The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
unknown (now)
Parish church
Only 3 km as the raven flies from the relatively large and accessible village of Porlock, Stoke Pero church — at just over 300 m above OD, perched on scant pasture on the very edge of Exmoor, with only one farm nearby — is remote and not easily accessible. As a notice in the porch claims: ‘The most isolated and highest church of Exmoor, 1013 feet above sea level.’ This altitude gives superb views in good weather across the Bristol Channel to Wales and up it to the rest of the Somerset coast as far as Portishead and even to Gloucestershire on the W side of the Severn. This is very rough terrain, the N flank of Exmoor on which Stoke Pero church stands is many-folded into deep combes with their hanging oakwoods and rushing streams: picturesque to the ‘romantic’ degree.
The church consists of a W tower, an undivided nave, a chancel and a N porch. The Romanesque sculptural elements consist of the font and the tower arch.
Parish church
Elmstone is a village in East Kent, between Canterbury and Sandwich. This small parish church, in an isolated setting, has a Norman nave and slightly lower chancel, and a 14th-century north aisle and NW tower. The principal item of interest is a single, ex-situ sculptured block in the west door. There is also a font with a large clasped bowl, but the base appears to be Early English.