The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
Hampshire (now)
Parish church
Whitsbury is a small village in the NW part of the New Forest, 7 miles S of Salisbury. It has been a part of Hampshire only since 1895, when 8 parishes on the SE edge of Wiltshire (South Damerham, Martin, Melchet Park, Plaitford, West Wellow, Toyd Farm with Allenford, Whitsbury and East Bramshaw) were transferred. The village straggles along a minor road that runs N from Fordingbridge and peters out into a lane when the settlement ends. At this point there is a large Iron Age enclosure called Whitsbury Castle Ditches. The church is reached by a long and rising lane that leaves the village street on its E side. St Leonard’s consists of a nave, a chancel with a N vestry and a W tower, the lower storey of whuich serves as a porch. Construction is mainly of flint and some brick with stone dressings, except for the tower which is all of brick, and is odd in having a chamfered lower stage and a square upper stage with a pyramidal roof. The church was rebuilt in 1877-78 following the grant of a faculty to the Rector, Rev. Fortescue Purvis, but fragments of window tracery and other medieval worked stone are preserved in the tower porch. Among these is the object perhaps best described as a stoup with Romanesque features that is recorded below.
Parish church
Rockbourne is a village on the NW edge of the New Forest, 3 miles N of Fordingbridge and 7 miles S of Salisbury. The village extends along a minor road linking Fordingbridge and the A354, with the church and manor house at the N end. St Andrew’s was a cruciform church in the 12thc, and of this the early-12thc arch into the former N transept (now a vestry) survives, along with the lower courses of the jambs of a W doorway. A S aisle was added to the nave at the end of the 13thc, and in the 15thc the S transept was joined to the nave aisle, the chancel was rebuilt and a S chapel was added. A tiled and weatherboarded bell-turret was added in 1613. In a restoration of 1893, C. F. Ponting added a S porch. The only Romanesque feature described here is the arch to the N transept.
Parish church
Longparish is towards the N of the county, 3 miles E of Andover. It extends for some 3 miles along the valley of the river Test, including the settlements of East and West Ashton, Middleton, Forton and Gavelacre. Middleton is the oldest of them, and it is under that name (Middeltune) that it is recorded in the Domesday Survey and throughout the Middle Ages. The name of Longparish was not generally used before the mid-16thc. The church in Midddleton, and stands between the road through the villages and the river to the S, on the low-lying pasture land of the flood plain. To the W, between Longparish and Andover, is Harewood Forest.
St Nicholas’ church is of flint and has an aisled nave with 4-bay arcades of c1200 or slightly later, a 19thc organ chamber off the N aisle and a S doorway. The S doorway is 13thc and is protected by a 19thc timber porch. The organ chamber arch is said to be old, but if so it has been almost entirely replaced. Most of the aisle windows are ogee-headed triplets dating from the 19thc restoration, but the end walls of both aisles have reticulated windows of c1320. The chancel has a c1200 S doorway and windows of the same period or slightly later. The chancel arch is of a similar date too, and the pillar piscina is 13thc, with stiff-leaf decoration. On the N side of the chancel is a vestry. At the W end, the tower is of the early 16thc with a NW turret and battlemented parapet. It is decorated overall with chequered flushwork. There was a major restoration of the nave in 1853. Before that date the nave had a clerestory and lead-covered roofs; the aisle roofs being of a very low pitch. The restorers increased the pitch of the aisle roofs to meet the main vessel roof, thereby obscuring the clerestory, and all roofs were tiled. The end walls of the nave and aisles were rebuilt to match the new roof arrangements. In 1956-58 another major restoration included the replacement of worn exterior stonework, the shoring up of the E wall, the waterproofing of exterior walls and the replacement of the interior mortar render with a thin lime wash. At the same time, the improving texts covering the inner walls that had been completed in 1884 were cleaned off. Replacement of the 19thc roof tiles was carried out from 1984. The church presents problems, therefore, in that many of its original features are probably slightly too late for inclusion, and all of them have been heavily restored or completely replaced in the 19thc. The S chancel doorway is recorded here, along with the nave arcades; probably early 13thc but including such Romanesque ornament as trumpet scallop capitals.
Parish church
The church has a 13thc chancel with some alarming post-medieval buttresses stopping it falling out into the road, and an aisled nave roofed in a single span. The wooden bellcote and shingled spirelet is over the E end of the nave, likely a nod to the crossing tower at the mother church of the island, South Hayling. The S arcade appears to be Early English of the 13thc, but the capitals of the N arcade are the latest Romanesque of the late 12thc.
Parish church
West Tytherley is in central W Hampshire, seven miles NW of Romsey and less than a mile from the Wiltshire border. The country here is rolling and wooded with mixed pasture and arable cultivation. The village is just over a mile S of the Roman road from Old Sarum to Winchester, and the church stand at the S end of the village centre.
St Peter’s consists of a nave with a south porch, chancel and W tower. The nave, porch and tower are of 1833 by G. R. Guthrie; the nave entirely of brick and the porch and tower of brick and knapped flint. All of this is in a Georgian style; the nave broad with a W gallery carried on slim shafts. In 1877 a grey ashlar chancel was added by J. Colson, and the square-headed Perpendicular style windows in the nave and tower must be of that date.
This church replaced a medieval one that stood in the churchyard across the road to the E. It was described as ruinous in a meeting held on 26th December 1831, and its demolition began on the same day. The foundation stone of the new church was laid on 14th March 1832, and it was consecrated on 19th April 1833. The site and £500 towards the cost of the new church were provided by the Lord of the Manor, Charles Baring Wall. A drawing of the old church, now in the vestry, shows it to have been a two-cell building with a W bell turret, apparently 13thc in style. The only Romanesque sculpture is the Purbeck marble font.
Parish church
Stoke Charity is in rolling woodland and sheep pasture in central Hampshire, 6 miles N of Winchester, and is one of a chain of villages than runs along the valley of the river Dever, many of which form the present benefice. The tiny village is on the S side of the river, with the church now standing alone in fields to the N of the centre, close to the riverbank. The manor, originally SW of the church, was demolished c1730, and the widening of the river to the NW of the church is probably connected with the provision of manor fishponds. The Iron Age hillfort of Norsebury Ring is half a mile to the N of the church, across the river.
The nave has a W bell turret carrying a short broach spire; both tower and spire clad in wooden shingles. It also has a N aisle and a 19thc timber S porch. The chancel has a N chapel linked to the nave aisle by an arch. The nave must be 12thc, although its S wall was rebuilt and it was lengthened westward in the early 14thc, and its doorway and W and S windows are of this period. The 2-bay N arcade is 12thc, however, as is the arch to the N chapel from the aisle and a small doorway, curiously set at the E end of the aisle. The aisle N windows are 19thc replacements and its W window is of c1300. The chancel arch is 12thc, but the chancel is otherwise late 13thc, with S windows and a piscina of that date. The E wall has been rebuilt in brick and a 3-light Perpendicular window of 1907, said to reproduce the design of a 15thc window and incorporating some 15thc glass, is set in it. The present N chapel is 15thc., built by Thomas Hampton (d.1483) and his wife Isabella (d.1475), whose tombs it houses. The 15thc chapel clearly replaced an earlier one on the site, as is demonstrated by the 12thc arch from the N aisle and traces of c1200 wallpainting on the S wall. It was restored in 1946. The exterior is of flint except the E chancel wall, rebuilt in brick, and the timber porch, bell-turret and spire. Romanesque features are the N arcade, the chancel arch, the arch from the aisle to the N chapel, the N aisle doorway and a pillar piscina head mortared to the N chapel window sill (described as a loose stone below).
Parish church
Hurstbourne Priors is in NW Hampshire, four miles E of Andover. It lies in the valley of a tributary of the Test. The village clusters around a crossroads S of the important Roman road known as the Portway, which runs through St Mary Bourne 2½ miles to the N. The church is N of the village centre, and E of it is the wooded expanse of Hurstbourne Park, site of the manor house. The medieval manor house was immediately E of the church, on a site known as the Cascades where 14thc masonry and Tudor bricks have been found on the river bed. By the 18thc the estates belonged to the Earls of Portsmouth. A later house on the same site was demolished in 1785, and replaced by another site on high ground further N, site of the present house, now known as Hurstbourne Park and dating partly from 1894.
St Andrew’s is substantially a rebuilding of 1870 by Clark and Holland, retaining or reusing some ancient material. It consists of a nave with a transeptal S chapel, now housing the organ, a chancel with a N chapel, now used as a vestry, and a W tower. The tower was rebuilt in 1870 by Clark and Holland in yellow brick with ashlar dressings, in a neo-Romanesque style but reusing the 12thc doorway. The arch to the N chapel is also a recycled Norman piece that might originally have been the chancel arch. The nave is of knapped flint and was rebuilt in 1870 with windows in a Perpendicular style. The 18thc transeptal S chapel is of red brick. The chancel is substantially early 13thc, with lancets and a priest’s doorway of that date on the S side. The N chapel is 16thc and is rendered in mortar outside. A view of 1835 shows much the same arrangement of elements, but with a shorter tower of indeterminate date capped by a conical roof. The church also houses a chevron-decorated font, probably 12thc rather than 19thc but grotesquely over restored. A new font carved by Marilyn Smith was installed in 2008.
Parish church
Minstead is a village in the New Forest in SW Hampshire, 8 miles W of Southampton and 2 miles N of Lyndhurst. The village is compact, and consists of a public house and mixed housing on the edge a large area of woodland known as Manor Wood. The N side of the church faces the village, and presents a curiously residential aspect thanks to its brick and tile construction, its gabled N chapel, transept and porch, and the dormer windows in the nave. It consists of a nave and a raised chancel with a broad 13thc chancel arch. On the N side of the nave is a porch, then a gabled vestry alongside the nave, and a N chapel alongside the chancel. Thers is another vestry on the S side of the chancel, and on the S side of the nave a very long, broad and low transept. The interior presents a crowded apprearance owing to the double gallery that occupies the W end and part of the N side of the nave. This timber feature is dated by three inscriptions to 1661, 1814 and 2000. At the W end of the nave is a brick tower. The only Romanesque feature is the font.
Parish church, formerly chapel
Exbury is a village on the SE edge of the New Forest, on a peninsula formed by the Beaulieu River estuary to the W and Southampton Water to the E. The village clusters around a bend in a broad lane that runs from Dibden and Beaulieu to the coast, a mile S of the village centre. The present church of St Katherine was built by J. Oldrid Scott and Son in 1907, and consists of a nave and chancel in one with a S doorway under a stone porch and a short tower at the W end of the nave on the N side. The interior is dominated by the 2-bay Forster Chapel on the ground floor of the tower, commemorating John and Alfred Forster who were killed in the Great War. The chapel contains a bronze soldier’s effigy on a tomb chest. The chancel is flanked to the N by an organ loft and to the S by a vestry.
VCH (1908) describes a different building on the same site – a rectangular yellow brick church of no known dedication, built by William Mitford and consecrated in 1827. The medieval church, demolished in 1827, was a mile to the S at Lower Exbury, where the Beaulieu River runs into the Solent. The only Romanesque feature is the Purbeck font, transferred from the medieval church via Mitford’s church to the present one.
Parish church, formerly chapel
Brockenhurst is in the New Forest, 3½ miles S of Lyndhurst on the road to Lymington. The village is now a large one of around 4,000 people, and practically all of it is to the W of the railway line from Southampton that opened in 1848. The original village of Brockenhurst lay to the E of the line, and of the present A337 road to the coast, and was centred around the church and Brockenhurst Park. The development of the village on the opposite side of the tracks was due largely to the influence of the Morant family, owners of the manor and Brockenhurst Park and much of the land in the village, who wished to preserve the rural nature of the historic centre. There is little farming here now; the New Forest and the coastal resorts providing tourist attractions and the railway allowing easy commuter access to Southampton and Bournemouth.
St Nicholas is on high ground to the E of the village; cut off by the railway line (which still has a level crossing) and sited on the edge of Brockenhurst Park. The church has a nave with a N aisle and a S porch, a chancel with a N vestry, and a W tower with a spire and a small N vestry alongside it. The nave has a 12thc S doorway under a simple stone 13thc porch. It is lit by a two-light square headed S window, dated by heraldry to the mid-16thc, and a modern dormer at theW end of the S wall. The N aisle is of 1832, of brick and separated from the nave by well-spaced, slender shafts, presumably of iron. Inside, a wooden W gallery runs continuously across the nave and aisle. The organ stands on the nave gallery, while the section above the aisle has seating. The chancel arch is plain and round-headed, and may be 12thc too, although there is some doubt about this. The chancel is of c1300 or slightly earlier, with Y-tracery windows and a late-13thc piscina. Both nave and chancel are of rough stone blocks covered with flaking render, but it is clear from their junction on the S that they were not built together, and there is some herringbone masonry in the nave only. The N vestry is apparently contemporary with the aisle. The tower, dated to 1761, is of brick and its spire rises from a curious domed base. The spire and its base are clad in mathematical tiles. The small vestry N of the tower was added in 1908. The church also contains a Purbeck marble font.