The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
All Angels (now)
Chapel
Peasenhall stands in hilly arable land in E Suffolk, between Saxmundham
and Halesworth. The village is clustered around the crossing of two Roman roads. One is now the A1120 and the
other formerly linked Harleston and Saxmundham. The church stands at the
crossroads in the centre of the village and immediately to the S is the factory
of Smyth and Sons. James Smyth invented an improved seed drill in 1800, and his
vigorous promotion of a genuinely better product led to expansion within the
village and to the building of workers' terraced housing, as his drills became
the brand leader throughout southern England. Smyth's enterprise is the reason
for the unusual presence in rural Suffolk of what is essentially an industrial
village. The surrounding land was always farmed, but the farmhouses are now
outside the village centre.St Michael's consists of a nave, chancel and W
tower; the nave and chancel of knapped flints and the
tower of flint. The nave has a N doorway under a 15thc. porch with diagonal buttresses, niches and flushwork decoration. There is no S doorway. At
the W end is a gallery, erected in 1894 as an organ
loft and to house the choir. The chancel has a S
vestry. All of this work, except for the W tower and
the N porch, result from a restoration of 1860-61 paid
for by J. W. Brooke of Sibton Park and using R. D. Chantrell of London as
architect. He took down the old nave and chancel and
rebuilt them. He also heightened and repaired the tower. The newer masonry is
clearly visible and includes the bell openings and the embattled parapet with its flushwork decoration. The church
was seen by Henry Davy before the restoration, and his NE view was published in
1843. The most obvious differences are in the nave, the tower and the
chancel. Chantrell lengthened the nave by approximately
ten feet, so that Davy’s print shows only two windows E of the
porch rather than the present three. The tower was not
so tall in 1843 and had simpler bell openings, but a similar parapet, which
Chantrell presumably reused. The chancel E window was
formerly smaller, and there was a small window at the W end of the N wall
rather than the present window at the E. The only Romanesque feature is the
late-12thc. font, which was moved to its present position in the nave from a
site under the tower in
1909.
Parish church
Waddesdon is a good-sized village 5 miles NW of Aylesbury on the Roman road ofAkeman Street. The village is dominated by Waddesdon Manor, on a Lodge Hill to the W, but there was no medieval manor house here; the present house, built for Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild from 1874-80, was the first on the site, and Rothschild built the present village to the E of the old village centre at the same time. Nevertheless evidence of continuous settlement here goes back to the bronze age. The church stands in the centre of the old village, opposite the gates to the manor, on the N side of the A41 which approximately follows the line ofAkeman Streetthrough the village. St Michael’s is a large church with an aisled nave with S porch, chancel and W tower. The nave is late-12thc, with an elaborate S doorway under a 14thc porch, rebuilt in 1902. The nave aisles are of six bays with clerestory windows above the piers. The N arcade is uniform, with the octagonal piers, finely moulded capitals and convex chamfered arch orders typical of the first years of the 14thc, and the use of forms of Y-tracery in most of the aisle windows confirms this dating. The S arcade, however, reveals a more complex history. The two E bays, including pier 1 but not pier 2, have the same design as the N arcade. The next three bays also have pointed arches, but with late-12thc details, the piers are cylindrical and the capitals are scalloped. Then pier 5 has a roughly moulded capital of a mid-13thc type, and the arch of bay 6 has deep double chamfers, also diagnostically mid-13thc. Finally the W respond returns to the scalloped design of piers 2-4. What this suggests is that a 12thc arcade of four bays (the present bays 2-5) was extended westwards by a bay in the 13thc; the W respond being reused n the new W wall, a new being pier inserted (pier 5) on the line of the old E wall and a new arch built (bay 6). Then in the early 14thc the aisle was extended by a bay to the E, the original pier 1 being retained as the new pier 2, and the arch of the old bay 1 being rebuilt in the new style. Piers 2, 3 and 4 have (or had) slim shafts rising from the impost blocks on the nave face, terminating in small scallop capitals, but carrying nothing. Small statues are a possibility, or transverse arches or, perhaps likeliest, roof trusses. The clerestory is 15thc, and its insertion, together with the raising of the nave walls and flattening of the roofline, was presumably responsible for the loss of the original trusses, supported by the shafts above the pier capitals.
The chancel dates from the early 14thc campaign, being rebuilt a bay further east than the 12thc chancel. The tower is of the late 14thc, with Perpendicular bell-openings, a polygonal SE stair with a battlemented turret rising higher than the main parapet, and angle buttresses at the W. It was taken down and rebuilt in 1891-92. A sign of an early restoration is given by the rainwater heads, dated 1736, and the church was completely restored during the incumbency of Richard Burges (1859-67). The nave and chancel are mortar rendered, and the tower is of irregular ashlar blocks. Romanesque sculpture is found on the S doorway and S nave arcade.
Parish church
Boulge is in the E of the county, 2½ miles NW of the centre of Woodbridge. The landscape is the usual arable farmland of the E Anglian plain; not entirely flat and drained by the network of streams running into the Deben estuary at Martlesham Creek, S of Woodbridge. The name is said to derive from the French 'bouge', meaning an uncultivated heathland, although the Domesday survey give a picture of many small parcels of ploughland. The parish covers approximately a square mile in a two-mile long strip running NE to SW, but it is sparsely populated and there is no village. The community now consists of just 13 dwellings in all; just a couple of farms and a few scattered cottages. The church stands to the N of a small wood in the former parkland surrounding the site of Boulge Hall, demolished in 1956. The normal access to the church is from the S, and from this aspect it appears almost entirely Victorian. St Michael's has a W tower, a nave with a S aisle and a chancel with a large S vestry. Nave and chancel are of flint, of equal width and roofed in one. There is no chancel arch. A plain blocked N lancet in the chancel indicates a date in the early 13thc., but for the rest, the N windows of nave and chancel are ofc.1300 (Y-tracery),c.1320 (reticulated) or 15thc., the N nave doorway is 14thc., and the E wall of the chancel dates from 1858. On the south, the nave aisle is of three bays; the two at the E with a normal pentise roof, and the west bay taller and with its own gabled roof, built as a Fitzgerald family chapel. Edward Fitzgerald, translator of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, is buried in the churchyard. The chancel also has a transeptal vestry and organ chamber. This work on the S of the church was carried out in three campaigns, in 1858 (by W. G. and E. H. Habershon), in 1867 (by W. G. Habershon and A. Pite), and in 1895 (by S. Gambier Parry of Wminster). In each case the patron was the owner of the Hall; J. P. Fitzgerald for the two earlier works and Mr and Mrs Holmes White for the latest campaign. In each case too, knapped flint facings were used. The Tudor tower is of brick with an embattled parapet and a pointed segmental headed tower arch. Maintenance work to the fabric was carried out in 1978-81 by A. W. Anderson of Norwich (roofs), in 1981 (N wall) and in 1983-84 (tower). Boulge has no Romanesque fabric, but is significant in housing a font said to be an export from Tournai.
Parish church
Eaton Hastings is a sparsely populated settlement some 2 miles NW of Faringdon in the western part of the county. The church stands in farmland on the S bank of the Thames. It has an aisleless nave with opposed N and S doorways, the former now enclosed in a vestry and the is a bellcote over the W gable. There was a 13thc. S aisle, which has been removed leaving the arcade visible on the interior. Long, square-ended chancel. The church was restored by Champion, 1870-73. The following 12thc. work is described below: the N nave doorway, windows in the nave and chancel N walls, chancel arch jambs and font.
Parish church
Romanesque interest at St Michael's centres on the W tower; constructed of bands of ironstone and grey stone in its lower parts, and originally unbuttressed but with diagonal buttresses and a plinth course added. The top storey is of rubble and has 14thc. windows and a battlement. Inscriptions supply the names of two churchwardens and the date 1654, which must correspond to a restoration. 12thc. work surviving here comprises the W doorway and the tower arch, both extremely plain. For the rest, the nave is aisled with 13thc. arcades of three bays and a later clerestorey. The chancel is narrow with S chapel (now a vestry) as wide as the nave aisle and almost as long, and there are signs of a rood loft inside, and a stair turret for it in the angle between nave and chancel on the N side.
Parish church
St Michaels has a nave with a S aisle, added in 1857, and no clerestorey, chancel with a N organ niche, and a short 14thc. W tower. The S arcade is of three bays and there is no nave doorway on this side. The N doorway, under a porch, is of c.1200 and is the only Romanesque feature of the church.
Parish church
Church and Hall originally formed a group, with the Hall to the W, and this is shown in two views by Stebbing Shaw (1798-1801) in the William Salt Library (SV VIII 62a, 62b). Nothing is known of the Hall before the early 16thc., and such remains as survive today are of that period or later. St Michael's has a W tower with an octagonal spire behind a plain parapet, and a long nave and chancel in one, with no chancel arch, a single roof and a continuous clerestory. J. C. Buckler a produced a SE view of the church (1839), now in the William Salt Library (SV VIII 61a), looking much as it does today. The separation between nave and chancel was once by means of a rood-loft reached by a spiral stair on the S side, which remains in part. The present position of the chancel is marked by a step, and there are three nave arcade
bays to the W of this and one similar chancel
arcade
bay, plus a smaller bay to the E. On the N side of the chancel, both arches give onto a chapel, now containing the organ and a vestry. On the S the smaller E arch acts as the canopy of the Cotton tomb ofc.1500, and the chapel is still used for its proper purpose. There is another vestry to the E of the S chapel, so that overall the S chancel aisle extends to the E end of the church, while the N aisle stops one bay short. The nave is 12thc., and its upper W window survives in part, along with traces of another on the N side of the chancel, and masonry to either side of the tower at the W end. The tower and chancel are 14thc, and the arcades and clerestory Perpendicular. The church is of grey ashlar inside and out; the interior apparently recently cleaned and looking very bare. The church has three fonts, or at least three bowls, two 12thc., one inside and one out, and the third the 19thc. piece that is actually used. Curiously, Pevsner mentioned only the less interesting of the Romanesque fonts.
Parish church
Bullington is in rolling woodland and sheep pasture in central Hampshire, 7 miles N of Winchester, and is one of a chain of villages than runs along the valley of the river Dever, many of which form the present benefice. This dispersed village runs for a mile along the river, with Lower Bullington to the W and Upper Bullington to the E. 1 mile N of the village is the Iron Age hillfort of Tidbury Ring. The A34 trunk road runs from N to S between the two, and the A303 from E to W, the two intersecting immediately N of the village. The church is in Lower Bullington, in wooded pasture land on the S bank of the river Dever.
It consists of a flint nave and chancel in one, with a 19thc neo-Romanesque S nave doorway set under a flint and timber 19thc porch and a blocked 12thc N nave doorway without a porch. There are plain 12thc lancets on the lateral walls of the nave towards the W end. The 13thc chancel has a N vestry and the church has a W tower of brick with a tiled pyramid roof. There was a restoration in 1871 and Pevsner suggests that the tower may date from that time. The only Romanesque feature recorded here is the N nave doorway.
Parish church
The S nave arcade dates from the late 12thc., though the E bay of the arcade was altered, probably in the 15thc. The N nave arcade is Perpendicular, as is the N transept, and the nave has a Perpendicular clerestory. The chancel dates from the 13thc., and the tower from the 14thc and 15thc.
Parish church
St Michael's has an early 12thc. nave with a 13thc. bell-cote on the W gable. A S aisle with a two-bay arcade was added at the end of the 12thc., and the nave was heightened and a clerestorey added in the 15thc. The chancel arch is a fine piece by the Castor workshop. To the S of the chancel is a large 13thc. chapel converted to house the organ, and vestry. Construction is of coursed irregular blocks of Barnack limestone. The chancel and S aisle were restored in 1865-68. In addition to the chancel arch the church has a set of 12thc. corbels set high in the S wall of the nave, a small doorway reset in the S aisle wall, and inside a recumbent lion, perhaps from an elaborate doorway.