The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
St Michael (now)
Chapel
All that remains of the 12thc. church is the chancel, and a few courses of the N wall of the roofless W tower. In the 13thc. the chancel was extended eastward, a chapel added on its S side and a S aisle added to the nave - all of red sandstone ashlar. The church fell into ruin and a replacement was built on a new site shortly after 1850. At this time the N doorway of the ruined nave was built into what became the W wall of the old chancel, now kept as a chapel with its 13thc. chapel adjoining to the S. In 1963 the dangerous walls of the old tower and nave were taken down, except for the old S doorway which still stands, supported by a portion of the S wall of the nave.
Chapel
St Michael's has a rectangular nave with a W bellcote and a rectangular chancel with a N vestry. It is constructed of brown cobbles except for the N nave wall, which is brick. The church fell into disrepair and by the middle of the 19thc. it had lost its chancel and consisted simply of a nave with a hipped roof surmounted by a central bell-turret. The N wall of the nave appears to have been replaced in the 18thc. In 1873, the church was thoroughly rebuilt by Arthur Blomfield of London at a cost of £933, raised by subscription. The N wall and the part of the S wall, including the 12thc. doorway and window, were retained, and the remainder rebuilt on the old foundations using cobbles and Bath stone facings. The chancel, of course, was entirely rebuilt. The vestry was added in 1897. Despite having the general appearance of a neo-Norman building, much of the fabric of the nave is genuinely Romanesque. The chancel arch includes important early-12thc. capitals, while the later S doorway is very elaborate. A 12thc. S nave window survives, and the head of a similar window is reset in the N nave wall.
Chapel
Peasenhall stands in hilly arable land in E Suffolk, between Saxmundham
and Halesworth. The village is clustered around the crossing of two Roman roads. One is now the A1120 and the
other formerly linked Harleston and Saxmundham. The church stands at the
crossroads in the centre of the village and immediately to the S is the factory
of Smyth and Sons. James Smyth invented an improved seed drill in 1800, and his
vigorous promotion of a genuinely better product led to expansion within the
village and to the building of workers' terraced housing, as his drills became
the brand leader throughout southern England. Smyth's enterprise is the reason
for the unusual presence in rural Suffolk of what is essentially an industrial
village. The surrounding land was always farmed, but the farmhouses are now
outside the village centre.St Michael's consists of a nave, chancel and W
tower; the nave and chancel of knapped flints and the
tower of flint. The nave has a N doorway under a 15thc. porch with diagonal buttresses, niches and flushwork decoration. There is no S doorway. At
the W end is a gallery, erected in 1894 as an organ
loft and to house the choir. The chancel has a S
vestry. All of this work, except for the W tower and
the N porch, result from a restoration of 1860-61 paid
for by J. W. Brooke of Sibton Park and using R. D. Chantrell of London as
architect. He took down the old nave and chancel and
rebuilt them. He also heightened and repaired the tower. The newer masonry is
clearly visible and includes the bell openings and the embattled parapet with its flushwork decoration. The church
was seen by Henry Davy before the restoration, and his NE view was published in
1843. The most obvious differences are in the nave, the tower and the
chancel. Chantrell lengthened the nave by approximately
ten feet, so that Davy’s print shows only two windows E of the
porch rather than the present three. The tower was not
so tall in 1843 and had simpler bell openings, but a similar parapet, which
Chantrell presumably reused. The chancel E window was
formerly smaller, and there was a small window at the W end of the N wall
rather than the present window at the E. The only Romanesque feature is the
late-12thc. font, which was moved to its present position in the nave from a
site under the tower in
1909.
Ruined parish church
Burrow Mump is a striking landscape feature, apparently a natural hill, some 6 miles SE of Bridgwater. It is strategically placed immediately adjacent to the present A361 (which must represent an ancient route) and just N of the confluence of the Tone and the Parrett, two of the principal rivers of Somerset. The near terrain is part of the low-lying Levels, frequently flooded in winter; there are fine views towards Mendip to the N, the Quantock Hills to the W and NW, the hills to the S which run up to the border with Dorset & the several lias ridges in the E sector. The nearest settlement is Burrowbridge, at the foot of the hill on the SW side.
The ruined chapel stands on top of Burrow Mump, and according to VCH was substantially a 15thc building with a chancel, central tower, S transept and nave. A crypt was excavated outside the N wall of the nave and a N chapel on the N side of the chancel. It was rebuilt c.1663 and described as ruinous in 1733. In 1793 it was rebuilt again, as a single-celled structure with a W tower and an entrance in the centre of the S wall. In 1836-37 it was functionally replaced by a new church in Burrowbridge itself by Richard Carver, also dedicated to St Michael, and the Burrow Mump chapel fell into ruins again. It was given to the National Trust in 1946. What remains on site is of squared and coursed lias with red brick and Hamstone dressings. It consists of a W tower, a 3-bay nave and a S porch. The only features described here are two heads on the S face of the tower, which may be Romanesque.
Parish church
The church comprises, chancel with S chapel and N vestry, nave with S aisle and S porch, and W tower. The nave and chancel are 12thc, while the S porch, S aisle and tower are 14thc. The chancel was rebuilt in the 15thc (Historic England listing: 1309558). Romanesque sculpture is found on the elaborately carved S doorway.
Parish church
Sollers Hope is a small village set in a hilly pasture and woodland area, 8 miles SE of Hereford and 6 miles SW of Ledbury. Settlement is scattered, and the church and Court Farm which form the focus are reached via a series of increasingly narrow single-track roads. St Michaels has a chancel with a N vestry, and a nave with a S porch and a timber framed W bell turret with an octagonal spire. Otherwise construction is of coursed local sandstone rubble, roughly squared. The body of the church is 14thc, and it was restored by Nicholson and Son in 1885. They added the vestry, and replaced the spire and the wagon roofs. The only Romanesque feature here is the font.
Parish church
Willington is a village in the South Derbyshire district, on the River Trent 6 miles SW of the centre of Derby, The church of St Michael is to the S of the village centre and consists of a nave with a S porch, chancel and N transept and a small west tower. The tower dates from 1824-27 and is of ashlar, while the body of the church is of coursed sandstone rubble. The only Romanesque feature is the S nave doorway.
Parish church
The vilage of Onibury lies four miles northwest of Ludlow on the River Onny. The church is single-aisled, with a 14thc. tower and nave. Chancel 12thc with 13thc additions, including lancet windows at the E end and blocked up doorways on the S and N side of chancel. The round-headed 12thc chancel arch has decorated imposts.
A piece of sculptural ornament is reset in the N wall of the chancel.
Parish church
Waddesdon is a good-sized village 5 miles NW of Aylesbury on the Roman road ofAkeman Street. The village is dominated by Waddesdon Manor, on a Lodge Hill to the W, but there was no medieval manor house here; the present house, built for Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild from 1874-80, was the first on the site, and Rothschild built the present village to the E of the old village centre at the same time. Nevertheless evidence of continuous settlement here goes back to the bronze age. The church stands in the centre of the old village, opposite the gates to the manor, on the N side of the A41 which approximately follows the line ofAkeman Streetthrough the village. St Michael’s is a large church with an aisled nave with S porch, chancel and W tower. The nave is late-12thc, with an elaborate S doorway under a 14thc porch, rebuilt in 1902. The nave aisles are of six bays with clerestory windows above the piers. The N arcade is uniform, with the octagonal piers, finely moulded capitals and convex chamfered arch orders typical of the first years of the 14thc, and the use of forms of Y-tracery in most of the aisle windows confirms this dating. The S arcade, however, reveals a more complex history. The two E bays, including pier 1 but not pier 2, have the same design as the N arcade. The next three bays also have pointed arches, but with late-12thc details, the piers are cylindrical and the capitals are scalloped. Then pier 5 has a roughly moulded capital of a mid-13thc type, and the arch of bay 6 has deep double chamfers, also diagnostically mid-13thc. Finally the W respond returns to the scalloped design of piers 2-4. What this suggests is that a 12thc arcade of four bays (the present bays 2-5) was extended westwards by a bay in the 13thc; the W respond being reused n the new W wall, a new being pier inserted (pier 5) on the line of the old E wall and a new arch built (bay 6). Then in the early 14thc the aisle was extended by a bay to the E, the original pier 1 being retained as the new pier 2, and the arch of the old bay 1 being rebuilt in the new style. Piers 2, 3 and 4 have (or had) slim shafts rising from the impost blocks on the nave face, terminating in small scallop capitals, but carrying nothing. Small statues are a possibility, or transverse arches or, perhaps likeliest, roof trusses. The clerestory is 15thc, and its insertion, together with the raising of the nave walls and flattening of the roofline, was presumably responsible for the loss of the original trusses, supported by the shafts above the pier capitals.
The chancel dates from the early 14thc campaign, being rebuilt a bay further east than the 12thc chancel. The tower is of the late 14thc, with Perpendicular bell-openings, a polygonal SE stair with a battlemented turret rising higher than the main parapet, and angle buttresses at the W. It was taken down and rebuilt in 1891-92. A sign of an early restoration is given by the rainwater heads, dated 1736, and the church was completely restored during the incumbency of Richard Burges (1859-67). The nave and chancel are mortar rendered, and the tower is of irregular ashlar blocks. Romanesque sculpture is found on the S doorway and S nave arcade.
Parish church
Bowness-on-Solway is a small on the Solway Firth village about 13 miles NW of Carlisle. The church lies to the S of the village and its fabric appears to include re-used Roman stones. The structure consists of a rectangular building under a single roof, which covers both the chancel and the nave. There are also a S porch and a W bell turret. Repairs were undertaken in the 18thc and there was extensive restoration work carried out in 1891, at which time a number of changes were made to the church, including the addition of a N transept. A watercolour sketch inside the church shows the building before changes were made. Surviving Romanesque sculpture is found on the S and N doorways, on the E and N windows and, inside the church, there is also a Romanesque baptismal font with carved decoration.