The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
unknown (medieval)
Parish church
Bowerchalke is a small village 9 miles SW of Salisbury. The church dates from the 13thc to 15thc. The only Romanesque survival is the bowl of the font.
Parish church
Elmstone is a village in East Kent, between Canterbury and Sandwich. This small parish church, in an isolated setting, has a Norman nave and slightly lower chancel, and a 14th-century north aisle and NW tower. The principal item of interest is a single, ex-situ sculptured block in the west door. There is also a font with a large clasped bowl, but the base appears to be Early English.
Parish church
Simple church in Norman style with nave and chancel, N vestry: bell turret too elaborate to be a copy. Morris 1919 says the church ‘was gutted by fire some years ago, but has since been extensively restored'; other sources do not mention a fire. R. D. Chantrell rebuilt the church 1849-50 reusing Norman sculpture and masonry but was apparently restricted in what he could do.
The stone of the original building was a local Jurassic limestone and it is weathering fast where exposed. Almost all the original work is outside: Chantrell made a pleasing interior, but a plain one: his chancel arch, with blocky capitals, and plain and square orders, is as plain as the replacement corbels on the N wall. A restoration in 2015 included preservation work on the old corbels, mainly treating with lime plaster; photographs of corbel CS4 taken by Matthias Garn (by permission of Ferrey and Mennim, architects).
When Fangfoss church was rebuilt in 1849-50 many old stones were left lying in the churchyard. The late Kit Galbraith visited Fangfoss church and found, among the jumble of discarded broken or worn stones at the E end of the church, five which she obtained permission to remove for study. These ended up in Birkbeck College, where they were seen by the fieldworker in June 1999. At that time they included two voussoirs with beakhead, two with a radial fluted motif and one fragment of integral base, ring and column. The two pieces with radial fluted decoration were jambs stones, not voussoirs, but that was only possible to assess by eye. Eventually the stones were allowed on loan from the church to the Hull and East Riding Museum, where two were (2004) on display as “Romanesque Stonework”. The other three stones were not displayed.
In 2003, there was a loose chevron voussoir by the chancel arch; this was outside in 2015. It is shown outside in the later photographs, but has since been taken inside again. A permanent display at the church of old carved stonework is being discussed (2016).
There is a remade doorway and two patterned string courses; original corbels, all except one, are on the S side of the church. Inside, there is one reset stone over the S doorway.
Parish church
The church was to a large extent rebuilt in the 17th and 18th centuries, but some of the 12th-c wall still survives, including 2 blocked windows in the E wall and a blocked window in the N wall of the chancel. There is also a later blocked doorway in the S wall of the chancel. This appears to have replaced another doorway (now a window) west of it. The original plan of the church consisted of a rectangular nave and smaller rectangular chancel at the east end. A loose stone with carving on one side is kept inside the church. The interior of the church was remodelled in the 20thc.
Parish church
The village lies about 4 miles S of Hungerford. This small parish church was built in 1855-1856 of rubble with freestone dressings to designs by Robert Jewell Withers on the site of the former church within the earthworks of a medieval village. The font is probably a 19thc reworking of a 12thc piece.
Parish church
Little Faringdon is a hamlet in SW Oxfordshire, close to the river Thames and the Gloucestershire boundary. The present church consists of chancel, nave and N aisle. The chancel is simple 12thc, the nave and aisle Transitional. The Romanesque features are a mutilated tympanum re-set over the N aisle doorway, paired round-headed windows in both side walls of the chancel and a similar window in the nave W wall, a plain string course, a corbel table of roll billets, the responds of the pointed chancel arch, and the arcades whose responds and piers bear typical Transitional decoration and also human heads at the apex of the round arches as well as serving as hoodmould stops.
Parish church
A very small, rubble-built 15thc. church with chancel and nave in one, a two-bay S aisle, two storey S porch and bellcote. The S aisle abuts the porch. The church was restored in 1873–4. The only 12thc. feature is the remodelled font.
Parish church
A single-vessel church with no architectural division between nave and chancel, but with a wide span. Assertive W tower with big Romanesque strip-buttresses on the corners, of three stories, with Romanesque round-headed windows in the top two stages, and two circular windows at the top of third stage. No sculpture on the tower except roll-mouldings between the stories and around the windows (the E face of the tower, and the whole parapet is of brick, with an attractively cogged lower frieze). Two inscriptions help date the fabric of the building and are likely also Romanesque in themselves. The font is also of the 12thc, but heavily mutilated.
Parish church
Duddingston Parish Kirk is located about two miles from the centre of Edinburgh (to which the village now belongs), on the side of Duddingston Loch. The church appears to have originally been built as a two-chambered, aisleless structure, as the W tower and the N aisle were added later. Although there is no document which refers to the building of the church, a date in the 2nd quarter of the 12thc would fit the surviving references, as would the decoration.
In 1598, during a visitation of the church by the Presbytery of Edinburgh, the choir of the church is mentioned as somewhat ruinous. The first documented work on the church comes in 1631, when it was agreed to build an aisle for the owners of the Prestonfield estate. Work was undertaken in 1806, this time on the W tower and N aisle, and about 1835 the church was again enlarged and repaired. Further alterations were carried out in 1889 and in 1968, primarily on the interior.
The Romanesque S nave doorway (now blocked), the chancel arch, the exterior stringcourse and possibly some of the external corbels of the chancel, the external bases and part of a cross survive from the original 12thc building.
Parish church
The present parish church of 1866 has replaced the original medieval parish. It comprises a chancel with a polygonal apse, nave, narrow S aisle and south tower over entrance porch and stone broach spire. The ruined 15thc tower from the original church survives nearby at East Compton (NGR ST8756 1550).