The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
York (medieval)
Chapel
The chapel is close to the mansion, Lotherton Hall, near Aberford, and part of an estate that now belongs to Leeds City Council, although the chapel is not redundant. Neither the site of the earliest settlement nor of any ‘manor house’ has been identified.
Ryder (1993) says the chapel is the smallest church in West Yorkshire. It is a simple two-cell building, with what may be a 13thc. or 14thc. bellcote and some later windows. John Bilson's description of 1912 is quoted in Kirk (1919, 122-126). At some unknown date the building was shortened by about 1m on the W end. It is built of uncoursed rubble, with worked limestone on facings and doorways. If it were not for later furnishings, including memorials, it might resemble a barn.
It was restored ‘by the great architectural historian John Bilson’ (Pevsner) in 1913/1917; a pre-restoration view was enclosed when this report was first submitted. Before this, the chapel was plastered outside, apparently thickly enough to have hidden the priest's doorway from view.
Romanesque carving can be found on two window heads and on the N doorway; inside there is a stoup.
Chapel
The church is of rubble walling, with a north aisle. The nave and chancel S wall appears to be of one build, the north arcade with clerestory is late Perp with rather crude capitals. There is a chapel in the angle between north aisle and chancel which appears to be of a later build.
A restoration of the church is documented in 1734 from when the W tower dates. In 1862 the church was re-medievalised through the reintroduction of Dec tracery into the S aisle, a three-light Perp E window, and cusped Perp tracery in N aisle. The only Romanesque feature is the S doorway.
Country House
The present Nostell Priory, an 18thc country house in the care of the National Trust, was built on the site of a medieval Augustinian priory, of which nothing is now visible.
According to Pevsner 'Of the Augustinian priory...nothing is preserved', although his footnote reads 'Mr Pace [George Pace senior] tells me that many stones, carved and moulded, are stored in outbuildings.' Some stones were seen in 1989 by Kit Galbraith ‘in the cowshed near the entrance gate’. Currently, loose carved stones are stored in the stables and in the cellars of the house. Some of these may be from the estate, others collected by Charles Winn in the early 19thc. Nothing of 12thc date has been found in recent years in excavation in the stables area.
Selected stones that might be from the Romanesque period are described in this report. Seven items were identified. Items 1 and 2 were in the stable block. Items 3 to 7 had been brought in from outside near the gate prior to our visit in 2010 and had dry moss still attached. These were stored in a cellar of the house.
Ruined parish church
Swinton is a small town north-east of Sheffield. The church is a large 19thc building surrounded by a churchyard and an open grassland, the Vicarage Field, to the north. Sculptural remains of the Romanesque chapel of St Mary Magdalene, which was formerly located on the site of the present church hall before being dismantled in 1815, were retained after the fire of 1897 and re-erected to the NE of the new church: they consist of jambs, capitals and voussoirs of the S doorway, and remains of the chancel arch. However, over the years their deterioration caused some of the carved stones to be moved in a storeroom in 1950, while uncarved stones were buried in the Vicarage Field.
Architect Edmund Isle Hubbard had produced plans for the enlargment of the E end before the fire. Some papers regarding the rebuilt chapel, the chapel yard and the new church (1817 CD.81) have been transferred to the Sheffield Diocesan Registry. Some watercolours of Swinton chapel before 1815 survive. An engraving of the doorway was published by James Storer (1817, vol. 6). The reconstructed arches appear on postcards of c.1900-1905.
Parish church
The Cattons, High and Low, lie a mile south of Stamford Bridge, and almost a mile apart. The church is close to the Derwent. It has an aisled nave with a tower in the westernmost bay of the S aisle, a S porch, a N transept, and a chancel by Street that stands high above the nave. There is a plan in faculty papers at the Borthwick Institute, Fac. 1908/44.
The transept survives from what was a cruciform Romanesque church. A Romanesque piscina is reset in the N wall of the vestry.
Parish church
The small church was built as a chapel of ease to Beverley Minster in 1843-4. There had been no previous church in the village: a Tickton chapel mentioned in 1414 was probably that at Hull bridge, on the west side of the river (VCHER VI, 303). Pevsner and Neave say the church has an ‘octagonal font, 1844 and the circular bowl of a medieval font, possibly Norman’ (1995, 726).
Tickton church is in the parish of Beverley Minster. It operates a Local Ecumenical Partnership (LEP) with the Methodist church in the village; this building is used for most of the worship.
Parish church
Loversall is a village in the Doncaster borough of S Yorkshire. The church of St Katherine lies up a farm lane, on the northern edge of the small hamlet, surrounded by fields. Built of a creamy limestone, it is mainly Perpendicular with substantial Victorian rebuilding by Giles Gilbert Scott in the mid 19thc. The lower part of the tower is of c.1300. The only trace of the Romanesque here is the remains of a chancel window.
Parish church
Ruston Parva is a hamlet in the East Riding of Yorkshire, 8 miles SW of Bridlington. Nothing is known of the appearance of the medieval chapel on this site. The present building is in a field above the village, and ican only be reached by traversing private land. It was constructed by a local builder around 1832 in late Georgian yellow brick on a plinth of several courses of worked medieval stone. (Pevsner and Neave, 666) Inside, there is a restored Romanesque cylindrical font.
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.