The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
Hereford (medieval)
Parish church
Turnastone is a hamlet in the Golden Valley, in the South Herefordshire district. It is 10 miles W of Hereford and the nearest village is Vowchurch, less than half a mile to the E. The church has an aisleless nave and chancel in one with a low weatherboarded timber bell turret with a pyramid roof over the W gable and a timber S porch. There is a 12thc breccia font, but the S nave doorway of c.1200 is the oldest dateable fabric. The church is of decoratively coursed roughly-shaped sandstone and shows signs of work c.1300 (nave windows) and c.1500 (chancel doorway). There was a restoration by T. Edgar Williams of London in 1884.
Parish church
Madley is a large village in central Herefordshire, 6 miles W of Hereford. There is evidence of Iron Age and Roman settlement in the area, and a Roman road runs through the E end of the village, running from Leominster towards Abergavenny. The church stands in the centre of the village. It has an aisled and clerestoried nave with a north porch and a S chapel; a W tower, and a chancel with a crypt below it. The building history begins with the 12thc. N porch, apparently once the transept of a much shorter church. The present church is substantially of the 13thc. and 14thc., and the oldest part of this is the W tower, whose E arch still has a form of scalloped capital, and whose windows and bell-openings are plain, pointed chamfered lancets. The nave arcades are of six bays, carried on cylindrical columns with moulded capitals and chamfered, two-order pointed arches. The clerestory windows are plain pointed lancets. The aisles extend westward alongside the W tower; a 13thc. arrangement with the original lancets surviving on both sides. There was a major remodelling c.1320, when the four eastern bays of the N nave aisle were heightened and fitted with three-light reticulated windows, and a chapel with a four-bay arcade was added S of the S aisle (the Chilstone Chapel). The semi-octagonal-apsed chancel and its crypt also date from this campaign. There were repairs in the 17thc. and 18thc. (see Anon (1957) below). In 1833-35 and again in 1871-79 the church was re-seated and repaired; the latter campaign under the supervision of F. R. Kempson of Cardiff. Further repairs were carried out in 1962-64 and in 1979, both times by H. J. Powell of Scriven, Powell and James, Hereford. Photographs of the 13thc. E tower arch capitals are included, but no description. The former N transept, now the N porch, has plain 12thc. lancets on its E and W walls, and the remains of a 12thc. arch above the present 13thc. entrance. These have been photographed but include no sculpture and are not described in detail here. The only 12thc. feature recorded below is the font.
Parish church
Lydbury North is a village in the Shropshire Hills in the SW of the county, 8 miles SW of Church Stretton. The church is in the centre of the village, and is a large cruciform building with a W tower. The nave and chancel are 12thc as is the arch to the N transet chapel, but the chapel itself is 14thc. The S transept is 17thc and appears completely out of scale from the exterior. Plain 12thc windows survive on the N and S walls of the nave, and in the chancel. Features described here are the S chancel doorway, the tower arch, the N chapel arch and the font.
Parish church
Holdgate is a village in Corve Dale in the Shropshire Hills, 10 miles W of Bridgnorth. The church stands in the village centre, with a motte and bailey to the N. Holy Trinity has a 12thc nave, a 13thc W tower and chancel, and a S porch added in the 19thc. There is high-quality 12thc sculpture on the S doorway and an elaborately carved 12thc. font. There is a sheela-na-gig in the S chancel wall, photographed for us by John Harding.
Parish church
The church is a fragment of a 12thc church, which appears to have been cruciform in shape. The church was originally single-aisled. The church is entered through a doorway in the tower at the NW end of the nave. Tower is c. 1300, the inner doorway of tower 13thc. Blocked-up remains of 12thc window, which tapers inwards, on S wall of nave. Remains of 12thc window on N wall of nave. N aisle added in 13thc. The N transept arch is round-headed and is 12thc.
The present chancel lies on the site of the 12thc crossing. The remains of S transept arch are visible on exterior of chancel. A recess, c. 1300, in S wall of chancel in interior, includes some earlier, possibly 12thc sculptural decoration. 12thc chancel arch forms E end of church. Capitals of chancel arch decorated. Building history of E end is complicated. 14thc window, now blocked up, set into chancel arch. Bricked-up triple Perpendicular window above 12thc chancel arch.
Parish church
Rushbury is a village in the Shropshire Hills, 4 miles E of Church Stretton and 12 miles S of Shrewsbury. The church stands on the main road through the village and consists of a nave with a S porch, a chancel with a S vestry and a W tower,. The earliest part is the nave, with early herringbone masonry in the lateral walls, while the chancel and tower are of the early 13thc. The upper part of the tower was rebuilt in 1855-56, when the entire church was restored and the vestry added. Construction is of stone rubble with ashlar dressings.
Romanesque features are the N and S doorways and a plain font.
Parish church
Newnham-on-Severn is a village on the W bank of the Severn estuary, 10 miles SW of Gloucester and on the eastern edge of the Forest of Dean. The A48 Gloucester to Newport road runs through the village. St Peter’s church stands alongside the river, and was built by Waller and Son in 1875, incorporating some 14thc fabric in the tower. This new church was almost immediately burnt down and rebuilt by the same architect in 1881. It consists of a shallow chancel with a S vestry; a nave with a 4-bay S aisle, a deep N porch and a transeptal N chapel. The W tower has a battlemented parapet and a short pyramidal spire. Romanesque features are preserved in the church: a chevron-ornamented window reset above the N doorway inside; the font and a group of loose carved stones under the tower.
Parish church
This church probably served a leper hospital and thus has a suburban location at the edge of Abbey Foregate. The S wall of the church, which is built of red sandstone, is largely 12thc, with the exception of the easternmost bay of the nave, which is 19thc. The S doorway has two plain continuous orders.
The 12thc church was aisleless. The N arcade dates from the 14thc; the N aisle and the chancel are 19thc. The 19thc parts of the building incorporate elements from the 12thc, the 14thc and the 15thc. The window on the S wall of the S transept is a reset 12thc window with 14thc tracery.
A rectangular slab showing the relief of a cross, reset into the exterior of the S wall of the nave, is probably Romanesque. Also from the 12thc is the font which is situated at the W end of the nave.
Parish church
Tarrington is a village 6 miles E of Hereford and a silar distance W of Ledbury on the A438. The church is in the centre of the village, and consists of 12thc nave and chancel, originally with an apsidal E end, a N aisle by Edward Pritchard of 1835-36, a S porch by C Ford Witcombe of 1901, and a 16thc W tower. There was a major restoration by F. R.Kempson in 1871-72. Romanesque work is found in the N chancel windows, the enormous chancel arch, the tower arch and the N and S nave doorways
Parish church
Orcop is a small dispersed village in the S of the county, 8 miles S of Hereford and a similar distance W of Ross-on-Wye. It is in a hilly, mixed farming district, and Orcop itself consists of little more than the church and the remains of a motte and bailey nearby. It is at the foot of Orcop Hill whose summit, a mile NW of the church, rises to a height of 293m. Orcop Hill is also the name of the larger village on its eastern slopes. Orcop church, however, stands in isolation except for a few houses. It consists of chancel with a N vestry, nave with a N aisle and a S porch, and a W tower, timber clad in its upper part and carrying a timber bell stage with a short spire. None of the fabric is obviously Romanesque: the aisle is 13thc; the chancel of c.1300; the nave windows indicate a rebuilding in the 14thc, and the tower perhaps 16thc in origin, but the church was comprehensively restored by Thomas Nicholson in 1860-61. The only Romanesque sculpture here is a pillar piscina bowl.