
The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland

St Paul (medieval)
Parish church
Brackley is a town in the far S of the county, sited in a loop of the
Great Ouse, which forms the border with Buckinghamshire. It is an ancient site
on the main road from Northampton to Oxford, and evidence of Iron Age and Roman
settlement has been found in the town. There seem to have been two centres to
it; one around St Peter's church towards the E of the present town, and the
other on its southern edge, overlooking the river, around the site of the
Norman castle, of which a motte 3m high and 40m in diameter survives.St Peter's has an aisled and clerestoreyed nave, the N aisle gabled and
wider than the S, which has a lean-to roof. The four-bay
arcades differ in date, the S
being 13thc. and the N 14thc. Both arcades have long
responds at the E end, pierced by smaller arches. This unusual arrangement must
be related to the lost 12thc. transept, because part of the N impost of the W crossing arch (or
possibly a section of stringcourse) survives in the N arcade wall at this point. Also from the 12thc. nave is an
elaborate S doorway, now set in the aisle. This is accessible through the
modern church hall that has been added to the S side of the nave. The
chancel is 13thc., but heavily restored c.1885.
It has a heavily restored 14thc. S chapel, two bays
long. N vestry was added c.1885. The glory of
the church is its W tower, mid-13thc. in its three lowest stages with a
late-medieval fourth storey. The lower part is decorated with full-sized
figures in niches, wall arcading in the bell storey and an elaborate W doorway with
stiff-leaf capitals. Construction is of grey stone
rubble. The new church hall is of yellower rubble, incongruously provided with
triangular-headed windows and doorway. The church was restored by C. J. Bather
c.1873, and further by J. O. Scott c.1885, when the
vestry was added.
Parish church
The church is largely 19thc. and comprises a W tower, a nave with N and
S aisles, a chancel flanked by a vestry (N) and chapel (S). When the church was substantially
rebuilt in 1878, the nave arcades were retained.
Parish church
The original nave and chancel church is of c.1150 and has aisles of 1180, of which two bays survive in each. The church has been extended or adapted over time and now includes an extended chancel, vestry, N chapel, N and S aisles, S porch and W tower.
Parish church
The church has an aisled nave with a clerestorey
on the S side only, chancel and W tower. The nave
arcades are of two bays and
date from c.1300. The N aisle has been widened and extended W ward
alongside the tower, probably in the 19thc. The N aisle doorway has been
blocked; the S is 19thc. and protected by a porch. The
chancel has chapels to N and S, the N chapel two
bays long with an arcade of
c.1300; the S of a single bay which now houses
the organ. The W tower is of three unbuttressed storeys; the lower storeys
12thc. with plain round-headed lancets in the S and W walls, the top storey
bell-openings all with replaced heads and probably 13thc. A parapet has been
added, perhaps in the 18thc. The church was extensively restored by William
Slater and Gillet in 1863, and further repairs were carried out by E. A.
Roberts and P. J. Panter of Wellingborough in 1961-66. Romanesque features
described here are the plain tower arch and the
font.
Parish church
The church has a nave with a three-bay S aisle
extending W a further bay alongside the tower and a
clerestorey on the S only, a N transept, and a S
doorway under a porch. The ashlar chancel, taller than the nave and with a steeply pitched roof,
was rebuilt in 1862. The W tower, dated to the late 13thc. by Pevsner, appears
earlier to the present author, and its windows are included in this report. The
tower has been certainly rebuilt, as it has a tall plinth course, W-facing buttresses and a 19thc. W
stair-turret. The aisle and porch and the N transept chapel too are 19thc. work, largely
faced in brick-sized blocks of red ashlar. Inside, it is apparent that the
tower arches were dramatically modified when the S aisle was rebuilt by J.
Manden in 1870. 12thc. material is present, but the arrangement is extremely
quirky. The tower now has arches to the nave and the extended S aisle. The S
wall of the tower is pierced by a 19thc. arch, supported by a half-column
respond at the W and a
cylindrical pier at the E. All of this is 19thc. work,
but the E pier has a reused foliage capital of c.1200.
Immediately to the E of this pier is another similar,
which forms the last pier of the 19thc. S
arcade. The E tower arch is also unusual. Its N
respond is a semi-quatrefoil
with a moulded capital, both 13thc., and on the S it is supported by a
quatrefoil
pier with a
similar capital, the pier positioned alongside the
double-pier at the E of the S arch. The SE angle of
the tower is thus supported by three piers. A further
complication is introduced by the wave profile of the E arch soffit; a motif which belongs neither to the 13thc. nor the
19thc. Described here are the S tower arch and the tower
windows.
Parish church
All Saints, William Street seems an unlikely candidate for inclusion in this database. It was begun in 1926 by E. Turner and E. J. May who designed a red brick and blue tile church in a stripped Early English style. The nave was tall with elegant triple lancets in the aisles, and the chancel elevated with twin lancets in the side walls. An octagonal bell tower on the S side of the chancel resembles nothing more than a factory chimney. Only the chancel, the first two bays of the nave and part of a third bay were built, however, before the money ran out and the nave was closed by a wall at the W end. The original plan was for a five-bay nave with a vestibule at the W. In the wake of Vatican II (1965) the liturgical arrangements were dramatically changed. The nave was separated from the chancel with a pair of extremely ugly corrugated aluminium doors, and an equally unattractive ceiling was inserted halfway up the aisle windows. All the furnishings were stripped out of the nave, producing a square space with no obvious liturgical references. The chancel became a small, detached chapel, reached through the N vestry. Finally in recent years three parallel rooms have been added at the W end, each with its own hipped roof. The walls are of red bricks, not dissimilar to those of the original church but laid in stretcher bond. The roofs, unaccountably, are tiled in red, and the vertical triple gable of the abbreviated original nave and aisles is finished in dark red brick with a large Latin cross picked out in yellow on the central gable. The housing-estate effect is completed by a block-paved car park in front, apparently the preferred option for churches situated in urban residential areas. Uncomfortably placed in the SE corner of the nave is the font from the church of St Denis, Faxton demolished in 1958.
Parish church
The church has a tall W tower with a slender spire supported by delicate flying buttresses and decorated with pinnacles and crockets. This late 14thc. work, described by Pevsner as 'one of the finest, if not the finest, spire in this county of spires'. It was partly rebuilt in 1898 and repaired in 1968. To the W of the tower is a Perpendicular porch. The nave aisles extend W alongside the tower. The N nave arcade dates from around 1300, and the S arcade has the same tall, spacious proportions, but in this the piers and arches of a 12thc. arcade have been reused. The chancel arch is also c.1300, but the chancel itself is 12thc., with internal wall-arcading, much restored and with arches that are entirely 19thc., and an external corbel table, completely reset. The font is 12thc., simple and unusually wide.
Cathedral church
What remains of Old St Paul's, including the fragments of Inigo Jones's Corinthian W portico, is a collection of stones in the S triforium stone store of Wren's cathedral. Few are Romanesque, and those that are belong to the Historic Collection, which is to say that they were discovered on the site at some time, probably in the 19th or early 20th century, and neither the date nor the location of the find was noted. This suggests, circumstantially, that they came from Old St Paul's cathedral, but other possibilities should not be ignored, especially in view of the destructive consequences of the Great Fire on all the medieval churches in the City of London.