The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
Oxford (now)
Parish church
Britwell Salome is a small South Oxfordshire village about 4.5 miles NE of Wallingford. The church, which was rebuilt in 1867 by Charles Buckeridge, is of flint and stone construction. It consists of chancel, nave, vestry, S porch and western bellcote. Its predecessor had a Romanesque chancel arch and a S nave doorway of the same period. The latter was reused in the 1867 church.
Parish church
Broadwell is a village about nine miles W of Witney. The church lies to the N of the village and was built around 1190 of coursed rubble limestone (Sherwood and Pevsner (1974), 488-9). The church originally consisted of a chancel, a presbytery bay, a nave and a W tower. In the 13thc the whole building was remodelled: the chancel and the presbytery were united to form an enlarged chancel, new windows and buttresses were added to the chancel and tower, and the N and S chapels were built. The church was extensively restored in 1873 by Edward George Bruton. The surviving Romanesque features are the nave N and S doorways, the E tower arch and the Transitional, or possibly later, font located at the W end of the nave.
Parish church
St Mary's, Broughton, is in the north of the county, 4 km west of Banbury, situated in the parkland of Broughton Castle. The church is built of the local ironstone and comprises a chancel, nave, S aisle and a W tower with a broach spire. Both the church’s layout and characteristics, such as the almost identical width of the nave and the S aisle, suggest a possible remodeling of an earlier building, which took place c. 1300, with further changes made in the course of the century. The only Romanesque feature is the font decorated with a band of cable and chevron moulding.
Parish church
Waddesdon is a good-sized village 5 miles NW of Aylesbury on the Roman road ofAkeman Street. The village is dominated by Waddesdon Manor, on a Lodge Hill to the W, but there was no medieval manor house here; the present house, built for Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild from 1874-80, was the first on the site, and Rothschild built the present village to the E of the old village centre at the same time. Nevertheless evidence of continuous settlement here goes back to the bronze age. The church stands in the centre of the old village, opposite the gates to the manor, on the N side of the A41 which approximately follows the line ofAkeman Streetthrough the village. St Michael’s is a large church with an aisled nave with S porch, chancel and W tower. The nave is late-12thc, with an elaborate S doorway under a 14thc porch, rebuilt in 1902. The nave aisles are of six bays with clerestory windows above the piers. The N arcade is uniform, with the octagonal piers, finely moulded capitals and convex chamfered arch orders typical of the first years of the 14thc, and the use of forms of Y-tracery in most of the aisle windows confirms this dating. The S arcade, however, reveals a more complex history. The two E bays, including pier 1 but not pier 2, have the same design as the N arcade. The next three bays also have pointed arches, but with late-12thc details, the piers are cylindrical and the capitals are scalloped. Then pier 5 has a roughly moulded capital of a mid-13thc type, and the arch of bay 6 has deep double chamfers, also diagnostically mid-13thc. Finally the W respond returns to the scalloped design of piers 2-4. What this suggests is that a 12thc arcade of four bays (the present bays 2-5) was extended westwards by a bay in the 13thc; the W respond being reused n the new W wall, a new being pier inserted (pier 5) on the line of the old E wall and a new arch built (bay 6). Then in the early 14thc the aisle was extended by a bay to the E, the original pier 1 being retained as the new pier 2, and the arch of the old bay 1 being rebuilt in the new style. Piers 2, 3 and 4 have (or had) slim shafts rising from the impost blocks on the nave face, terminating in small scallop capitals, but carrying nothing. Small statues are a possibility, or transverse arches or, perhaps likeliest, roof trusses. The clerestory is 15thc, and its insertion, together with the raising of the nave walls and flattening of the roofline, was presumably responsible for the loss of the original trusses, supported by the shafts above the pier capitals.
The chancel dates from the early 14thc campaign, being rebuilt a bay further east than the 12thc chancel. The tower is of the late 14thc, with Perpendicular bell-openings, a polygonal SE stair with a battlemented turret rising higher than the main parapet, and angle buttresses at the W. It was taken down and rebuilt in 1891-92. A sign of an early restoration is given by the rainwater heads, dated 1736, and the church was completely restored during the incumbency of Richard Burges (1859-67). The nave and chancel are mortar rendered, and the tower is of irregular ashlar blocks. Romanesque sculpture is found on the S doorway and S nave arcade.
Parish church
Broughton Poggs is a village about four miles SW of Carterton. The church lies to the S of the village and was built of coursed rubble limestone with dressed quoins. The 12thc chancel was extensively altered in the 13thc, whilst the nave and the massive W tower are original. the church was extensively restore and altered in 1874. Romanesque sculptural elements consist of the chancel arch, the N and S doorways, the windows in the nave and the W tower, two blocks decorated with chevrons reset into the tower arch, and the font.
Parish church
Spelsbury is a small village in the NW of Oxfordshire, 3 miles SE of Chipping Norton, on the oolitic limestone belt. Of the original Romanesque church, only the central tower survives, now at the W end. In the C13th the nave was rebuilt on the site of the previous chancel, and the transepts and aisles were probably added at this time. In the C14th the W door and a window above were added to the tower. The tower was restored in 1706, and the chancel rebuilt in 1740. In 1774, when the nave and aisles were remodelled, blind arched recesses in the classical style were added at the ends of the transepts and at the W ends of the nave aisles, giving the impression of a larger and grander church. The Romanesque two-stage tower has round-headed bell openings on all four sides, original flat pilasters, and on the W face, the arch of a round-headed window. Internally, the remodelled E tower arch retains its restored responds with billet and cushion capitals.
Parish church
Sparsholt is a village in the Vale of the White Horse, 3 miles W of Wantage. The church is a long, untidy building with a 13thc. W tower with a broach spire (renewed in 1796); a 14thc. nave and chancel and a S transept (N transept removed). The reset N and S nave doorways are late 12thc or early 13thc, and there is a plain 12thc. font.
Parish church
Only five miles N of Oxford, Yarnton is outside the city in a quiet rural situation. St Bartholomew’s was originally a small Romanesque church of nave and chancel. It was expanded in the C13th by the addition of a four bay arcade. The present S aisle may represent the Romanesque nave, as its S wall preserves a plain late C12th doorway, and also two deeply splayed windows, now with C19th lights. The N wall of the chancel has a round-headed window, possibly reusing C12th stonework. In 1611 Sir Thomas Spencer had a spacious chapel built as a setting for the family monuments, E of the S aisle and alongside the chancel. The Romanesque font is now sited within it.
Parish church
Old Bradwell was described in 1927 as a scattered village with the church at its southern end and the Manor Farm a little to the north (VCH). Nowadays most of the village has been absorbed by the building of Milton Keynes, but the church stands on the edge of the residential area in North Loughton Valley Park, a long green area following the line of the Loughton Brook. The church consists of a nave with a S aisle and N porch, a chancel and a saddleback W tower with a modern annexe on the N side of it. The oldest parts are late -12thc or early-13thc, and the church was heavily restored in 1868 and by E.Swinfen Harris in 1903. Construction is of limestone rubble with ashlar facings. The only Romanesque sculpture is in the S arcade.
Parish church
Sydenham is located 3 miles SE of Thame in SE Oxfordshire. The church is a small building of flint and stone, with a wooden central tower with a broach-spire, dating mainly from the C13th and restored in the C19th. It boasts some Romanesque corbels in the chancel (Sherwood and Pevsner), but these are of wood and of doubtful date and so not included in this entry. However, there is a plain tub font, probably Romanesque.