The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
Old Church (now)
Ruined parish church
The most isolated church in the county, the so-called “Old Church” is not even on the OS Landranger maps. It is located in the middle of a vast sheep pasture three quarters of a mile NE of the village. The nave is in ruins, a pile of rubble amidst a gnarly, romantic copse. The only part of the church standing is the short chancel. The chancel arch, which is now embedded in the W wall, is Romanesque as is the unmoulded S window.
Ruined parish church
Edvin Ralph is in the NE of the county, 3 miles N of Bromyard. The landscape here is hilly and wooded; the topography governed by the valleys of the river Frome and its tributaries. The hamlet of Edvin Loach consists of a few houses and the church on a minor loop of road. The present church is of 1859-60 by G. G. Scott, but the ruin of the old church still stands, roofless, to the east, within the bailey of a castle enclosure. It consists of an unaisled nave and chancel with a west tower. The 11thc nave has herringbone masonry in the walls, which are of local sandstone rubble. Parts of the N and S walls and the entre E wall were rebuilt in the 12thc, and this work includes thesouth doorway of tufa, which is the only Romanesque feature described here. The tower, open to the nave, dates from the 16thc. The broken remains of a partly Romanesque font were described by RCHME (1932), but the font had been removed by 1986.