The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
Gloucestershire (now)
Parish church
Condicote is a small Cotswold village 3 miles NW of Stow-on-the-Wold. The church, which is built of rubble, lies in a central location in the village on the N side of a large village green. The building consists of a chancel, nave, S porch and a 19thc. vestry N of the chancel. Much of the fabric from the 12thc. building survives, including the S doorway and chancel arch. In addition there is Romanesque sculpture set in the S porch, possibly from a N doorway, and Romanesque string courses reset into the exterior W nave wall as well as part of the string course on the N wall of the chancel still in situ. There are also corbels on the corners of the chancel.
Private house, formerly parish church
There is and was no place called Newington Bagpath: Newington and Bagpath are two small settlements in the upper part of valleys in the Cotswolds escarpment, about 3 miles ENE of Wotton-under-Edge; the medieval church was apparently built to serve both. It has chancel, a nave and a W tower, the chancel being entirely rebuilt by Samuel Sanders Teulon in 1858, while the nave and tower are medieval.
The church was closed in the 1970s, and cleared of its contents, chiefly Teulon-related items (see Comments for description of the church before closure). The church was deconsecrated and sold after a protracted process in 1990. Nothing has been done to the building since it was sold (information from Natalie Fenner at the Gloucester Diocesan Office, August 2019).
There was possibly a N doorway and a font of our period: the doorway is inaccessible behind undergrowth, and the font is reported to be wrapped in a tarpaulin and outside the N transept of the church at Kingscote (information from Newington Bagpath churchwarden September 2019).
Parish church
The small village of Whittington lies 4 miles ESE of Cheltenham on the edge of the Cotswolds. The church is sited about 2m from the manor house on level ground. The building consists of a chancel with S chapel, nave with narrow S aisle, N porch and a vestry in the angle between the chapel and aisle. The E arch of the two-bay nave arcade dates to the 12thc. The aisle was originally wider, and there is a blocked round headed opening in the W wall of the aisle which also probably dates to the 12thc. When the vestry was constructed in the 19thc., Romanesque sculpture was built into the exterior of its W wall.
Parish church
Berkeley is a small town in the Stroud district of Gloucestershire, midway between Bristol to the SW and Gloucester to the NE. The nearest large town is Stround, 10 miles to the NE. Berkeley is in the Vale of Berkeley, a mile E of the Severn estuary, and is best known for its castle (qv), the site of King Edward II’s murder. The castle stands on the SE edge of the town, with the church alongside it.
St Mary’s is a large church of the 12thc and later, with a chancel with flanking chapels and a Perpendicular 9-light E window (altered from a 7-light composition in 1843), an aisled nave with 7-bay arcades of the 13thc and a clerestory on the S side only, and a N porch. The W window is a 5-light stepped lancet. Late Romanesque sculture is found on the S nave doorway and the font. There is no tower on the church, but a free-standing one of 1753 some 30m N of the church, built on the site of a 15thc tower.
Parish church
Bledington lies in a valley in the Cotswolds, four miles SE of Stow-on-the-Wold and six miles SW of Chipping Norton. The church is sited on a rise at the edge of the village. It is built mainly of limestone rubble, with roofs of lead and of Cotswold stone, and comprises a chancel with a Sanctus bell, a clerestoried nave, a S aisle, a S porch, and an embattled W tower occupying the W part of the 12thc nave. There is a squint passage (sometimes referred to as a chantry chapel) connecting the SW corner of the chancel to the S aisle. The church was lavishly rebuilt in the 15thc, and the 15thc painted glass surviving in some of the windows is a notable feature. The church was restored by John Edward Knight Cutts in 1881 and by Frank Ernest Howard around 1923. Romanesque sculpture survives on the chancel arch, the S arcade of the nave and the font.
Parish church
The compact village of Bisley lies at the top of one of the steep-sided valleys cut into the Cotswold escarpment. It is about four miles east of Stroud.
The church, which may have been enlarged in the 14thc. so as to obliterate an earlier building, was largely rebuilt on that plan by the Rev. W. H. Lowder, curate here during the early 1860s; he had trained as an architect. Because of medieval and Victorian rebuilding of the church, there is very little left of the earlier stages except for (uncertain) parts of the plan and two or three Anglo-Saxon stones. At present the church has a chancel, nave with aisles, N vestry and S porch, and a W tower.
The font and a series of incised coffin lids reset in the walls of the N aisle are the only remains relevant to this Corpus.
Parish church
The hamlet of Alstone lies some 4 miles W of Tewkesbury. In 1844 Alstone was transferred from Worcestershire to Gloucestershire, but remains within the diocese of Worcester. The church, which is situated in the middle of the settlement, consists of a nave, a chancel, a N aisle and a S porch with a modern timber belfry over the E end of the nave. The nave has been rebuilt, as has much of the chancel; the responds of the chancel arch and the S doorway remain in position from the 12thc building. The remains of a 12thc piscina have been incorporated into the S wall of the chancel.
Parish church
Little Washbourne lies to the N of the road from Tewkesbury to Stow-on-the-Wold. It was part of Worcestershire, but was transferred to Gloucestershire for civil purposes in 1844. However, ecclesiastically, it remains part of Overbury parish in the diocese of Worcester. The church, which is sited on low ground, now stands isolated in a farm orchard. It consists of a chancel and a nave with a small wooden bell-turret over the W end of the chancel. The building dates from the middle of the 12thc, but has been largely rebuilt at later periods and extensively altered in the 18thc. The earlier work is of rubble masonry, but the N wall of the nave and the greater part of the S wall are faced with ashlar. The pilaster strips on the W wall date from the 12thc, as the N chancel window. The Romanesque sculpture consists of the chancel arch and remains of a stringcourse on the W wall. The church was declared redundant in 1974 and is now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust.
Parish church
Lasborough church and Manor are in the upper part of a valley in the Cotswold escarpment that drains SW towards Alderley; they are about four miles W of Tetbury.
The medieval parish church comprised a chancel, a nave and a N porch, but by the 1820s it was decayed, open to animals and used for storage. In 1861-2 the church was entirely rebuilt ‘on the old lines’ but following designs by Lewis Vulliamy; it has chancel, nave, S porch and a bellcote (VCH 11, 293; Verey 2002).
There is a cylindrical font from the original church. It had been replaced by a new font in 1861, had stood in the churchyard until 1903 and was given to Great Witcombe, but it was eventually reinstated; the pillar is also original (Fryer 1913, 172). There may be an old altar slab in the vestry, but this was not seen by the fieldworker (VCH 11, 293).
Parish church
Harescombe is a cluster of farms at the foot of the Cotswold escarpment about five miles south of Gloucester. The church is small, with chancel and N vestry, nave and S porch. Verey & Brooks say it is a 13th-century church, citing the mostly trefoil-headed lancets (Verey & Brooks 2002). There was a restoration by Francis Niblett in 1871.
The Romanesque remains are the blocked round-headed N doorway and a font, 'exceptionally beautiful in its simplicity' (Verey, 1976, 268).