The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
North Yorkshire (now)
Parish church
Brompton is a village about two miles N of Northallerton, and is on the S side of Brompton Beck, a tributary of the River Wiske. The church occupies a central position in the village, adjacent to the village green. The building has 12thc origins and is of coursed squared stone and ashlars. The church comprises a continuous chancel and nave extended eastwards and westwards during the 14thc, with a N aisle, and a 15thc SW tower of three stages above the porch. Several hogback tombs, a cross shaft and other pieces of Anglo-Danish origin, of exceptional quality, have been conserved within the church. A comprehensive programme of restoration of the church was the begun in 1863. The surviving Romanesque element is the arcade in the N aisle.
Parish church
The church stands high on the N side of the Great Wold Valley and above the main W-E section of the course of the Gypsey Race stream before it turns at Burton Fleming and Rudston. To the immediate E of the church is the site of an early medieval manor house, which has been excavated (Brewster, 1972; Norton, 2006, fig. 11).
The church, with its W tower, nave and chancel, largely retains its Norman form (Bilson, 1922, 52), although elements were restored in 1870-72 by G. E. Street. It was faced with well-cut coursed ashlar blocks in the Norman technique (Norton, 2006, 55).
There are three doorways with tympana: one in the chancel and two opposite each other in the nave. One of the stones that forms the tympanum over the S doorway is an inscribed sun-dial with an inscription, which means that this church can be dated to c.1109-c.1118. Sculptural embellishment of the building is otherwise almost non-existent, apart from the capitals of the belfry windows and an unusual impost profile on the chancel and tower arches; there are no corbels. The cylindrical font is patterned.
Parish church
The church is a neat Victorian building, 1863-4; it has a chancel, aisled nave and W bellcote. This modern church retains several remnants of the medieval building: two small carved heads reset in the porch are later than Romanesque (Pevsner and Neave 1995, 616-7).
Of relevance to our period are an altar slab, a cylindrical font, a possible stoup and a pillar piscina.
Parish church
The present church is a complete construction of 1835 by John Barry. The single Romanesque feature is a reset arch incorporated into a lychgate.
The chapel destroyed in 1835 to facilitate the new building was a small 12thc building with an aisleless nave and chancel. The richly sculpted arch of the south door was re-erected in the churchyard wall to form the main entrance where it has weathered (VCH. Vol 2, 424).
Parish church
The church has a west tower, an aisled nave and chancel; a S porch off the nave and a N vestry off the chancel. The fabric is coursed rubble and ashlar; the earliest work used sandstones probably of Roman origin, and the later work used Magnesian limestone. There was a restoration in 1876-77 under J. L. Pearson (Borthwick Fac. 1876/8; with plans). The manor house is thought to have been south of the church, at a large moated site over the road.
The church is known for its pre-Conquest tower, the lowest stage of which has been dated to c. 950; an upper stage has 11thc twin bell-openings; the arch to the nave is ‘pattern-book Saxon’ (Pevsner and Neave, 1995, 687).
Only one part of the nave arcade falls within the definition of Romanesque; the rest is later. The feature relevant to this Corpus is pier 2 of the N arcade.
Parish church
A large church of greyish white limestone with a tall spire about a mile and a half from Selby Abbey. To the NE, the Victorian extension of Selby along Brook Street, with hospital and schools, comes close, and to the SW is Brayton itself. The church has green spaces immediately around it; most of these areas are known to flood seasonally; the churchyard itself has an area that floods quite often. Since the 12th-century parts of the church are unlikely to have much footings, and certainly no damp course, the parts of interest to this Corpus are seen to be suffering worst from efflorescence (rising damp) and algal growth (constant damp), not only externally but on internal walls as well. The decay is accelerating, as comparing the earlier photos with the recent ones may demonstrate. The church comprises W tower, aisled nave, S porch; chancel and N vestry. The unbuttressed tower is largely of 12thc date, up to and including the corbels on the four sides. The chancel arch also remains largely intact except where restored. The S doorway of three orders was reset from its original position when the S aisle was added. The N arcade was cut in the N wall of the Norman nave. The nave and chancel seem unusually spacious, this is perhaps because there is no chancel step but only a step at the sanctuary.
A restoration by J. L. Pearson, c.1877 or so (Borthwick Instituete Fac.1877/3) repaired damage but was not excessively zealous; Pearson probably added the porch, but, as at Riccall, this has added to the problems of damp. Previous work done about 1868 is likely to have been responsible for some of the over-heavy restoration treatment on the chancel arch, such as tinkering with heads, and the bolder label.
Traces of medieval paint remain on S arcade bay 3 (that is, on a surface later than the Romanesque), on 12thc work on the N side of the tower arch, nave face of third order, and on a medallion of the S doorway. Internally, on the W wall of the nave above the tower arch, can be seen the original roof line, and also a rectangular opening, now blocked. There is a similar rectangular opening in the wall above the chancel arch. This too is blocked. The quality of the sculpture is high, the state of preservation generally good inside the church, but worsening on the doorway due to damp from ground water and the lack of a damp course combined with the restricted circulation of air within the porch. To summarise, items of interest here are the S doorway, chancel arch, tower arch, font, and corbels on the tower.
Parish church
Riccall is a village about 3.5 miles N of Selby and 9 miles S of York. The church of St Mary lies to the centre of the village and is built of local Magnesian limestone. The building consists of a late 13thc chancel; nave with clerestory and 15thc battlements; late 12thc and early 13thc nave arcades; N and S chapels off the chancel, and a Norman W tower with bell-openings of c.1170-90. Between 1862 and 1877 the church was restored by John Loughborough Pearson, who rebuilt and heightened the tower, rebuilt the roofs and, significantly, rebuilt thye porch and the S aisle wall. During this rebuilding the S doorway was not taken down but left in place, propped up (see photograph).
The church is known for its ‘Yorkshire School’ doorway, c.1150-60. The doorway is thought to have been reset twice, first when a S aisle was made in the late 12thc or early 13thc (see off-centre round-headed slit window at W end of S aisle), and again when the aisle was widened to the present limits in the 15thc. At the second rebuilding if not before, the original sequence of voussoirs was lost, as is clear from the disruption of the conventional order of Adam, Eve and the serpent in the tree (order one, voussoirs 4, 5 and 2); there are other discrepancies. Between voussoirs 6 and 7 of the first order is a triangle of mortar causing a slight pointedness in the arch.
Parish church
Oswaldkirk is a village about 20 miles N of York and the church stands along the main road of the village. The present building replaces a church of Saxon origins of which very little survives (see Comments); it is rather small and consists of a nave and a chancel. Despite the extensive restoration of 1868, much of the original Norman fabric of the building has survived, including the nave walls with doorways to both N and S sides and a window. There are several carved fragments in the porch.
Parish church
Long Marston is a village 7 miles W of York, near the site of a Civil War battlefield. The church is at the S end of Long Marston and adjacent to the hamlet of Hutton Wandesley.
The present church was rebuilt on this site in 1400 (Sherlock 2004, 114), reusing features possibly from two local churches (see History). Restored 1869 (Leach and Pevsner 2009, 578). There is no porch now, though there seems to have been one when Stephen Glynne visited in 1865 (Butler 2007, 267).
The exterior walls are largely rubble above three courses of cut Magnesian limestone; the W tower is ashlar. Nave and chancel in one, with massive plain N arcade, and N aisle. Vestry to N of chancel. There are two deeply splayed 12thc. windows with narrow openings in the chancel, one on the N and one on the S wall; another to the E of the nave doorway. The S doorway to the chancel is round-headed, plain, chamfered, and blocked. The only sculpture is in the fine S doorway to the nave.
Parish church
The village is on the main road A65, between Skipton and Settle. It has farms, Victorian and earlier houses, and a railway station. The church has a W tower, a nave with aisles, and a chancel that was rebuilt in 1868. The arcades seem 14thc. The font is the only remaining Romanesque element.