nave and chancel with an elaborate W tower, all in local sandstone rubble. Features described here are the bell-openings and corbel tables of the tower (there is no E corbel table), N and S nave doorways, a massive tower arch, a simple chancel arch and a carved font. The church was restored in 1858 by Arthur Blomfield.
Parish church
The church is built of flint and stone in a chequerboard pattern, and consists of a chancel and a nave with a large S transept. During the 19th-century restoration, the 12th-century door was incorporated into the S side of the nave. Some of the stones were reused from the old church.
Parish church
Islip lies 5 miles NE of Oxford, on the N bank of the river Ray. According to tradition, Islip was the birthplace of King Edward the Confessor in 1004, who is reputed to have been baptised in the wooden Saxon church that pre-dated the current one, N of the present site. The church of St Nicholas was built in the late 12thc and largely rebuilt in the 14thc. It now comprises a chancel, a nave with S and N aisles, a W tower and a S porch. There was a drastic restoration by E. Bruton in 1861. The transitional-style N nave arcade survives with two squat round piers, and a single round-headed window is reset at the W end of the S aisle.
The battle of Islip bridge fought during the Civil War (1645) caused severe damages to the building. Substantial restoration work was carried out in 1680. It was almost entirely rebuilt in 1861.
Parish church
The reader is referred to the report on the church of St Martin at North Stoke for important general material on this area, part of Mercia during the Saxon period.
The view showing Bathampton church in its landscape-setting looks across from the church to the water-meadows south of the Avon to the housing-estates of Batheaston on the other side of the river. The first bridge left of the church carries Mill Lane between Bathampton village and Bathampton Bridge (and Batheaston beyond) across the main railway line; the second (clearly more recent) bridge carries the lane over the newly aligned A4.
Bathampton and Batheaston, nowadays virtually suburbs of Bath, lie on opposite sides of the Avon (on the left and right banks, respectively) at the point where the river turns its course from north-westerly to south-westerly, flowing around the massif of Bathampton Down to its south — which hill rises to 204m above OD and thus makes a dramatic statement south of the river in a landscape otherwise characterised by north-south Cotswold ridges reaching down to end on the north side of the Avon valley. The Down, which shows ample evidence of exploitation in prehistory and later — Wansdyke, probable frontier between Wessex and Mercia, runs across the top — , is nowadays privileged by the site of a fine golf course which incidentally rewards the walker with exceptionally instructive as well as beautiful views.
Perhaps the clue to the siting of Bathampton is that the first river crossing above Bath itself (which may reflect a long-standing historical reality) is just north of the church — now effected by a fine bridge with attendant mill. The lane from Bathampton Bridge which runs past the west end of the churchyard would originally have continued south up to Bathampton Down, so one suspects here an important medieval and pre-medieval route. Nowadays, that route is very much cut across and obscured by later developments: (1) the Kennet & Avon Canal runs roughly east-west parallel to the south side of the churchyard little more than a lane-width away (and slightly elevated), the bridge carrying the present lane across the canal being about 100m west of its presumed original line; (2) the development of the village between the canal and the main A36 Bath-Southampton road which runs around Bathampton Down above most of the settlement. Housing development is predominantly orientated on that main road; it appears on the 1904 second edition OS six-inch map, based on an 1882-3 survey revised in 1902, to have been strung out along the A36 between Bath and Bathampton at least since the end of the nineteenth century.
A very recent development in road-building has resulted in yet another main road along the busy Bathampton corridor: the main A4 London to Bristol road, which used to run through Batheaston, has been provided with a by-pass (which makes a very easy connection — if of rather questionable æsthetic effect when viewed from certain points, e.g., Bathampton Down — with the A46 running north to the M4). Like the railway alongside, this runs past Bathampton through a cutting.
Archæological investigations attending the building of the new road in the water-meadow area between the river and the gravel terrace occupied by the most northerly part of the village discovered, as to be expected, evidence of exploitation from the Iron Age to the Middle Ages through the Roman and sub-Roman periods.
The remaining means of communication to take into account, Brunel’s main railway line to Bristol from Paddington via Chippenham and through the fine Box tunnel c.5kms east, is crammed into the small space south of the river as it passes Bathampton but, although only about 50m north of the churchyard, it runs through a cutting and is thus relatively unobtrusive. Once upon a time there was a station for Bathampton (just north-east of the church) but of course modern conditions have rendered that awkward as well as unnecessary. South to north, the canal is 500m from the main A36 road, the railway 150m from the canal, and the new A4 road about 25m from the railway — the church being squeezed between canal and railway.
Nowadays, the canal is much used for leisure (although there seem to be some permanent residents), its towpath is a fine walkway, the George pub opposite the church is very well patronised, Walter Sickert rests in the churchyard: consequently, this particular spot is often a scene of picturesque and happy activity, especially but not exclusively in fine weather.
Geologically, Bathampton is built on a gravel terrace created by the river Avon.
The church is 13thc in origin and consists of a W tower, nave, N and S aisles, S porch and chancel. The tower is 15thc, and the N aisle was added in 1858. The chancel was restored in 1882. There was an earlier restoration by Ralph Allen in the mid-18thc, but evidence of that was largely obliterated by later works. Construction is of ahlar and coursed squared rubble.
Parish church
Fyfield is a large village in SW Essex on the Roman road from London to Bury St Edmund’s and midway between Harlow and Chelmsford. The village is in the arable farmland N of the A414, and the church and Fyfield Hall stand at its eastern edge. St Nicholas’s church has an aisled nave, chancel and a central tower between them. The nave has N and S doorways, the N under a porch. The oldest part of the building is the plain 12thc tower, which has a blocked, plain 12thc window in the S wall and another in the W. The tower was strengthened and its upper parts rebuilt in by J. B. Papworth in 1817, and he might have added the weatherboarded spire. The nave is also 12thc, but aisles were added in two 13thc phases. The chancel is of the early 14thc. Further restorations were carried out in 1852-53 (Stephen Webb) and 1892-93 (C. H. M. Mileham). The only Romanesque feature is the Purbeck font.
Parish church
Great Wakering is a village outside the conurbation of Southend-on-Sea to the NE, 4 miles E of the centre of Souithend and a mile W of Foulness Island. The church stands at the E end of the village and has a chancel and nave with a S porch, and a W tower with a gabled two-storey west porch. The chancel has a N chapel of 2 bays, built of brick by T. B. Crowest of Billericay in 1843. The 12thc nave is aisleless; the organ at the W end concealing the plain tower arch and the blocked, round-headed window above it. The tower has a broach spite, perhaps 15thc, and a N chapel was added to the chancel by T. B. Crowest of Billericay in 1843. The S porch is 16thc, originally timber framed on dwarf rubble walls. Apart from this and the N chapel, construction is of roughly coursed ragstone, flint and septaria rubble with limestone dressings. The church was restored by W. J. Wood in 1883-91. The only Romanesque sculpture recorded below is a font from East Horndon, brought here when that church was declared redundant in 1970.