The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
St Margaret (now)
Parish church
Stanstead St Margarets is a village in the East Hertfordshire district, 4 miles E of Hertford and 2 miles SE of Ware. The church is in the village centre., and is a single cell buildingwith a bellcote over the W gable. Construction is of flint rubble with stone dressings. The building is 12thc. in origin, see the round headed window E of the S doorway, but it was rebuilt with a N aisle in the early 14thc, the aisle was later removed. to house a college with 5 chaplains. This was dissolved in 1431 and the aisle removed but remains of the arcade are still visible on the exterior. The church was restored from 1807 including the addition of the bellcote. Two N vestries were added in the later 19thc. The only Romanesque feature recorded here is the S nave window.
Parish church
Langton is a small village in East Lindsey, 1½ miles W of Horncastle. The church is at the E end of the village and is a small building of greenstone, limstone and red brick. The original church on the site was medieval and had a W tower, whise foundations are visible at the W end. It was restored in 1750 and again, by W. Scorer, in 1890, so that now it is mostly his work. It is a small church with nave and chancel only. A coped coffin lid bearing sculptural decoration was reset into the rebuilt W wall of the nave in 1891; previously it had been located in the chancel pavement, and this is the only Romanesque feature.
Parish church
Middle Chinnock is 3 miles NE of Crewkerne in generally undulating country, an area of South Somerset notable as good farming country. Chiselborough Hill rises abruptly to the N of the Chinnock stream; the chalk hills of Dorset are not far to the S. The small, compact, settlement of Middle Chinnock is only a field away from the larger village of West Chinnock. The church of St Margaret is at the S end of the settlement, packed together quite closely with the rectory, manor house and farm. The medieval nave has a porch and W tower, and the plan at this end of the church seems unchanged. It had transepts added in 1836 and has a chancel that was restored in the 1860s. Remains from the Romanesque period include the S doorway to the nave, and a font. There are also re-set carved stones in the exterior walls of the N transept and chancel.
Parish church
Ormesby St Margaret is a large village, lying 7 mi NW of Great Yarmouth and 20 mi NE of Norwich. The village is between the Broads and the coast, and not far inland from Caister-on-Sea. The parish church is situated at the seaward end of the village above the Yarmouth road. The church of St Margaret has a nave and chancel of 14thc origin, much-restored in the 19thc, with west tower of c.1500 and later north aisle and vestry. It is made of flint and chert rubble with limestone dressings. The only Romanesque feature is a reset Norman doorway in the 15thc south porch.
Parish church
Sibsey is a village in the East Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, 5 miles N of Boston and 26 miles SE of Lincoln. The village is in the Licolnshire fens and is the centre of a thriving farming area. The main street of the village is the A16 which runs N from Boston to Louth and Grimsby. The church is in the village centre on the E side of the main street.
It consists of a W tower, an aisled nave with a S porch, and chancel with a N vestry. Of these the 4-storey tower is 13thc in its 3 lowest stages with an embattled 15thc top storey. The nave aisles were added in the 12thc, and a clerestorey in the 15thc. In 1840 the nave piers and responds were heightened, dramatically altering the interior elevation. The chancel was rebuilt in 1855, by Kirk but contains late-medieval features. Construction is of ashlar with some red brick patching. Romanesque sculpture is found in the N nave doorway and in the S and N nave arcades.
Parish church
St Margaret's church is situated in the Norfolk village of Breckles, which lies about 20 mi W of Norwich. The village is bypassed by the main Thetford to Watton road, standing on higher ground on a quiet parallel lane. The church sits a few hundred metres south of Breckles Hall, a historic Elizabethan house.
The parish church is built of flint with ashlar dressings and tiled roofs. It comprises a circular west tower of Saxon or early Norman origin, a later medieval nave, and a chancel largely of the 14thc, all restored in 1856. The tower retains a low semicircular tower arch with decorated imposts carved with cable, interlace, and serpent motifs above a substantial roll moulding, which Pevsner says is pre-Norman. Externally, the tower rises to an octagonal Perpendicular belfry stage with flushwork decoration and trefoiled bell-openings, added in the late 15th or early 16thc. The nave is principally 15thc, lit by large panel-traceried windows and entered through a south porch. The chancel preserves 14thc work, including a three-light east window of stem-and-leaf tracery type and trefoiled side windows, together with a piscina.
The principal Romanesque feature is the font, probably dating from c.1120. The bowl is richly carved on all faces, and the corner shafts also carry carved ornament recalling pre-Conquest decorative traditions. There is also an abandoned font outside.
Ruined parish church
Swinton is a small town north-east of Sheffield. The church is a large 19thc building surrounded by a churchyard and an open grassland, the Vicarage Field, to the north. Sculptural remains of the Romanesque chapel of St Mary Magdalene, which was formerly located on the site of the present church hall before being dismantled in 1815, were retained after the fire of 1897 and re-erected to the NE of the new church: they consist of jambs, capitals and voussoirs of the S doorway, and remains of the chancel arch. However, over the years their deterioration caused some of the carved stones to be moved in a storeroom in 1950, while uncarved stones were buried in the Vicarage Field.
Architect Edmund Isle Hubbard had produced plans for the enlargment of the E end before the fire. Some papers regarding the rebuilt chapel, the chapel yard and the new church (1817 CD.81) have been transferred to the Sheffield Diocesan Registry. Some watercolours of Swinton chapel before 1815 survive. An engraving of the doorway was published by James Storer (1817, vol. 6). The reconstructed arches appear on postcards of c.1900-1905.
Parish church
This small church, tranquilly standing in a wooded hollow of the wolds, consists of a nave and chancel with a very short, squat, embattled W tower that barely rises above the peak of the roof. The chancel arch is 18thc but with 13thc responds. Much rebuilding of the walls has taken place. Between 1884 and 1885 restoration was carried out by H. M. Townsend of Peterborough.
The Romanesque material consists of the font and a loose capital.
Parish church
St Margaret's has an aisleless nave with a blocked N doorway and a
porch protecting the S doorway; a chancel with a long S chapel under a separate roof and a W
tower. The N doorway indicates that the nave is 12thc., and the S doorway is a
13thc. modification. The brick and flint porch is
16thc. The chancel and its chapel are 14thc. Both E
windows are Perpendicular, but of different dates. The E wall has been mortar
rendered and inappropriate barge-boards added. To the N of the chancel is a lean-to of brick, roofed with the chancel. The W tower is Perpendicular, with diagonal
buttresses and flushwork panels on the plinth.
Construction is of flint with ashlar dressings. The only Romanesque sculpture
is on the blocked N
doorway.
Parish church
This small church consists of a chancel, a nave, and a large double-storied N porch, that was meant to carry a tower (Pevsner, 282). The 19thc timber chancel arch sits on short shafts with reset 12thc capitals. The nave, though restored in 1874-76, is Norman in origin, with an early 12thc S door. A slab that is now part of the altar is also Norman.