The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
St Oswald (now)
Parish church
Ashbourne is a market town in the Derbyshire Dales district, on the southern edge of the Peak District National Park. It is 14 miles W of Derby and 21 miles SE of Buxton. The town in in the valley of the Henmore Brook, a tributary of the Dove, and the church is to the W of the town centre. It is one of Derbyshire's grandest churches with a 212 ft spire and a nave and chancel totalling 176 ft in length. It has a nave with a S aisle, transepts with E chapels and a long narrow chancel. Access is thorugh doors on the end walls of the transept. Excavations in 1913 revealed the existence of a Norman crypt, but none of the above-ground fabric is this early. The oldest part is the chancel, which was ready for the dedication in 1241. The nave dates from the later 13thc, and the transept from the early 14thc. The S aisle was added c.1300, and the crossing tower and spire were begun in the early 13thc. Clerestoreys were added, along with other Perp features, c.1520. The church was restored by Cottingham in 1837-40, by George Gilbert Scott in 1873 and 1876-78, and by G. L. Abbot in 1881-82.
There are a few remains of earlier churches on the site. In the N transept is a section of an Anglo-saxon cross-shaft with interlace and a beast carved on its faces, dated to the 10thc by the Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture. Pevsner (1953) reported a 'stone with Norman zigzag' in the Boothby chapel, but this was no longer described by Hartwell (2016) and was not found by our fieldworker in 2021. Outside the E side of the S transept is a pile of loose fragments, among which is a scallop capital.
Parish church
Oswaldkirk is a village about 20 miles N of York and the church stands along the main road of the village. The present building replaces a church of Saxon origins of which very little survives (see Comments); it is rather small and consists of a nave and a chancel. Despite the extensive restoration of 1868, much of the original Norman fabric of the building has survived, including the nave walls with doorways to both N and S sides and a window. There are several carved fragments in the porch.
Parish church
Leathley is a parish in the Harrogate district of North Yorkshire near its southern border with West Yorkshire. The church of St Oswald stands on a small hill above meadows of the River Washburn, about a mile above its confluence with the Wharfe. It has a magnificent strong tower described as 'Early Norman' by Pevsner. Nave, aisles, and chancel later. Chancel arch of 12th c., but virtually no Romanesque sculpture is present.
Parish church
The church has an aisled nave, aisled chancel and west tower. It is mostly of limestone ashlar, but the N aisle wall is made with cobbles. The N and S arcades are early 13th c. In 1864-9, the Norman chancel arch, which was subsiding, was rebuilt (VCHER, ii, 162). When visited by Sir Stephen Glynne in 1857 the church had ‘no tower, only a wooden belfry... the chancel arch has good mouldings', but he does not mention the font (Butler 2007, 182-3, with illustration of the exterior c.1840). There was an Early English pointed arch in the W wall of the nave until 1897, suggesting a tower by about 1300 (VCHER, ii, 162). It is said that the W tower fell in 1515 (Brearley 1971, 24); the present tower was built in 1897.
The choir screen and other woodwork is thought to have come from Bridlington Priory at the Dissolution. Sculpture of the Romanesque period is on the chancel arch and the font.
Parish church
Filey church, a solid cruciform building, stands north of the old centre of settlement, a fishing village, across a ravine which leads to the shore. The church has only one house near it. Church and village are north of the newer parts of the town that grew up in the early 19thc. as a resort. There appears to have been an attempt to build a W tower in the late 12thc. that was abandoned, leaving the spreading SE and SW jambs. The nave arcades have pointed arches and little that could be considered Romanesque, except for perhaps one capital. The round-headed S doorway is barely Romanesque in the full sense; it employs forms found in contemporary Cistercian buildings.
Parish church
The church consists of a chancel, nave, N aisle, W tower and S
porch. The chancel and the N aisle
are 14thc.
The
W tower and the walls of the nave are post-Conquest and appear to date from about
1080. The round-headed tower arch is chamfered, with chamfered imposts, but otherwise
plain. On each face of the tower are double round-headed (arcuated lintels) openings
with a central shaft between them (the shafts appear to be modern) which have a
chamfered impost in place of a capital. The double windows are set within
round-headed, chamfered openings. Romanesque sculpture is found on the S doorway and
the font.
Parish church
Farnham, Yorkshire, is a village 2 miles N of Knaresborough. The church is large for a village, built in a fine sandstone which is grey for the tower but goldish in the remainder. There is a nave with aisles, porch, tower included within the nave, and a rarity, a late twelfth-century chancel. Church restored by G. G. Scott, 1854 (Pevsner (1967), 195-6; Leach and Pevsner )2009), 248; see also Lunn (1870), 35ff, with plan p.41). Sculptured items include the shafted capitals of the nine chancel windows inside and several interesting external features.
Parish church
Guiseley is a small town north-west of Leeds and south of Otley. The church is large and architecturally complex (Ryder 1993, 154). Medieval parts are the W tower, a nave with a S aisle and a chancel. Restored in 1866, the church acquired a modern nave and a chancel added on the N side in 1909-1910 (Leach and Pevsner 2009, 292). Surviving 12thc. sculpture can be found on the S doorway and in the S arcade, all in a good state of preservation but the doorway shows signs of tidying on its mouldings, probably in the 1886 restoration (Rawnsley and Dobson, 4; Pevsner, (1959), 1967, 227-8; engraving in Whitaker 1816).
Sir Stephen Glynne visited in 1858, before the additions; Butler (2007, 197-98) illustrates Glynne's 'church notes' with an engraving of the interior of 1816 by Thomas Taylor. This shows both nave arcades, looking north-east, and no pews.
Parish church
The present church is of 18thc date, but two loose beakhead voussoirs are preserved inside the W tower. Two medieval grave covers have been found in excavations to the N of the church. One has been reburied, but the other, in two pieces, is kept inside the N porch. N of the church are ruins of a small Gilbertine priory.
Parish church
Thornton-in-Lonsdale is a small settlement on the south side of the limestone hills of Craven. It is about three-quarters of a mile W of Ingleton and six miles SE of Kirkby Lonsdale. The church has an aisled nave, chancel and Perpendicular W tower. The church was rebuilt in 1869-90, apart from the tower and the round-headed arches of the N arcade. In 1933 after a fire it was again rebuilt. The three-bay N arcade had not survived but was to some extent reproduced (Pevsner 1967, 513; Leach and Pevsner 2009, 501-2). A fragment of at least one grave-slab of probable 12thc date has also been recorded.