The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
Holy Trinity (now)
Parish church
Since 1877 Lenton has been a part of the City of Nottingham, but in the 11thc it was a village to the W, between Nottingham and Wollaton. New Lenton was built on farmland to the W of Lenton to accommodate the expansion of both the village and the city, especially of the lacemaking industry. The church of the Holy Trinity was built in 1842 by Henry Isaac Stevens, and consists of a nave with aisles, chancel and W tower. It houses the font from Lenton Priory; one of the finest pieces of Romanesque sculpture in the county.
Parish church
Swallow is a small village in the West Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, 9 miles NE of Market Rasen and 7 miles SW of the coast at Grimsby. The church is in the village centre, and is an ironstone rubble and ashlar building with a late-11thc. W tower, a 13thc. nave with a N aisle, and a chancel. The top of the tower was rebuilt in 1868 with a pyramid roof; the rest of the church was restored in 1883-4. The W tower door may be early Romanesque.
Parish church
The village of Long Sutton, Somerset (not be be confused with the village of the same name in Lincolnshire, also on CRSBI) lies at about 20m OD very close to the SW edge of a well-populated plateau of Lower Lias (clay with some limestone) between the rivers Yeo (0.5 mi to the SW) and Cary (3 mi to the NE). The village is mainly to the S of the main road unning W-E between Langport and Ilchester, on each side of the secondary road running S to Martock (hence its name). The church of the Holy Trinity enjoys an elevated position on the SE edge of the village, with fields to the E and S. Although rebuilt in the later half of the 15thc and consecrated in 1493, surviving Romanesque elements include some loose and reset sculpture.
Parish church, formerly Augustinian house
Christchurch is a town on the south coast of England, between the New Forest to the E and Bournemouth to the W. Its population in 2013 was 48,368. It is in the historic county of Hampshire, but in the 1974 reorganisation it became a borough withing the county of Dorset. In 2019 it became part of the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Unitary Authority. The town dates to the 7thc and was originally called Twyneham. It stands at the confluence of the rivers Stour and Avon, on a natural harbour that became a one of the most important in Saxon England. The name of Christchurch comes from the priory of Augustinian Canons, founded in 1094.
The Romanesque church was begun by Ranulf Flambard, an administrator and holder of the king’s seal in the reigns of the Conqueror and William Rufus. He was rewarded with the bishopric of Durham in 1099 but in the following year when Henry I came to the throne he was blamed for the financial extortions of Rufus’s reign and imprisoned in the Tower of London. In the early part of Rufus’s reign he was the dean of Christchurch, and was responsible for the demolition of the Saxon church (of which little is known), along with nine other churches that stood in the surrounding churchyard. He is assumed to be responsible for the plan of the church, although it was unfinished in 1100 when his successor Gilbert de Dousgunels took over and completed the building.
His church had an E arm of three bays with an eastern apse and straight-ended aisles. The crossing had a tower and N and S transepts with apsidal chapels on the E, and the nave was of eight bays with aisles. There were crypts under the E bay of the eastern arm and the end bays of the transepts. The latter remain but the first has lost its apse. The transepts were unusual in having an upper storey over the entire area, carried on vaults. This unusual feature is not known elsewhere in England, but there is evidence for it at Jumièges and Bayeux.
Subsequent work has altered the appearance of Flambard’s church. The E arm may have been enlarged in the late-12thc, but all traces of that were lost from the end of the 14thc, when a new Lady Chapel is recorded. The present eastern arm dates from the 15thc and 16thc. The crossing tower is said to have fallen in the 15thc, necessitating rebuilding in the upper levels of the N transept. The upper floors of the transepts were removed in the 13thc, cutting off communication between the nave triforium and the chancel. The nave clerestorey was rebuilt and a stone vault prepared in the same period, but the vault was not completed. At the W end a tower was begun late in the 15thc, and this occupies the W bay of the main vessel and is flanked by vestries. The nave proper is thus reduced to 7 bays. In the following description of the Romanesque work the exterior and interior are considered separately.
Exterior
The north transept is the showpiece of Christchurch. It has a big NE stair-turret, and alongside this is the start of the curved wall of the east chapel, but most of the east side was replaced with a straight wall in the later 13thc. The 12thc work is in four registers. At ground level is intersecting round-headed blind arcading around the entire 12thc part of the transept. The second level has a tall round-headed blind arcade with double colonnettes around the NE turret and single ones around the E chapel, traces of a pair of large windows on the N wall, and a W window with a blank twin next to it. The third level has, on the turret only, a blind register decorated with bold trellis, and above that another register of round-headed blind arcading with single colonnettes. There are buttresses, in the form of alternating half-columns and angle-wedges, clasping the NW angle, halfway along the N face, and at the S end of the W face. Restoration has left them at various heights, and only parts of the NW angle buttress are original. In fact the entire transept has been heavily restored, so that most of the capitals and other carved features are 19thc, but it seems clear that there were two 12thc phases (a conclusion that gains some support from an examination of the interior). The first phase is represented by all the blind arcading, the W window (and what remains of the N windows) and the surface ornament, notably the trellis register. Original capitals survive in the second level blind arcades around the stair-turret and E chapel and the top-level arcading around the turret. Most are simple volute capitals, while a few are of the more elaborate type with fluted fans of leaves, also found on the interior, and one, in the top-storey arcading, is a simple cushion. The blind-arcade arches have angle rolls and face hollows, the imposts are quirked hollow chamfered, and the shaft bases are tall with bulbous rolls. The stringcourse below the top storey of the stair-turret has a simple zig-zag, and stringcourses elsewhere have single billet or sawtooth ornament. For dating purposes, much of this can be paralleled in the first phases of Ely Cathedral (even the hint of a change from volute to cushion capitals), and the combination of features suggests a date earlier than 1125 and possibly as much as ten years earlier. The overall trellis pattern on the third level of the tower is unusual in its large scale, but is typical of the beginning of the 12thc rather than any later date. The intention may have been to make a fine show towards the Castle, just to the N. Around the middle of the century the roll-and-wedge buttresses were added. That they were an afterthought is first suggested by their unusual placing on top of the stylobate of the ground-level blind arcading, by their chamfered bases, and above all by their profile, which is uncommon but found, for example, in the NW tower of Chester Cathedral, c.1140-60.
South transept
The W wall has one well-preserved 12thc window with an angle roll and face hollow in the arch, a billet label, and cushion nook-shaft capitals; the S wall two (blocked) windows also of the 12thc. On the E side, not usually accessible to visitors in close-up, the two-storeyed apsed E chapel of the Norman transept still makes its statement (cf. the chapel at Tewkesbury S transept, also early 12thc). The buttresses are instructive; plain and flat below window sill level but transposing into paired half-columns separated by an angle-wedge above. The E chapel window is stylistically the earliest of the above-ground work, with no label and a heavy nook-roll in the arch instead of the usual angle roll and face hollow. The volute capitals are badly worn, and the impost blocks have been replaced. Like the N transept, then, there are two 12th-century phases here; an observation confirmed by the interior ornament.
Interior
The transepts confirm the suspicion of a second 12thc phase noted in the discussion of the exterior. Early (c.1115-25) work in the north transept includes the plain arches to nave and chancel aisles, and the blind arcading on the W wall along with the window above it, both with volute capitals, and the sawtooth and billet ornament in the stringcourse and labels. About the middle of the century a gallery was added, and to support it a respond of paired columns was added to the flat buttress alongside the arch to the nave aisle, and the nave and chancel aisle arches were remodelled. The original, very plain form is seen in the arch to the chancel aisle, and alongside it the paired shafts (one lost) with capitals and new imposts belong to the remodelling. The change was more dramatic in the nave aisle arch, where paired half-columns separated by angle wedges were added to the jambs, and the capitals and imposts were replaced. These second-phase capitals are deeply and richly carved with symmetrical designs of furled leaves and palmettes; some have barley-sugar twist neckings, and the imposts are of a new type with a low face roll above the hollow chamfer.
The south transept also has its W and (blocked) S windows and its W blind arcade below, but their state of repair is very poor. Both windows have nook-shafts and cushion capitals, and the blind arcade had a mixture of volute and cushion capitals. Most of the blind arcade and the W window have completely plain arches. The E chapel survives, with blind arcading on two levels, an E window and a rib vault. Of this, the lower level blind arcade and the sawtooth stringcourse above it, and the interior ornament of the E window are all modern replacements. One capital of the upper arcading and one of the vault-rib capitals are primitive Corinthianesque, of a form rare on this country. The rest are the usual mixture of cushions and volutes with an elaborate Winchester acanthus capital on the central rib respond that is deeply carved and decorated with beading. The chapel arch capitals and imposts appear to belong to the mid-century remodelling noted in the description of the north transept.
The crossing has plain round-headed arches with zigzag labels and cushion capitals carried on paired half-columns. The W arch is unusual in that its responds have the paired half-columns separated by wedges noted elsewhere as typical of the 1140s or ‘50s. In this case the wedges support their own wedge-shaped capitals, and the responds of this arch has surely been rebuilt.
The seven-bay nave is all of a piece with two-order round-headed arches with half-columns in the jambs of each order and fat soffit rolls in the arches. The arches have zigzag labels and sawtooth diapering in the spandrels. Several of the capitals have been replaced, but those that survive are either volutes with Winchester acanthus or plain cushions, i.e. they follow on immediately from the first stage of the transepts, and those at the W end of the arcade do not look significantly later than those at the E end. The 1130s are probably the latest possible decade for the completion of the ground stage. The gallery has twin round-headed openings with a central shaft and outer enclosing arch. The tympani are plain except for the E bay on the south side which is diapered with fishscale ornament. This bay also has billet in the inner arches and a spiral-decorated central shaft, where all the others on the N side are plain, and it seems clear that the liturgical choir extended across the crossing into this bay. On the south the inner arches have been removed for the organ, and the central shafts of bays 3 and 5 are decorated, the latter with trellis reminiscent of the work on the exterior of the N transept. The gallery capitals are largely of the volute type with some cushions and scallops and the occasional figural or animal subject (e.g. S gallery, bay 3).
Norman blind arcading survives in the south nave aisle in bays 2 to 6; four arches per bay, with round arches with angle rolls and face hollows and billet labels. The capitals are a mixture of volute and Corinthianesque types. Many have been replaced, but some of the original ones have cable neckings.
The overall appearance of the Romanesque work above ground suggests a start around 1110 in the south transept, the north following on within the next decade, and the nave after that, all in a continuous campaign taking us up to c.1130. There was then a return to the transepts and the crossing for the remodelling of the W crossing arch, and the addition of transept galleries and some external buttressing.
Ruined parish church
All that remains of the church is the buttressed, three-stage 12thc. tower and part of the S transept including a 14thc. N arcade. The S transept was restored in 1835 for use as a mortuary chapel. The tower has a twin pointed bell-opening ofc.1200 (Pevsner refers to them asc.1200 twins.) on the highest stage of the W face with a shared mullion within a round-headed, chamfered arch. There is a round-headed window of two orders on the second stage and a further deeply splayed round-headed window set into a buttress on the S face, heavily restored. The only Romanesque sculpture is on the corbels supporting the tower arch.
Parish church
The church of the Holy Trinity is located next to the castle of Millom, situated around 6 miles north of Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria. It consists of chancel, nave and S aisle. There is a modern S doorway off the chancel, with medieval window heads re-set above it, remains of a (now-blocked) S doorway off the nave, and a N main doorway, this with a porch over it. There is also a W bellcote and a blocked arch at the W end of the nave, the purpose of which is uncertain. During a siege in 1644, parts of the church were extensively damaged. Although some remedial work was carried out thereafter to make the church serviceable, it was not until 1858 that a full restoration was undertaken. In 1930, the chancel was widened, at which time two early, carved stone fragments were found within the N chancel wall. These were then reused as part of the NE exterior corner of the chancel.
Parish church
Holdgate is a village in Corve Dale in the Shropshire Hills, 10 miles W of Bridgnorth. The church stands in the village centre, with a motte and bailey to the N. Holy Trinity has a 12thc nave, a 13thc W tower and chancel, and a S porch added in the 19thc. There is high-quality 12thc sculpture on the S doorway and an elaborately carved 12thc. font. There is a sheela-na-gig in the S chancel wall, photographed for us by John Harding.
Parish church
The earliest part of the church is the 13thc. tower, on the N of the originally 12thc. nave. The nave was altered and lengthened in 1321 when the N and S aisles were added. The aisles run the full length of the church. In the early 15thc. a N chancel was added. Much of the outer walling was rebuilt during the restoration by Hayward in 1861 (Pevsner 1989, 501). The font is the only feature with Romanesque sculpture. Pevsner records a very worn 12thc. tapered tomb slab with an incised cross.
Parish church
Bledlow is a village on the northern edge of the Chiltern Hills, in the east of south
Buckinghamshire. The village is two miles SW of Princes Risborough and a half mile
east of the Oxfordshire border. The church stands in the centre of the village. Holy
Trinity has an aisled nave with a S porch, a chancel and a W tower. The nave is 4 bays long,
with 13thc. arcades with stiff-leaf
capitals indicating an early-13thc. date for the aisles. A scar against the E tower
wall indicates an earlier roof that was much steeper. The clerestorey windows are three-light, trefoil-headed
bar-traceried openings under square heads, and appear to date from the later 13thc.
Both aisles have been extended westwards alongside the tower. The N aisle contains a
reset 12thc. doorway, indicating the original date of the unaisled nave. The aisle
windows are a mixture of geometric and flowing tracery on the N and geometrical and
Perpendicular on the S; both the W aisle windows are early 13thc., contemporary with
the arcades, but they may have been reset when the aisles were
lengthened. The chancel arch is contemporary with the arcades too, but the original, short chancel was 12thc. (indicated by the arch of the former priest's doorway in
the S wall). It was lengthened eastwards and refenestrated in the 13thc. The church
was reseated and restored by G. G. Scott in 1875–77, and repaired in 1961–62 by H. J.
Stribling of Slough, and in 1967 and 1975–76 by Roiser and Whitestone, architects of
Cheltenham. At the W end of the N aisle is a display of loose stones, some
Romanesque, that were found in the wall of the tower. The font is also 12thc., and
belongs with the Aylesbury group.
Parish church
Shenington is in NE Oxfordshire, 5.5 miles NW of Banbury. Holy Trinity church stands on a hill looking across to its sister church of St Michael at Alkerton. There is evidence of its existence here from the early 12thc. Made of the local Hornton ironstone, it comprises a chancel, nave, S aisle and W tower. From the exterior it is now entirely Decorated and Perpendicular, but it retains its original Romanesque chancel arch, with chevron and cable mouldings. When the church was restored by J.L. Pearson in 1879, the chancel arch was moved to a position in the N wall, separating the organ chamber from the chancel.