The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
Lichfield (now)
Parish church
Eaton Constantine is a village on the N side of the Severn, midway between Shrewsbury and Telford. The church, in the centre of the village, is a simple building of chancel and nave with W bellcote and S porch, all built in 1841 in an Early English style. The only Romanesque feature is the font.
Parish church, formerly chapel
Edstaston is a small village at the north of the county, 12 miles N of Shrewsbury. The church stands in the village centre, and is a single-cell church, nave and chancel in one, with a S porch and a vestry on the N side of the chancel. Apart from the two last named the building all belongs to the late-12thc. There is no tower but a 19thc double bell-turret on the W gable of the nave. The porch was added in 1710 and remodelled in 1875, when the W wall of the nave was rebuilt. There was a restoration by G. H. Birch in 1882-83.
Only two of the original 12thc windows survive; the rest being replaced with larger 14thc and 15thc windows in nave and chancel. Both sides of the church have late-12thc corbel tables with trefoil headed arches carried on simple roll corbels. The church is distinguished by its three elaborate doorways: the N and especially the S have fine late-12thc carving and even the Priest's doorway is grander than usual. All retain their original doors, decorated with ironwork. Apart from the features mentioned above, there is a 12thc recess in the nave.
Parish church
Lilleshall is a village in the east of central Shropshire, 15 miles E of Shrewsbury. The high street runs to the S of the A518 between Telford and Newport, and St Michael's church stands towards its southern end. The village is best known for the ruined 12-13thc Augustinian abbey a mile to the S of the modern settlement, which is the subject of a separate report. The former Hall is now the home of Lilleshall National Sports Centre.
St Michael's is a sandstone building with a broad, long, aisleless chancel with a N organ chamber, a nave with a 5-bay N aisle and a S porch, and a W tower. Of these, the nave is late-12thc with its original shafted doorway protected by a 19thc porch. The chancel also has a 12thc S doorway, but the fabric is substantially of the 13thc, enlarged in the 14thc. The N nave aisle dates from c.1300 and the W tower is of 1500-50. In the mid-19thc it was necessary to rebuild the S wall, and this was done by John Norton in 1856. At this time a second doorway was reset towards the E end of the nave, and blocked. The features described below are the two S nave doorways, the chancel S doorway and the font,
Parish church
Enville is in the extreme SW of the county, less than 4 miles W of Dudley, but only 9 miles SE of Bridgnorth (Salop) and 6 miles N of Kidderminster (Worcs). The church is on a hill at the northern end of the village, and to the S and W are the extensive grounds of Enville Hall. St Mary's is a red sandstone church comprising a chancel with a N organ room; a nave with N and S aisles and a N porch; and a tower, incorporating a S porch, at the W end of the S aisle. The four-bay nave arcades are carried on cylindrical piers of coursed ashlar; the S arcade 12thc. and the N 13thc. but heavily restored. The tower does not respect the S arcade; i.e. its N wall blocks the W bay completely. The church was restored and enlarged by George Gilbert Scott in 1871-74. His work included the rebuilding of the chancel (including the organ room), the insertion of new aisle windows on both sides, the erection of new porches and the rebuilding of the tower. This has an elaborate crown based, according to Pevsner, on Gloucester Cathedral or Dundry. The tower was restored in 1990-92, following falls of masonry onto the aisle roof. Romanesque sculpture is found in the S nave arcade and on carved panels and corbels set into the spandrels above pier 1, on the nave and aisle sides.
Parish church
Gayton is a scattered village in central Staffordshire, some 5 miles NE of the centre of Stafford. It stands on a rise above the Trent, a mile away to the SW, and Gayton Brook, a tributary of the Trent, runs to the N of the village centre. The church is on the W side of the village with a moated site alongside it. St Peter's has a nave, now with a 19thc. S aisle but previously with a N aisle. This has been removed, the arcade blocked, and the wall rebuilt in brick of the same type found on the tower, and presumably at the same time (1732). The 15thc. N arcade remains visible on the interior, and both this and the 19thc. S arcade are of four bays. The nave has a S doorway only, under a 19thc. porch. The chancel arch is 12thc. but heavily restored, and the chancel was rebuilt in 1870 by Habershon and Pite of London (who were apparently responsible for the S nave aisle too), the work paid for by John Purcell Fitzgerald the Lay Impropriator. It contains a 13thc. wall tomb with an effigy and has a N vestry. The battlemented W tower is of brick and dates from 1732. From the exterior the church appears entirely post-medieval; the tower and N nave wall in industrial-looking red and blue brick and the rest in Habershon and Pite's rusticated yellowish ashlar. The William Salt Library holds two views of the church from the SE, dating from 1838 and 1841, before the S aisle was added (SV-IV.215a and SV-IV.214a). The only Romanesque feature is the over-restored chancel arch.
Parish church
Grindon is a remote village high in the Staffordshire Moorlands, situated in a loop of the River Hamps. It is surprising to find a church there that seems more suited to an urban setting, but All Saints is just that; a tall and solid ashlar building ofc.1845, built by F. and H. Francis in an early-14thc. style. Its wide nave has four-bay aisles with no clerestory, and it has a broad low chancel with a N vestry, and a tower with a tall broach spire with lucarnes at its foot. The old church was demolished in 1845, and a drawing by Buckler of 1847 shows the present building (William Salt Library SV IV 227). An undated watercolour entitled 'All Saints Church, Grindon' (William Salt Library SV IV 226b) shows a distant SW view of a church with a pinnacled tower without a spire, and a nave with a clerestory, i.e. not the present church, so presumably the old one. In the same collection is a Buckler drawing of 'One of the Capitals and remains of the Shaft of the Old Church at Grindon' (William Salt Library SV IV 228b). This shows a cylindrical pier carrying a low cushion capital with a square impost. The only Romanesque feature is a disused font bowl, at present under the tower.
Parish church
The church and the manor house alongside it were foundedc.1140 by Hugo Malvoisin, also founder of Blithbury Priory. All that remains of the medieval manor house is the timber-framed gatehouse ofc.1400. By the end of the middle ages, the church had a nave with N and S aisles and a S porch, a chancel and a W tower. In 1782 it was described as 'very damp and ruinous', and was taken down and rebuilt except for the N aisle and the tower. The present eccentric confection is the result. The church as it stands today has a broad, brick nave with a W doorway, a coved plaster ceiling, and small polygonal apse at its east, both dating from 1782. On the N side of the nave, and at a slightly lower level, is the Trinity aisle, or Cawarden Chapel, separated from the nave by a 14thc. arcade of three bays. The aisle is older than this, retaining 13thc. lancets in its E, W and N walls. In the chapel are collected a large number of memorials of the Mavesyn, Cawarden and Chadwick families, including two 13thc. effigies of knights. There are also contains hatchments and reliefs, largely retrospective and dating from around the time of the 18thc. rebuilding. The Perpendicular W tower (actually NW of the nave) is the only other medieval fabric, and both this and the N aisle are of grey ashlar. Romanesque interest centres on the foliage-ornamented font.
Parish church
St John's has an aisled nave with three-bay
arcades and a S doorway under a porch. The chancel is square ended and the W tower has diagonal buttresses. The S arcade and S doorway date from the 12thc., both with round arches and the arcade with cylindrical piers. The N arcade also has round arches, but the piers have a quatrefoil plan and the capitals have crockets. The style is early 13thc., therefore, but Pevsner suggests that it belongs to the rebuilding of the aisle in 1854 by F. W. Fiddian and Ewen Christian. This is incorrect; Fiddian's plan suggests that the arcade was not replaced, and it also appears on J. Buckler's drawing of 1844 (William Salt Library SV VII 69). The S porch is dated 1866, and must replace the porch shown on Fiddian's plan. The chancel windows have Y-tracery or (at the E) reticulated tracery, pointing to a date in the first half of the 14thc. The external cresting of the chancel roof looks 18thc. According to an inscription on its W face, the tower was begun by T. Rolleston in 1515. It has Perpendicular bell-openings and W window and doorway, and a battlemented parapet with eight tall pinnacles. Construction is of reddish ashlar. A plain 12thc. window head is reused as facing stone above the S porch. Two 12thc. lancets are shown above the porch in a Buckler drawing of 1839 (William Salt Library SV VII 66), but they are no longer there, and this window head probably belonged to one of them. Romanesque features recorded here are the S arcade and the S doorway.
Parish church
Church and Hall originally formed a group, with the Hall to the W, and this is shown in two views by Stebbing Shaw (1798-1801) in the William Salt Library (SV VIII 62a, 62b). Nothing is known of the Hall before the early 16thc., and such remains as survive today are of that period or later. St Michael's has a W tower with an octagonal spire behind a plain parapet, and a long nave and chancel in one, with no chancel arch, a single roof and a continuous clerestory. J. C. Buckler a produced a SE view of the church (1839), now in the William Salt Library (SV VIII 61a), looking much as it does today. The separation between nave and chancel was once by means of a rood-loft reached by a spiral stair on the S side, which remains in part. The present position of the chancel is marked by a step, and there are three nave arcade
bays to the W of this and one similar chancel
arcade
bay, plus a smaller bay to the E. On the N side of the chancel, both arches give onto a chapel, now containing the organ and a vestry. On the S the smaller E arch acts as the canopy of the Cotton tomb ofc.1500, and the chapel is still used for its proper purpose. There is another vestry to the E of the S chapel, so that overall the S chancel aisle extends to the E end of the church, while the N aisle stops one bay short. The nave is 12thc., and its upper W window survives in part, along with traces of another on the N side of the chancel, and masonry to either side of the tower at the W end. The tower and chancel are 14thc, and the arcades and clerestory Perpendicular. The church is of grey ashlar inside and out; the interior apparently recently cleaned and looking very bare. The church has three fonts, or at least three bowls, two 12thc., one inside and one out, and the third the 19thc. piece that is actually used. Curiously, Pevsner mentioned only the less interesting of the Romanesque fonts.
Parish church
Child's Ercall is a village about six miles S of Market Drayton, and the church lies on the W of the village. The building is of dark grey freestone and consists of an aisled structure. The dressed red sandstone chancel was constructed in 1878-9 by Carpenter and Ingelow; the S porch dated between the 13th and the early 14thc, with a W tower built in the 15thc. The only Romanesque feature is a doorway reset on S side of chancel in 1878-9 which was carved in the late 12thc. or early 13thc.