The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
Lincoln (medieval)
Parish church
Bletchingdon is located in N Oxfordshire, midway between Oxford and Bicester. The present church has a 13thc. chancel and a Perpendicular nave and W tower. It was much restored in the 19thc. There is evidence of earlier work in the blocked round-headed arch of a lancet-sized window on the N side of the chancel, and the Romanesque stone fragment of star-in-square carving, probably from a lintel, mounted on the outside of the S wall of the nave.
Parish church
The name of the village was changed to Quorn from Quorndon in 1889 to avoid postal confusion with Quarndon (Derbyshire). Quorn is a large in the Charnwood district of N Leicestershire, 2 miles SE of Loughborough. The church is at the N end of the village and is a Mountsorrel granite rubble building consisting nave, W tower and chancel. The nave has a N aisle, and a S chapel (the Farnham chapel) alongside the W end. The E part of the Farnham Chapel is a porch covering a 12thc doorway, with a Priest's Room above. The chancel has a N organ room. Apart from the surviving doorways, the fabric is 14thc and later. The 14thc N aisle was widened in 1842 by William Parsons. The church was restored by Ewan Christian in 1865-66, and the organ room was added in 1897 by W. D. Caroe. The only 12thc sculpture is on the S nave doorway, but there is also a plain 12thc Priest's doorway.
Parish church
The village of Elsfield is located on a rural escarpment 3 miles NE of Oxford, outside the ring road. A church existed here by 1122, or perhaps earlier. The present church of St Thomas of Canterbury now comprises a chancel, nave with S porch, and a 19thc bellcote on the W gable. It was largely rebuilt in the 13thc. There was once a N aisle, whose blocked arches were visible in the N wall until restorations of 1849 and 1859. The earliest surviving Romanesque feature is the chancel arch of c. 1170-80, with high quality decorated responds. There is also a plain Romanesque font.
Parish church
Gaddesby is a village in the Melton district of the county, 8 miles NE of Leicester and 5 miles SW of Melton Mowbray. The church is ooutside the village centre to the E. Pevsner describes the church as 'one of the largest and most beautiful in the county', but the only reminderthat there was onece a Norman church here is a single reset chevron voussoir. St Luke's consists of a 13thc. W tower with a spire, a nave with a 14thc aisles: the slightly earlier S aisle a lavish showpiece with sumptuous details, while the N aile is smaller and humbler though still rich work of the 1330s or '40s. The chancel , of rubble, is earlier than either, Pvesner dated it 1310-15. The church was restored in 1859, when a priests' doorway was added to the chancel.
Parish church
Great Tew is a village about five miles NE of Chipping Norton. The church lies to the E of the village and is a coursed squared limestone rubble with ashlar dressings structure consisting of a chancel (rebuilt in the early 14thc), an aisled four-bay nave, a S porch and a W tower. The building was restored in 1827 by Thomas Rickman. The only Romanesque feature here is the probably re-set S doorway of the nave.
Parish church
The village of Hallaton, eight miles north-east of Market Harborough, occupies a sloping site with a stream to the south and to the west what may have been a 12thc motte and bailey castle built to protect iron works (VCH, V, 121-33; Pevsner and Williamson, 1984, 171-72). The imposing church of St Michael lies on the south-west side of the village, half a mile below the castle site. Although the exterior of the church, including the dominant W tower, is largely 13thc and 14thc, Romanesque elements are preserved in the aisled interior. Notably part of the N arcade is late 12thc; otherwise it was extended in the 13thc when a new chancel was built. Most importantly for this Corpus a sculpted tympanum detached from its original doorway is now reset in the N porch. For Pevsner, this tympanum depicting St Michael fighting the Dragon was 'the best Norman tympanum in the county' (Pevsner and Williamson, 1984, 171-72).
Parish church
The old village of Headington has been engulfed from the SW and is now a suburb lying within the Oxford City boundary. The earliest stone church probably existed here by the early 12thc, and consisted of a two-cell nave and chancel. The present chancel arch was built in the mid 12thc. A century later the church was enlarged by the addition of a S aisle. The ground stage of the S tower and the pointed arch that now encloses the 12thc chancel arch were also built at that time. The chancel itself was rebuilt c.1400. There was a major restoration by J.C. Buckler in 1864. The round-headed decorated chancel arch is now the only surviving Romanesque feature.
Parish church
Hartford is a village on the eastern edge of Huntingdon, on the N bank of the Great Ouse. The church is at the S edge of the village, alongside the river but high enough above it to avoid all danger of flooding. It is built of rubble with Barnack and other ashlar dressings, and consists of a chancel with a N vestry added in 1895; a nave with N and S aisles and a S porch; and a Perpendicular W tower with a projecting S bell stair. On the N side of the church is an extension opened in 2004 with a hall, kitchen and lavatories and accessed from the exterior and through the N nave doorway of the church. The chancel has 12thc N and E walls with no sculptured features. Otherwise it is of the 14thc but remodelled by Robert Hutchinson in 1861, including an elaborate neo-Romanesque chancel arch. The nave arcades are of the end of the 12thc; the N stylistically earlier. Romanesque features described here are the greatly restored S nave doorway, the two nave arcades and the font.
Parish church
St Peter’s, Hanwell, is 2.5 miles NW of Banbury, in a unique setting overlooking Hanwell Castle, of Tudor redbrick built from 1498 onwards by William Cope, cofferer to King Henry VII. It is another ironstone church like those at Horley and Hornton nearby, and like them had 12thc. origins. However, St Peter’s was largely rebuilt in the 14thc., and now comprises chancel, nave, N and S aisles, and a W tower. It has some fine figurative sculpture of c. 1340: a frieze of men and monsters decorates the external walls of the chancel, and the nave capitals bear figures with linked arms. The only remaining Romanesque feature is the tub font, with intersecting arches and three little heads.
Parish church
St Cleer is a small village about two miles N of Liskeard named after St Clarus, his patron, who probably founded the church in the 8thc. The church lies to the S of the village and consists of a granite rubble with granite dressings structure of a chancel, an aisled nave, a S porch and a W tower. The original 12thc building was largely renovated between the end of the 13thc and the beginning of the 14thc. From the end of the 14thc the chancel and the nave were extensively altered, and during the 15thc the S aisle, the S porch and the tower were added to the structure. The church was restored at the end of the 19thc.
Romanesque sculpture is found on the N doorway and on the font located in the nave.