The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
Wakefield (formerly)
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.
Parish church
Birstall church is separated by a stream at the bottom of its churchyard from the core of the old town on the opposite hilltop. The churchyard is extensive and rises above the church. Carved pew-ends preserved in the church suggest that there was a good late medieval church, but that church was demolished and completely rebuilt 1863-1870 except for the W tower, the lower two levels of which are 12thc., and the belfry level 15thc. (Ryder 1993, 30, 142-3). The present building has an aisled chancel, a nave with double aisles, N and S porches, and a W tower enclosed by the aisles. On its E face a wall built since our first visit in 2000 fills the tower arch (plan in Cradock 1933, pl. 16).
The tower has slit windows on the N and S.
Otherwise, the Romanesque period is represented by fragments: most of a grave-marker or small coffin lid with lozenge decoration and a patterned font that has been broken in two but could be made serviceable. The 'sculpted' capitals mentioned by Sir Stephen Glynne do not seem to have been preserved.
Parish church
This is a low, sturdy Perpendicular style church in gritstone, sited on the edge of a level step in the S side of the Calder valley where the Huddersfield to Halifax road drops down to a bridge; the surviving streets of the old town plan (Southgate, Church Street) lie to the S. The church has an aisled nave of four bays, a tower enclosed by the aisles; a chancel with N chapel and S organ. The nave roof is thought to be 13thc, the oldest in Yorkshire; the nave walls inside are plastered. There are illustrations of the church c. 1830 or 1840 (Butler (2007), 172; Crossley (1920); Ryder (1993), 85) but none show Romanesque features.
Romanesque remains are the voussoirs in the three orders of the pointed chancel arch; the builders in the 14thc made use of 12thc stone, presumably from the previous narrower chancel arch (Bilson 1922).
Parish church
A church in Magnesian limestone in a red brick suburban setting. It has nave, chancel, south chapel, south aisle, tower and north porch.
In 1951-53 the church was moved to this site from Ferry Fryston, about three-quarters of a mile north of the present position, (approx. Grid Ref: SE 478 251). The OS map of 1893 suggests remnants of medieval strip fields in the area, which is now occupied by the Ferrybridge power station. The burial ground at the old site remains to the east of the power station. The church at Ferry Fryston had been restored by Ewan Christian about 1878, and faculty papers at the Borthwick Institute show the plan and sections of the medieval building (Fac. 1878/4). A painting of the church from the SW dated 1905 is in the vestry. Ryder (1993, 152) has a photograph of the N face of the church on the old site.
After a long history of flooding and, latterly, erosion, it was decided to move the church to Ferrybridge, the modern centre of population. Mottistone & Milner-White (1956), and the mark 0.78m up the R jamb of the doorway, show the flood level of 1866. The rebuilding is said to have used approximately 60 per cent of the original walling and all the worked stone. One bay was added to the aisle at the W end. The S doorway became the present N doorway, and the N aisle was changed to the S side. The vice in the tower was moved from S to N. There are no faculty papers for the removal at the Borthwick Institute.
Romanesque sculpture survives on the N doorway, on the impost of the tower arch and on the font. Accessible parts of the sculpture have been retooled, for example parts of the font and the tower arch.
Parish church
Featherstone is 2 miles SW of Pontefract. This entry is for purposes of information only, as, despite suggestions of its presence at the site, no Romanesque sculpture has been identified here.
The church is in the historic 'Featherstone' on the ridge, but with the later development of the colliery village and railway station about a mile to the south, this smaller settlement is nowadays normally called 'North Featherstone'.
Pevsner (1967, 198) describes a ‘church of blackened stone, over-restored’ and having Perpendicular elements. Peter Ryder says ‘at Featherstone nothing [Norman] remains visible except for the twelfth-century north-west angle quoins of the nave’ (1993, 36). His plan (p.106, fig. 156) shows 12thc. walling visible on the exterior north wall of the nave, and at the south-east corner of the original rectangle; still to be seen from inside the church. He observes that 'very little in the way of datable features survives’ (ibid., p.115).
Ryder also mentions a reused block with ‘possible traces of carving’. This is said to be in the internal face of the wall near the south-west corner of the churchyard (1993, 116). However, when the fieldworker visited the site in June 2000, nothing was found except some short stretches of wall now covered with ivy. For this reason there was found to be no surviving Romanesque sculpture.
Parish church
The church at Glasshoughton is a modern 1902 building in red brick. A medieval font from Castleford can be found in the plain interior, set in the N aisle near the E end. The font is recorded as coming from All Saints church at Castleford. The beginnings of the medieval church at Castleford are ancient, and its position related to the lines of the late 1stc. Roman fort, but nothing Romanesque now survives there. (Ryder 1993, 9, 145)
Parish church
The church stands in an open position between Hightown and Hartshead; there are few buildings nearby apart from Church Farm. The building, in sandstone, is largely a neo-Norman rebuild of 1881, comprising an aisled nave, porch, chancel and W tower; there are no faculty papers at the Borthwick Institute.
The tower is thought to be 12thc, perhaps because it is unbuttressed (Pevsner 1967, 254). The nave doorway and the chancel arch have Romanesque sculpture. 12thc stone may be reused in the modern font, and there is an old font, but neither of these has sculpture.
Parish church
'The largest parish church in the W parts of the West Riding' (Pevsner 1967, 229) is a mostly 15thc. building with only traces of an earlier structure. It was restored in 1879. The church has a five-bay nave with aisles, a W tower, a small N porch, a larger S porch, and a S chapel (Holdsworth chapel); the aisled chancel is also of five bays and has a N chapel (Rokeby chapel). The nave altar is currently in the fourth bay of the chancel.
For general illustrations and plan, see Ryder (1991, 75-77; fig. 89; plan in fig. 155).
The 12thc. remains are fragmentary, and sometimes puzzling.
Parish church
Wragby is a small village about 4 miles ESE of Wakefield. Its church is at the entrance to the grounds of Nostell Priory. The building of coursed squared sandstone consists of an aisled chancel, an aisled nave, a S porch, a W tower, and a vestry. The church was built in the 1520s-1530s, although the W end of the nave and the tower may be slightly earlier; the vestry was added in 1825. Romanesque sculpture is found on a font and a reset slab, neither of which is thought to be part of any earlier medieval church on the site.