The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
St Margaret (now)
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
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.
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.