The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
St Margaret (now)
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 19th-century timber chancel arch sits on short shafts with reset 12th-century capitals. The nave, though restored in 1874-6, is Norman in origin, with an early 12th-century S door. A slab that is now part of the altar is also Norman.
Parish church
The seven South Elmham villages; St James, All Saints, St Nicholas, St Cross, St Margaret, St Michael and St Peter, to which may be added Homersfield, sometimes referred to as South Elmham St Mary, lie in a scattered group between Bungay and Halesworth in NE Suffolk, to the W of the Roman road known as Stone Street. North Elmham (the centre of the see until 1071) is over 30 miles away, to the NW of Norwich, and both apparently took their name from Aethelmaer (bishop of East Anglia 1047-1070) the landholder before the Conquest. This is not certain; Tricker suggests that the name meant villages where elm trees grew. The land here is flat, generally arable and sparsely populated; the villages rarely more than a few houses clustered around the church without shops or pubs. St Margaret's village consists of a scattering of houses and the church along a minor road running on the S side of the Beck, a tributary of the Waveney. Alongside the church to the S is the parkland surrounding South Elmham Hall. The hall itself is 0.6 m SW of the church, in the neighbouring parish of South Elmham St Cross (qv). The church is of flint, with a nave, chancel and W tower. The nave is 12thc., with a S doorway and a S window of that date. The S doorway is protected by a two-storey porch of knapped flint and brick, probably 15thc. The N doorway is blocked and has a pointed segmental head. Perpendicular windows were added to the nave in the 15thc., one on the S side and two on the N. There is a N rood stair. The chancel is 15thc. to judge from its windows and an ogee-headed wall tomb on the N side. Also on the N is a 19thc. pseudo-chapel of knapped flint, housing the organ and a vestry (Pevsner considers it early 14thc., and it is certainly in that style). The chancel arch is 19thc. The tower is 14thc., with a very tall tower arch, a W window with flowing tracery, 14thc. bell-openings, a polygonal SE stair and diagonal buttresses with flushwork. The top of it is flat and leaded. The church was thoroughly restored in 1838. The S doorway is the only feature with Romanesque sculpture.
Parish church
The church consists of a chancel, nave, W tower and S porch. The Savile transeptal chapel was added by T.C. Hine, who restored the church in 1873. The two-light square-headed chancel window isc.1400 whilst the pointed chancel arch is probably 100 years or so earlier. In the floor of the nave is a 14thc. grave slab of unusual design. The tower bears a repair date of 1663, and an epitaph to William Chappell, Bishop of Cork and Ross, who spent some time at Bilsthorpe during the Civil War and died in Derby in 1649. The only Romanesque feature is the font.
Parish church
Binsey is a small village by the River Thames about 1.5 miles NW of Oxford. Although this little church is now within Oxford City, it is hidden away along a narrow wooded lane, half a mile N of Binsey village. Its earliest datable stonework is the round-headed S doorway of the late 12thc. It is uncertain whether the porch was built at the same time (as suggested by Sherwood and Pevsner), or added in the 13thc remodelling (as posited by Clark). The church has always been a two-cell structure and much of it was rebuilt, at least from waist height, in the 13thc. The present church comprises a chancel, a nave and a central bell-cote. The S doorway is the surviving main Romanesque feature, and the plain font probably also dates to the 12thc.
Parish church
A large church with a two-aisled nave, chancel, transepts and crossing tower. The S doorway and parts of the crossing are 12thc. as are two small, plain, splayed, clerestory window openings, one above each transept arch. The present church dates from the 12thc. when it probably consisted of a chancel, nave, S transept and a low central tower. The N. transept was added in the early 13thc. In the 14thc. the church was rebuilt with the addition of aisles. In the 17thc. the low tower was raised to form a belfry. Of the 12thc. church, the tower crossing remains, with the 13thc. arch to the N transept and the N doorway reused in the 14thc. S aisle.
Parish church
The hamlet of Alstone lies some 4 miles W of Tewkesbury. In 1844 Alstone was transferred from Worcestershire to Gloucestershire, but remains within the diocese of Worcester. The church, which is situated in the middle of the settlement, consists of a nave, a chancel, a N aisle and a S porch with a modern timber belfry over the E end of the nave. The nave has been rebuilt, as has much of the chancel; the responds of the chancel arch and the S doorway remain in position from the 12thc building. The remains of a 12thc piscina have been incorporated into the S wall of the chancel.
Parish church
Lewknor lies at the foot of the Chilterns in SE Oxfordshire, close to the M40 motorway. The church is built of flint with stone dressings, with a few courses of brick in the N wall. The 12thc. church, originally a cruciform building, consisted of a chancel, nave and transeptal chapels. In the 14thc. the chancel was enlarged, and a S aisle and porch were added. The W tower is a 15thc. addition. The Romanesque is now represented by the N transeptal chapel with a blocked round-headed doorway, the nave with a pair of lancet windows on each side at the W end, the S and N restored corbel tables, and internally by the almost complete string course around the nave and chancel arch. A fine Romanesque font is sculpted overall with interlacing and linked circles containing various motifs, including two human heads.