The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
St Mary the Virgin (now)
Parish church
St Mary's is an ashlar church with a nave with a S aisle and S clerestorey, a low W tower and a long chancel with a N organ chamber of 1878. The S arcade of the nave dates from c.1300, and the clerestorey from the same period or later. The S aisle was rebuilt in 1839. The N doorway is blocked and the south, of 1839, has a porch. The chancel arch has 12thc. responds and a 14thc. arch, and the chancel dates from the 14thc. too. The tower is Perpendicular with a battlemented top storey of 1673, to which period also belong the bell-openings and Wdoorway. The church contains an elaborately carved font, which could be 12thc. or 13thc., and this and the chancel arch are the only features considered here.
Parish church
Fryerning is a village in the Brentwood district of mid-Essex. It is 6 miles SW of Chelmsford and 5 miles NE of Brentwood, at a junction of minor roads on the N side of the A12. The area is heavily wooded. especially to the N. The church of St Mary stands in the centre of the village, and consists of a chancel, an aisleless nave and a W tower. The nave has a S porch, timber framed on a flint pebble base, and a modern brick block was built over the N doorway in 2008, to provide a vestry, kitchen and lavatory. The W tower is of brick. The oldest parts are the nave and chancel, dating from the late-11thc or early-12thc, and constructed of puddingstone, flints and brick laid in rough courses. The nave and chancel quoins are of reused Roman tile. The N and S nave doorways are completely plain, and the nave windows; 3 on the S and 2 on the N are plain lancets, and all are modern replacements except for the westernmost on the N side, which is original but blocked. The brick W tower dates from the 15thc. Romanesque features described below are the nave doorways and the font. The church was restored in 1869 by Wykeham Chancellor, who also added the S porch.
Parish church
St Mary's is a magnificent mid-14thc. church with an aisled and
clerestoreyed nave of four bays, the E bay of each arcade giving onto
transepts. A strainer arch of c.1400 crosses the nave a bay to the E of
the chancel arch. The chancel has a N vestry, and to the S the easternmost side
window has been blocked, apparently to strengthen the wall when the Dolben
vault was built beneath the E end c.1710. The W tower is contemporary
with the rest, although the parapet must be 15thc. It is topped by an ashlar
spire with two rows of lucarnes. The spire was struck by lightning in 1897 and
the top 30 feet of it rebuilt. The nave has N and S doorways, the S under a
two-storey porch. The upper chamber is accessible through a turret added in
1794, and is known as the Monk's Cell. The only Romanesque work here is the
font.
Parish church
Mentmore is in E central Buckinghamshire, 6 miles NE of Aylesbury, in the Domesday Hundred of Cottesloe. The village is now dominated by Mentmore Park, the house built by Joseph Paxton in the style of Wollaton Hall for Baron Mayer Amschel de Rothschild in 1850-55. The village of Mentmore is to the E of the estate, with the church at its W end, alongside the boundary of Mentmore Park. Mentmore Manor, an 18thc house, stands to the NE of the village. Mentmore is on rising land overlooking the broad arable and pasture land of the Vale of Aylesbury. Remains from the Roman and Anglo-Saxon periods have been found here.
The church consists of a nave with aisles and clerestory and a S porch, a W tower and a chancel with a N vestry, all refaced in small, regular blocks of a yellowish brown ashlar. The original nave aisles dated from that late 12thc, but only the capitals of the arcades remain, reused as bases to the present 14th-15thc arcade piers. These are clustered with castellated capitals. The aisle windows are of c1300 stylistically, but largely replaced; the clerestorey windows are 15thc. The chancel has 15thc windows too, and is partly of that date, but was largely rebuilt in G. H. Stokes’s enthusiastic restoration of 1858 which also added the N vestry and the S porch. The W tower is 15thc, of a common Buckinghamshire type with a corner turret (here at the SE) rising higher than the main parapet. The nave pier bases and the c1200 font are the only features recorded here.
Parish church
Hatfield Broad Oak, or Hatfield Regis, is a village in the Uttlesford district of NW Essex, 11 miles NW of Chelmsford and 6 miles NE of Harlow. The village is concentrated around a loop of minor roads with the church on the N side of the High Street, surrounded by a large churchyard. St Mary's, large as it is, is only the remains of the Benedictine Priory church begun in around 1135 by Aubrey de Vere, the second of that name (c.1085-1141). His church had a crossing and a cloister on the N side of the nave. Nothing remains of the original east end beyond the W crossing arch, which was blocked to form the eastern termination of the shortened church. The only physical evidence of the cloister is the high placing of the N aisle windows. The church was rebuilt after a quarrel between the priory and the villagers in 1378, and thereafter a wall was built separating the nave, which was the parish church, from the crossing and eastern arm, belonging to the priory. The latter was demolished at the Dissolution, so the present east facade consisits of the W crossing arch with its late-14thc infill, flanked by the two chancel chapels.
The church as it was rebuilt after 1378 consisted of the present aisled nave, chancel and N chapel. The W tower, S porch and S chancel chapel are additions of the early 15thc. Towards the end of the 17thc the brick N vestry was added to the nave, and in 1708 the S chancel chapel was enlarged to house the parish library. Construction is of flint pebbles with some 17thc. and 18thc. brickwork and some old ashlar. the N vestry is of brick; the dressings are of Barnack and clunch, patched with cement, and cement render has been applied to the nave clerestory and parts of the N nave wall. The church was restored by R. C. Carpenter in 1843. There is no Romanesque sculpture surviving in its original location in the fabric. Reports of a waterleaf capital, suggesting a date of c.1175 for the W crossing arch are erroneous (see Comments), but this arch has been treated as a feature below despite its later date. The W crossing arch infill contains many moulded stones and shaft sections re-used in the fabric, and among them are 3 chevron voussoirs, also recorded below.
Parish church
Harmondsworth is on the W edge of the traditional county, under a mile from the Buckinghamshire border. It is now in the S of the London Borough of Hillingdon. It retains some of its village character despite being squeezed between Heathrow airport to the S, the M25 to the W and the M4 to the N.
St Mary’s stands at the N end of the village, E of the celebrated late-medieval tithe barn. The church consists of a chancel with N aisle, nave with N and S aisles and a S porch, and a tower at the W end of the S aisle, alongside the porch. A 19thc vestry towards the W end of the N aisle now contains lavatories and is linked to a later 20thc flat-roofed parish room; extremely unprepossessing from the exterior but providing a large and surprisingly airy space for functions.
In detail, the three-bay S arcade of the nave, and the reset S doorway are the oldest parts, dating from the 12thc. The S aisle is shorter than the N, owing to the presence of the tower at its west end. The ground storey of the tower was formerly a baptistery and still contains an octagonal Purbeck font; originally 13thc but with a shiny new bowl. The 13thc N arcade is of three bays too, but the E bay has been partly replaced (see below). The chancel was rebuilt in 1396-98, after the church passed to Winchester College, and has a small S doorway and a three-bay N aisle with a four-centred arcade of c.1500 of which the two E bays form a Lady Chapel, and the third bay houses the organ. The chancel aisle is contiguous with the N nave aisle, and there was clearly an intention to extend the four-centred arcade of the chancel westwards to replace the older nave arcade, but this only reached the apex of nave bay 1. The upper storeys of the tower are of brick and date from c.1500; the tower is capped by a small cast-iron cupola. The S porch is 19thc. Construction is of flint with a good deal of ashlar rubble incorporated. Romanesque sculpture is found on the S doorway and the S nave arcade.
Parish church
Hambleden is on the edge of the Chiltern hills, among rolling wooded pasture. It stands in a valley 4 miles W of Marlow and 3 miles NE of Henley. The picture-postcard village with its brick and flint cottages arranged around a triangular open centre has often been used for filming, and the church stands on the N side of the triangle.
St Mary’s is an imposing building consisting of a W tower; a long unaisled nave with windows of c.1300; N and S transepts and a square-ended chancel. Off the chancel are two-bay N and S chapels, entered through the transepts. The N chapel now contains the organ, with a vestry to the E, and to the N of the organ room is a small chapel with the grand tomb of Sir Cope D’Oyley (d.1633) and his wife and ten children. The S chapel is called the Lady Chapel. The chancel is equipped with 14thc triple sedilia and piscina, and on the N wall is the tomb of Henry, son of Thomas Lord Sandys (d.circa 1555). None of the internal fabric appears Romanesque, but both the font and a blocked doorway in the W wall of the N transept are of 12thc date, and there are fragments of chevron moulding re-used in the exterior nave walls. There was originally a crossing tower that collapsed in 1703 and was replaced with the present W tower in 1721 (heightened in 1883). A date of 1859 refers to a general restoration that included the building of the N vestry, the S chancel aisle (now Lady Chapel) and the timber S porch.
Parish church
The Bartons constitute a group of villages in the NE of Oxfordshire between Chipping Norton and Bicester. With very few houses nearby, the church of Steeple Barton stands alone in fields showing traces of early habitation and fish ponds. A church was recorded on this site between 1186 and 1190, but no traces remain. It had acquired its stocky tower by 1247 when the name of Steeple Barton was first recorded. A S aisle and porch were added in the C14th. The internal corbels and sculpted heads around the capitals of the S nave arcade are also of this time. It was largely rebuilt in 1850-51 by J.C. Buckler. The only known surviving Romanesque feature may be the fluted font.
Parish church
Burpham has a W tower, a nave with a S aisle, N and S transepts and a vaulted chancel with a Victorian arch (1869). There are Norman windows in the W and N walls of the N transept.
Parish church
The village lies 5 miles S of Devizes. From the 13thc the vill had the affixes 'Steeple', which recalled the church steeple, and 'East', but in the 20thc it was called Market Lavington. St Mary church lies to the W of the village and is built of ashlar and sarsen rubble. The building consists of a chancel with N and S vestries, an aisled nave with clerestory, a S porch, and a W tower. The church dates from the late 13thc although it may incorporate some fabric from the earlier building as well as reusing carved fragments in the S porch. The decorated nave arcades may be revamped versions of the earlier Norman nave and the building has some Perpendicular windows. Romanesque sculpture consists of a number of fragments in the S porch, a piscina, and two fragments in the sacristy.