The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
Hereford (now)
Parish church
The tiny rural hamlet of Silvington is 4 miles NW of Cleobury Mortimer. Its small unaisled church has a 13thc tower and a Transitional tower arch with sculptural decoration. The nave is 12thc to early 13thc; the chancel and chancel arch are 13thc. The windows have 14thc tracery.
The 12thc Romanesque features are the S doorway; the blocked N doorway, the tower arch and the font below it, and one loose capital.
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.
Parish church
Single-aisled church largely rebuilt in the 19thc. Blocked 12thc N doorway in the nave. Small plain Norman window in the N wall of the chancel. 12thc Priest's Doorway. 12thc font at the W end of the nave. There are fragments of sculpture immured in the exterior of the nave and the chancel.
Parish church
Clun is a small town in the Shropshire Hills, in SW Shropshire, 13 miles W of Ludlow and 12 miles SW of Church Stretton. It stands on the River Clun, a tributary of the Teme. It was an important crossing on the ancient drove road from Wales to the markets of the Midlands, and a stronghold of the de Says, important Norman landowners.
The church is on the S side of the river and consists of an aisled 12thc nave with a 14thc N porch, a 12thc W tower remodelled in the 17thc. and a 19thc chancel. The medieval work is of coursed limestone and sandstone rubble with ashlar dressings. As well as renewing the chancel, G. E. Street virtually rebuilt the entire church in 1876-77, although he used medieval material when possible. The features reported here are the N and W doorways, the nave arcades and a corbel reset above the 13thc NE nave doorway.
Parish church
Milson is a village in the south of the county, close to the borders with Herefordshire and Worcestershire. The nearest good-sized town is Kidderminster (Worcestershire) 11 miles to the E. The church stands at a junction of minor roads, where a cluster of farm buildings could be said to constitute the village centre.
It is constructed of stone rubble with ashlar dressings and consists of a 12thc nave and chancel with a S porch and a low W tower, probably early 13thc, with a low, shingled bell stage and a pyramid roof. Inside the tower arch is 13thc and the chancel arch has been replaced by a timber proscenium. The nave has 3 12thc lancets and the chancel one on each side. Romanesque work recorded here is a S nave doorway and a font.
Parish church
Bredenbury is a village in the N of the county, on the E side of the A44 between Leominster and Bromyard. The church stands alongside the main road, and was built by T. H. Wyatt in 1876-77, on a new site, to replace medieval chuches both here (in the grounds of Bredenbury Court) and at Wacton, a mile to the NE. Wyatt's church consists of a chancel with a gabled S vestry, a nave with a S porch and a W tower with a pyramid roof and a SW stair turret. Construction is rusticated, or rock-faced, with ashlar dressings and a fishscale slate roof. When Wacton church was pulled down in 1881, the font bowl was brought here and is now in the churchyard W of the S porch, where it does duty as a planter. A second smaller bowl from a font or stoup stands in a matching location to the E of the porch. These are the only features described here.
Parish church
The name Bredwardine (DS - Brocheurdie, DBH - Brodewordin) means the place on the slope of a steep ridge and in fact, the village stands on the western bank of the Wye, on the ground that rises to the top of Bredwardine Hill, over 291 m (700 feet) above sea level. Of the 12thc. church, only the aisleless nave survives, with two carved doorways (N and S), the traces of one plain doorway, now blocked, in the W wall and a font. There is some herring-bone masonry in the N wall and tufa was used for quoins and for doorways. The sculptured features are of red sandstone, except for the huge font, of breccia. For the rest, there is a tower of 1790, built on the north side of the nave, at its east end. The nave was lengthened and the chancel, which doglegs to the north, was rebuilt in the 15thc.
Parish church
The villages of Upper and Lower Breinton are loosely scattered along minor roads two to three miles W of the centre of Hereford on the rising land on the N bank of the river Wye. The land here is hilly and wooded and used for rough pasture and orchards. Lower Breinton, where the church is situated, is the eastern of the two settlements and lies along the river bank. In the orchard immediately to the W of the church are earthwork remains of Deserted Medieval Village (DMV), or manorial type.
St Michael’s has a nave with a N aisle and S porch, and a chancel with a N vestry. There is no tower, but a slate-hung belfry over the W gable of the nave, with a slate broach spire. The church was rebuilt by F. R. Kempson in 1866-70, when the N aisle was added. He reused the 12thc W doorway and the window above it, and reset a pair of plain 12thc window heads in the gable above. Little is known of the old church, but a W gallery was added to the nave in 1833-34 by L. Johnson, a builder of Hereford. Only the W doorway can be considered sculpture, and it is described below.
Parish church
Quatt is a small village in the Severn valley on its E bank, 4 miles SE of Bridgnorth. The church stands in the village centre.
St Andrew's has a chancel that is 11thc in origin with a 12thc doorway and window and evidence of work in the 14thc including a N chapel (restored in 1950). The tower, nave and N aisle are 18thc work and there is a 12thc font. This and the S chancel doorway are the only features recorded here.