The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
Winchester (medieval)
Parish church
Fawley is a village on the W bank of Sothampton Water where it runs into the Solent; a position now dominated by the Esso oil refinery immediately W of the church. All Saints has a nave with 4-bay aisles, but the E bay of the S aisle is occupied by the arches of the tower. The chancel has a two-bay N chapel, used for weekday services, and a similar S chapel screened off for use as a vestry. The nave is 12thc in origin, with a chevron-decorated W doorway under a neo-Romanesque porch. The chancel arch, chancel chapel arcades and the W and N arches of the tower are 12thc work too (the E arch to the vestry is narrow and 19thc, and there is no S arch because the outer wall is in that position). The nave arcades are 13thc .
Parish church
A cruciform building of Wealden sandstone with aisleless nave, transepts, square central tower with belfry, and chancel. This church is complex to date, as although it is early Romanesque in origin with 13c.work and 15c./ 16c. additions, extensive repairs and drastic rebuilding in 1838-39 altered many of its parts, and covered up original features. The building styles fall into six periods, including modern times. (1). There are remains of 12c. masonry within the nave walls, but they are inaccessible behind a heavy plaster layer of c.1838 (V.C.H.III, 100). The exterior S nave doorway with twin columns and cushion capitals, is a fine example of early Romanesque style. (2).The tower arches were apparently altered during the rebuilding (Short Church Guide), but the rough and heavy stonework with double chamfered edges is basically 13c., also some fabric in the S.transept with its 3 single lancet windows (3). The nave has late-15c. alterations and additions: timber porch, the W. doorway made of chalk, W. 3-light window and a 2-light Perp. window in the S. wall. Perp. window in S. transept. (4). Late 16c. work includes the nave roof with king-posts and moulded tie-beams. (5). The tower fell in 1838, and together with most of the chancel and the N. transept, was rebuilt by Robert Ebbels in Romanesque style. (6). Spire, chancel roof and part of the N. transept roof are modern. There was a restoration programme carried out in 1954. The Romanesque features described here are the S doorway and the font.
Parish church
Fetcham is a suburban village in the Mole Valley district of Surrey, separated from Leatherhead to the E by the River Mole. The church is in the village centre and consists of an aisled nave with a tower at the E end of the S aisle, a N transept and a chancel. The nave is 11thc in its oldest parts, with a deeply splayed lancet remaining in the wall abobe the S arcade. Next come the S arcade and the lowest parts of the tower, dating from the mid-12thc. The chancel was rebuilt in the 13thc when the N transept was added and the continuously moulded N aisle dates from the 14thc. Finally the upper parts of the tower date from the mid-18thc. Construction is of flint with limestone dressings and some Roman brick and tile.
Parish church
Gatcombe church is at the eastern end of an irregular row settlement in a relatively isolated situation to the west of the River Medina and east of chalk downland. It is near the geographical centre of the island. St Olave’s church consists of an aisleless nave, western tower, chancel and south porch. The nave was extant by the 13thc on the evidence of a lancet in the north wall and the chancel arch. The small plain round-headed doorway in the north wall of the nave may have given access to the church in the 12thc but a 17thc date is suggested by Lloyd and Pevsner (2006, 148). The chancel was rebuilt in 1864-5. The tower dates from c.1500. The porch would appear to have originated in the later medieval period (Thompson 2008, 136). The organ chamber and vestry to the north of the chancel were added c. 1920 (Lloyd and Pevsner 2006, 148). The only Romanesque feature is the grotesque head reset at the apex of the porch and now surmounted by a small stone cross.
Parish church
The church is located on top of a locally prominent hill forming the core of the nucleated village of Godshill. The village lies to the N of the Isle of Wight’s southern chalk massif in the south-central area of the island. The church consists of a nave and chancel with no architectural division, a W tower, a wide S aisle, N and S transepts and a S porch. The lower stages of the tower probably date from the 14thc, as does the E end of the church. The S transept is of the late 15th or early 16thc (Lloyd and Pevsner 2006, 153-54). The only Romanesque feature is a loose capital.
Parish church
Michelmersh is in W central Hampshire, three miles N of Romsey. The substantial village stands on high ground overlooking the river Test, which flows from NW to SE a mile to the SW. The land around is mostly pasture and well wooded, with Michelmersh Wood immediately N of the village. The church is at the village’s northern edge.
St Mary’s has a nave with a S aisle, sharing a single roof, and a S porch, a chancel with a N chapel, and a weatherboarded tower at the W end of the aisle. Nave and chancel are of knapped flint; the S nave aisle wall being very low, so that the porch roof overlaps the big roof over the nave and aisle. The nave is 12thc with plain doorways of that date at W and S; the latter covered by a 19thc flint and timber porch. The N nave windows are big three-light 15thc openings. The chancel must be 12thc too, as it had 12thc chapels to N and S. Both chapel arches remain, but the S chapel has been removed, the arch blocked and a three-light window inserted. A resistivity survey in 1998 suggested confirmed the presence of a chapel. The N chapel has been rebuilt larger, with a roof running E to W. It now serves as a vestry and the organ fills its arch. The chancel itself has been lengthened; the quoins of the original E angle remaining on the S wall. To judge from the fenestration this took place in the mid-13thc. The S nave aisle was rebuilt in an extensive restoration of 1846-47 by W. Gover of Winchester, and the striking S elevation of the nave is entirely Gover’s work. The church was again restored in 1888 under the supervision of Arthur Blomfield, who was extremely critical of Gover’s restoration which, he said, had destroyed “whatever beauty of detail it may have possessed many years since.” In particular, Gover’s rebuilding removed any evidence that might have elucidated the relation of the church to its weatherboarded tower. This was built as a free-standing structure, like the similar tower at Perivale (Middlesex), and is characteristic of the years around 1600. There is evidence of repairs to it in 1846 and 1897. The only Romanesque features are the chapel arches and the W and S doorways.
Parish church
The church of St Mary and St Radegund adjoins a road junction in the centre of Whitwell village, a short distance from a holy well site. The village is situated in the south-central area of the Isle of Wight in a valley within the southern chalk massif. Whitwell church consists of the chancel, the nave with a S aisle which continues to the S of the chancel to form the chapel of St Mary, a S porch, a vestry to the N of the chancel and a tower which rises above the western end of the aisle. The jambs and the springing of the N side of the chancel arch were retained when the rest of the arch was reconstructed in the early 17thc. The S arcade was originally of three bays and dates from the late 12thc The chapel of St Mary, to the S of the chancel, was widened in the 16thc. The south-western tower also originated at this time, being inserted into the W end of the aisle. The S porch was also added with a cusped image niche above the door indicating a pre-Reformation date (Lloyd and Pevsner 2006, 298-9). The Romanesque features are the northern side of the former chancel arch and the S arcade.
Parish church
The church has a W tower formed from an Anglo-Saxon W porch of the 8th or 9thc. Inside the tower is a elaborate mid-12th doorway. The S aisle is an ambitious Perpendicular structure and the chancel is also structurally probably late medieval. The S chancel chapel is clearly 14thc because of the sedilia and the chancel arcade indicating a mid to later date in the century. The S nave aisle was Romanesque but was unfortunately demolished in 1867, arcade and wall, to make way for a tall and wide Neo-Dec aisle. A capital from the arcade survives in the S chancel chapel.
Parish church
A single-vessel church with no architectural division between nave and chancel, but with a wide span. Assertive W tower with big Romanesque strip-buttresses on the corners, of three stories, with Romanesque round-headed windows in the top two stages, and two circular windows at the top of third stage. No sculpture on the tower except roll-mouldings between the stories and around the windows (the E face of the tower, and the whole parapet is of brick, with an attractively cogged lower frieze). Two inscriptions help date the fabric of the building and are likely also Romanesque in themselves. The font is also of the 12thc, but heavily mutilated.
Parish church
Bullington is in rolling woodland and sheep pasture in central Hampshire, 7 miles N of Winchester, and is one of a chain of villages than runs along the valley of the river Dever, many of which form the present benefice. This dispersed village runs for a mile along the river, with Lower Bullington to the W and Upper Bullington to the E. 1 mile N of the village is the Iron Age hillfort of Tidbury Ring. The A34 trunk road runs from N to S between the two, and the A303 from E to W, the two intersecting immediately N of the village. The church is in Lower Bullington, in wooded pasture land on the S bank of the river Dever.
It consists of a flint nave and chancel in one, with a 19thc neo-Romanesque S nave doorway set under a flint and timber 19thc porch and a blocked 12thc N nave doorway without a porch. There are plain 12thc lancets on the lateral walls of the nave towards the W end. The 13thc chancel has a N vestry and the church has a W tower of brick with a tiled pyramid roof. There was a restoration in 1871 and Pevsner suggests that the tower may date from that time. The only Romanesque feature recorded here is the N nave doorway.