The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
St Nicholas (medieval)
Parish church
A flint rubble church with stone dressings comprising chancel, nave with N and S aisles and S porch, and W tower. The nave is 13thc, as is the N aisle. The S aisle is 14thc. The tower is late 14thc – early 15thc. The church was restored in 1872-3 by A. W. Blomfield who rebuilt the chancel, chancel arch, and S porch. The plain font is the only Romanesque feature.
Parish church
St Nicholas' has an aisled nave with clerestoreys, chancel and W tower. The nave arcades, aisle windows (where original) and N and S doorways all date from the early 14thc. The S doorway is protected by a porch. The chancel is of a similar date, but the short and stocky three-storey tower is 12thc. in its lower parts, with a round-headed window in the W wall. The W doorway is a 13thc. insertion, and the diagonal buttresses are also later additions. The tower was re-pointed in 1685, according to an inscription on the S face. The saddleback roof described by Bridges was replaced in 1737. The present rooflines are owed to the restoration of 1871. The only piece of Romanesque sculpture is a scallop capital reset in the jamb of the S nave doorway.
Parish church
Cabourne is a hamlet in the West Lindsey district of the county, 10 miles SW of Grimsby. The church is in the centre of the little settlement and consists of a W tower of the 11thc., a nave and a chancel. The entire church was restored in 1872 by A. W. Blomfield. The only feature described here is the font.
Parish church
The church and the manor house alongside it were foundedc.1140 by Hugo Malvoisin, also founder of Blithbury Priory. All that remains of the medieval manor house is the timber-framed gatehouse ofc.1400. By the end of the middle ages, the church had a nave with N and S aisles and a S porch, a chancel and a W tower. In 1782 it was described as 'very damp and ruinous', and was taken down and rebuilt except for the N aisle and the tower. The present eccentric confection is the result. The church as it stands today has a broad, brick nave with a W doorway, a coved plaster ceiling, and small polygonal apse at its east, both dating from 1782. On the N side of the nave, and at a slightly lower level, is the Trinity aisle, or Cawarden Chapel, separated from the nave by a 14thc. arcade of three bays. The aisle is older than this, retaining 13thc. lancets in its E, W and N walls. In the chapel are collected a large number of memorials of the Mavesyn, Cawarden and Chadwick families, including two 13thc. effigies of knights. There are also contains hatchments and reliefs, largely retrospective and dating from around the time of the 18thc. rebuilding. The Perpendicular W tower (actually NW of the nave) is the only other medieval fabric, and both this and the N aisle are of grey ashlar. Romanesque interest centres on the foliage-ornamented font.
Parish church
Thorne is two miles due E of Fishlake and ten miles NE of Doncaster. The church is in a large churchyard, in an urban setting on three sides, and on the N there are the substantial remains of a motte and bailey castle called Peel Hill.
The church is built of creamy Magnesian limestone, both rubble and ashlar, and has had many parts rebuilt or added. It consists of an embattled W tower and nave enclosed in aisles and has a two-storey S porch. The chancel has N chapel and vestry, and S chapel. The scars of earlier roofs of both chancel and nave are visible.
Among the surviving Romanesque features, three round-headed windows remain in the walls of the chancel. The four-bay nave arcades are pointed and appear to be of the early 13thc, but the bases and capitals of the piers could be earlier. The E capitals are bonded into a wall and could mark the eastward extent of the nave of a preceding church, perhaps the ‘chapel’ mentioned in 1147.
Two round-headed doorways are recorded below but their features make them difficult to date. The window facings, although similar to remnants at several other churches recorded in the S of the Riding, are probably impossible to date. The arcades were recorded as they are likely to be of the same date as the doorways.
Parish church
The Cotswold village of Cherington lies 4 miles NE of Tetbury. The church, which is built of rubble and ashlar, has a 13thc chancel, nave with N porch and S transept and a W tower. The surviving 12thc elements consist of the font, a piscina and a tympanum above the N doorway.
Parish church
The church is in a pasture field reached through the yard of Manor House Farm. It is a long low building, nave and chancel in one, with modern bellcote. As at Speeton, there are no windows on the N wall. Restored in 1882-3, only the western walling, for example to the L of the porch, is 12thc. Traces of a Norman chancel arch were revealed during the late 19thc. restoration, but nothing is recognisable today.
There is an arcaded font and six reset corbels inside the church, also two fragments reset outside on the W buttress, and a windowhead in walling.
Parish church
Stevenage was the first of the post-war New Towns built to relieve pressure on housing in London after the blitz. It was begin in 1946 in the face of much local pressure from the residents of what was then a town of 6000 inhabitants on the Great North Road, whose prosperity had historically been built on the stage coach service. The New Town was built in 6 neighbourhoods, mainly to the S and E of the Old Town (whose High Street still remains). The parish church of St Nicholas is in a village-like setting to the NE of the Old Town.
It consists of a nave and chancel in one, both aisled, separated by a screen and with no chancel arch. The chancel has 2-bay aisles to chapels on N and S; the S chapel converted for uses as an organ room and vestry. to the E of the S chapel is a small modern vestry. The 4-bay nave has clerestories, and there is a S porch at the W end of the aisle and a S transeptal chapel, extended to the E. The W tower is 12thc (of the plain lancets, all but the lower N window are replacements) and square in plan with diagonal buttresses added at the western angles. It has an embattled parapet and a leaded spire (releaded in 1899). The nave aisles were added in the 13thc, and their arches remodelled in the 15thc when the clerestories were added. The N chancel chapel has 14thc tracery in the windows, and both chancel arcades are of that date, while the S transept dates from 1841. The S porch appears modern. but may simply be heavily restored. Construction is of flint with ashlar dressings, but the S transept and the E wall of the chancel are rendered. The battllements of the S transept are of brick. Clunch piers in the nave and chancel arcades have been lavishly graffitied, apparently in the Middle Ages. The transept and its modern eastern extension are now given over to parish use as meeting rooms. The Romanesque features described here are the W tower doorway, the tower arch and the font.
Parish church
Dunnington is a village about 4 miles E of York. An exterior view from the SW shows the church is a thorough mixture of styles. Nave has N and S aisles, chancel has N chapel and S vestry. The former exterior walls of the W tower are enclosed by the modern extension running N to S.
Within all this accretion, the base of the tower and its arch to the nave are the earliest remaining work; together with the nave walls, they may even be pre-Conquest according to the VCH. The exterior of the tower wall was difficult to photograph and had no sculpture. The N and S arcades of the nave are late Romanesque.
Parish church
The church consists of an aisleless nave and chancel of 12thc. origin, a Perpendicular W tower and S porch. The chancel has two 12thc. clasping, corner buttresses at the E end with one central buttress shortened to make way for a large 14thc. window. The N and S walls have central buttresses. The nave has three buttresses intact on the S side; similarly on the N side. There is a 12thc. blocked N doorway to the nave and a plain deeply splayed high-level window also in the N wall. In the S wall the slightly splayed internal reveals of the S doorway survive. In the chancel there are two plain, deeply splayed high-level windows in the N wall and one remaining in the S wall. Sections of a plain chamfered interior string course remain in the chancel. 12thc. sculpture is found on the chancel arch and the font.