The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
St Lawrence (now)
Parish church
Great Waltham is a large village set in arable farmland in the south of the county, 4 miles N of Chelmsford. The church is in the village centre, and is substantially of the 12thc but almost entirely rebuilt. The walls are of flint and pebble-rubble, with some pieces of puddingstone and freestone in the W tower; the dressings are partly of limestone and partly of Roman and later brick. It consists of a broad, aisled nave (at 32 feet the widest medieval nave in Essex) with clerestoreys and 4-bay arcades, roofed with alternate tie beam and hammerbeam trusses. The S aisle is 14thc, rebuilt in the 16thc, and the N was added by F. W. Chancellor in 1874-75. There is a 16thc S porch (restored in the 19thc). The chancel has signs of blocked 12thc windows in the E wall, but it was rebuilt in the late 14thc or 15thc, again in 1866-63 by Chancellor and again in the 1890s by A. Y. Nutt. It has a N vestry dating from 1890. The W tower is the earliest standing feature, dating from the 12thc but the upper part rebuilt with a new battlemented parapet by Nutt in 1892. It has a late 12thc tower arch and plain round-headed lancets in the lowest storey of the N and S walls. Finally the most striking Romanesque feature is a Purbeck font in the S porch.
Parish church
‘A surprisingly large, dominating cruciform church with a crossing tower so big and proud that it might stand in Somerset’ - Pevsner 1967, 254.
The church is cruciform with a central tower, an aisled nave and chapels flanking the chancel.
The church has a round-headed, late twelfth-century western doorway, a west facade with the remains of walling, and windows on both north and south aisles. There is a doorway on the south aisle, and walling of field-picked glacial rubble mixed with blocks of limestone, with facings and a doorway of Magnesian limestone. There are records of a fire in 1760s and a restoration in 1870s.
On the visit in 2002, windows had been broken and we took pictures of the wooden chests near the windows. Two of them 'could easily be Romanesque' according to a letter from Prof. E. B. Hohler (Norway). The chest shaped like a coffin is of bog-oak, which is found in Thorne Moors.
Parish church
Caversfield is 1.5 miles N of Bicester in E Oxfordshire. There is no village here now, just agricultural land with farms, and St Lawrence's church is hidden away. It has early origins, the lower part of the tower being pre-Conquest, with original double splays around little arched windows to S and N. The chancel, nave and aisles were rebuilt in the late 12thc, and the chancel again in the 13thc. The bell stage of the tower and the saddle-back roof are also 13thc. The aisles were demolished in the 18thc, and the Romanesque S arcade was blocked up in the wall. In 1874, in a restoration by H. Woodyer, the arcades were unblocked and the aisles rebuilt. Although the pointed Early English arcades are c. 1230, they are supported on responds and round piers with corner spurs and capitals characteristic of the 1180s. The N aisle has a reset late 12thc decorated doorway, and a fine Romanesque arcaded font.
Parish church
Brundish is towards the N of E Suffolk, in a hilly arable region of
dispersed settlements. It is 4 miles N of Framlingham and 9 miles SW of
Halesworth. The old centre was clustered around the church and Brundish Hall
immediately to the NE, with a second nucleus at Brundish Street, a mile to the
NW, centred on Brundish House. Brundish Hall was demolished in the 1920s, and
reputedly shipped to the USA to be rebuilt there, so the church stands alone in
its graveyard, and Brundish Street now represents the centre of the village. St
Lawrence's has a 12thc. W tower of flint with ashlar quoins. It retains traces of round-headed windows, now
blocked; one at a low level and a pair at a higher level on its N, S and W
faces. On the E face, the more elaborate 12thc. double bell-opening remains
higher still, but the other three faces have 15thc. bell-openings at the same
level. There is an embattled parapet, also of flint.
The tower arch is small, plain and partly blocked with a doorway set in it. The
tall nave and chancel are of flint and entirely 15thc.
There is a S porch decorated with flushwork and
repaired with red brick, and the nave and chancel
buttresses also have flushwork decoration. The church is famous for its
brasses; a 14thc. brass of Sir Edmund de Burnedissh, a priest, and 16thc. ones
to the Colby family. Several of the Brundish brasses were stolen in the 19thc.
and that of Sir Francis Colby (c.1570) has since been rediscovered in
the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Attempts by the Parish Council to repatriate it
have so far been unsuccessful, although the museum has supplied a replica to
hang in the church (The Guardian). The church also contains 18thc. box-pews
encasing medieval benches, and carved bench-ends. The chancel was restored in the 19thc., and repairs to the church
were carried out by C. B. Smith of Woodbridge in 1962-63. Romanesque features
recorded here are the tower arch and the east
bell-opening.
Parish church
Preston-on-Wye is a village in the Wye valley, 8 miles W of Hereford. The village is on the S side of the river, with the church a half mile N of the modern centre, close to the river. St Lawrence’s church was drastically restored by T. Nicholson in 1883, and consists of a long chancel with a N vestry, an aisleless nave with no chancel arch, a N transept used as a store-room, a S porch and a W tower. Romanesque work is found in a lancet at the W end of the N nave wall, the N and S nave doorways and the font.
Parish church
The village of Cucklington is 3 miles E of Wincanton in the South Somerset district, close to the Dorset and Wiltshire borders. It is perched on the E side of Blackmore Vale, and the church of St Lawrence stands on the main street to the N of the village centre.
The church is of local Lias and Cary stone, cut and squared with ashlar dressings. It has a 2-bay chancel with a N chapel, and a 3-bay nave with a N aisle communicating with the chancel chapel and a 2-bay chapel on the S side. The earliest fabric is 13thc, but the tower was rebuilt in 1705 and there was a major rebuilding by G. R. Crickmay in 1880. The font is the only Romanesque feature.
Parish church
Nave and chancel with W tower and saddleback roof. S aisle and porch. Material, local Cotswold type stone. 12thc. features include the lower stage of the tower, the chancel arch, S and N doorways to the nave, two plain windows in the W wall, and one with sculpture in the N wall.
Parish church
Built in red sandstone with nave, chancel, W tower of 14thc. with 19thc. spire. S porch. Fragments of sculpture indicating an earlier church of 11thc. date, are preserved loose in the nave and chancel.
Parish church
North Hinksey is a village on the W outskirts of Oxford, alongside the A34, but despite this it stil retains a village character. The church, in the centre, is an attractive building of limestone rubble with ashlar dressings. It has an unaisled nave with the E part roofed lower than W, and a square-ended chancel roofed still lower. The low W tower has a pyramidal roof. The nave has opposed N and S doorways; the blocked N doorway has no remaining sculpture, while the elaborate S doorway, protected by a porch of 1786, is described below. Two Norman windows survive in the nave N wall, and another is low down in the chancel S wall. The Norman-looking chancel arch is 19thc. work by John MacDuff Derick.
Parish church
Waltham St Lawrence is a small village in wooded farmland 4 miles SW of Maidenhead and 8 miles NE of Reading. The church stands in the centre of the village, and comprises a two-bay 12thc. aisled nave extended to the E by two Dec bays, and a W tower,and a chancel with N and S chapels all c.1300 or later. The nave has a S porch, and the N chapel a modern N vestry. Romanesque sculpture is found in the 12thc nave arcade capitals.