The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
St Peter (now)
Parish church
The small town of Portishead occupies a strategic position on the S side of the mouth of the river Avon, and once enjoyed a trading importance subsidiary to Bristol, 8 mi away to the East. Now in North Somerset, Portishead was part of the County of Avon between 1974 and 1996. The town church of St Peter is in a surprisingly quiet area, surrounded by an airy rural atmosphere: no wonder local people refer to it as the ‘village’. The church has Romanesque origins but was rebuilt in the 14thc and 15thc in Perpendicular style. It was altered and extended to the east in 1878-9 using old materials and features. The font is Romanesque; there is also a possible early altar slab.
Parish church
The small settlement of Staple Fitzpaine is sited near where a road (unclassified but well-used) running roughly NNW/SSE between Taunton to Chard crosses a stream running WSW/ENE down from the Blackdown Hills. The former mill using that watercourse is sited a very short distance NW of the crossroads at the village centre. Crossing the Taunton-Chard road at that crossroads, a lane runs roughly SW-NE, parallel to the stream, along the S side of the shallow valley from Staple Hill towards lower ground to the NE and major communication lines of road and rail.
Emphasising the political standing of the Count of Mortain, the parish still includes (at its SE corner) his castle, Castle Neroche. By area, the parish is the second largest in the county, but by demography it is diminutive, probably having changed very little over time. Staple Fitzpaine has its own manor-house, adjacent on the N side of St Peter’s church. Resting on the large block of Blue Lias which stretches from here NE far into the central area of the county, the village has a good source of favoured building-stone. Inevitably, the area is almost entirely agricultural in character.
The church, which consists of a W tower, a nave with N and S aisles, a S porch, avestry and a chancel is Norman in origin but has been largely rebuilt. The Romanesque S doorway has been reset in the S aisle.
Parish church
Broadstairs is a coastal town in Thanet, NE Kent, formed from the inland old village of Thanet and small coastal settlements. The church of St Peter in Thanet is a large aisled building with a chancel, porch and a 15thc W tower of flint and ragstone. The N and S nave arcades are Romanesque.
The parish of Shepton Montague, Somerset, is sited midway between Wincanton, Bruton and Castle Cary. It comprises the hamlets of Higher and Lower Shepton in the west, Knowle in the centre, and Stoney Stoke, formerly Stoke Holloway, in the east. Much of the northern and part of the southern boundaries of the main part of the parish follow streams which flow into the river Brue. The church comprised a nave, 13thc chancel, and S porch tower. It suffered a very damaging fire in 1964 and the present reconstruction dates from 1965-6, incorporating the original nave and Perp. tower. The 12thc sculptural fragments now attached to the exterior of the E wall were discovered embedded in the 13thc chancel remains during building work.
Parish church
East Bridgford is a village about 10 miles east of Nottingham on the south side of the river Trent. The church of St Peter is an 11thc building rebuilt in the 13thc and later much restored. It consists of a nave with N and S aisles, chancel and W tower. Altered in the 14thc with the addition of the aisles and porch, a new E window was added in the 15thc. The tower was rebuilt in 1778 and new chancel windows were installed in 1862. The only remaining Romanesque feature is a corbel table.
Ruined parish church
Stantonbury is on the N side of Milton Keynes and is one of the former villages of Buckinghamshire that were absorbed into the new town after its boundaries were designated in 1967. In 1913 RCHME noted that the church was in good condition and had been recently restored. The church was still in use in 1927, when the VCH described it as a small, rubble building consisting of a nave, chancel and N porch. The chancel contained the oldest fabric, seen on the S wall, and a new nave was added in the 1st half of the 12thc. An aisle or chapel was built on the S side of the chancel but later removed and in the 13thc a N aisle was added to the nave and the N chancel wall was rebuilt. The nave was shortened by 10 feet at the W end in the 15thc. The N aisle was removed, perhaps in the 16thc when the arcade was blocked and the N porch added. According to Pevsner and Williamson (1994), excavations have shown that there was a W tower. The most interesting feature was the small chancel arch, which survives but was removed when the roof collapsed in 1956 and has since been installed in St James’s church, New Bradwell (qv). No Romanesque sculpture remains on site.
Ruined parish church
All that survives of the old church at Peterhead is the chancel arch, part of the chancel and a west tower with the west wall of the nave attached. Of these, only the chancel arch and associated chancel walls appear to be of medieval date and are arguably Romanesque. The nave, itself, no longer exists, but it appears to have been long and narrow, with "an aisle on the north side" (Scottish Notes and Queries. 1889), which may mean either an aisle along the north side of the nave, in the usual sense, or an extension built outwards from the north side, as is common in post-Reformation churches in Scotland, where such additions are also called aisles. A town plan of 1739, by John Jaffray and R. Cooper, has a rough drawing of the church next to the 'Kirk-burn', which shows the south side of the church, with its west tower, nave and lower chancel intact. The centre of the parish of medieval Peterhead was at Peterugie/Inverugie Petri and the first post-Reformation minister of the church was Gilbert Chisholm, last prior of Deer Abbey, who held charge of Peterugie, Deer, Foveran, and Longley until 1569. In 1560, Queen Mary of Scotland had appointed Robert Keith as Commedator of Deer and in 1587, King James VI of Scotland raised this same Robert to a peerage, with the Deer Abbey lands as his temporal lordship. In 1593, there were just 14 feus in the parish, but with the development of the harbour, the town grew quickly. The parish was split into two about 1620, a second church being built in Longside (about 7 miles west of Peterhead town centre). In 1637, William Keith, Earl Marischal, obtained a new charter of the Deer Abbey lands, which included the tithes of the parish of Peterhead and the parsonage of the church there. George Moir was the last minister to serve the Old Church, before moving into a new church on a different site in 1770. Within thirty years this second church had become ruinous and was taken down. It's successor, built in 1804-6, survives.
Parish church
Woolley is a village about six miles S of Wakefield, and the church lies to the W of the village. The building consists of a chancel of three bays with chapels to N and S, an aisled nave of four bays, a S porch and a W tower. The church was extensively restored in 1871. Nikolaus Pevsner (1967), 558, describes the church as ‘Perpendicular throughout’; Ryder (1993), 180, thinks the nave walls may date to the 12thc. Romanesque sculpture is found on a reset tympanum, a reset shaft and a font.
Parish church
Kirk Smeaton is the most southerly village of the County, about 10 miles S of Doncaster. The church and most of the village is on the S side of the river Went, between its gorge to the W and the flat lands of the Humberhead levels to the E. The building is of Magnesian Limestone. It consists of a nave and chancel, N aisle and W tower. Restoration and enlargements took place in 1862 (Robinson 1984, 8-9). The church appears from outside as entirely later than 12thc, but contains an interesting 12thc chancel arch of about 1160, also a font which is probably a little earlier. Pevsner (1995, 293) describes the pointed tower arch as over-restored, but it still has half-round pillars.
The sculpture of our period has been painted. This may obscure the finer points, for example, patterns on the neckings of the chancel arch capitals. The font was formerly plastered.
Parish church
The village of Monkhopton is located about 4 miles south of Much Wenlock. A priest's doorway on the S side of the chancel may be 13thc or a 19thc copy (Newman and Pevsner, 2006)
The 12thc S doorway is decorated with sculpture, as is the interior of the S chancel window.