The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
Northamptonshire (now), "St Peter’s, Northampton"
Parish church
All Saints' has an aisled and clerestoreyed nave of four bays with arcades and S aisle windows
of c.1300 but Perpendicular windows in the clerestorey and the N aisle. The chancel has a plain 12thc. doorway, and there is another, more
elaborate but not much, re-set in the S nave aisle under a Perpendicular
porch. A N vestry has been
added to the chancel. At the W is a low tower with a
bell stage of c.1250-1300. Construction is of irregular stone (aisles
and tower) or ashlar (clerestorey and chancel). Included here are the S doorway and the
font.
Parish church
St John's has an early 12thc. nave to which three-bay aisles were added c.1170-80. One of the original
nave windows is visible on either side. A clerestorey
was added in the 14thc. The nave doorways are both 14thc., the N now leads to a
modern octagonal parish room, while the S is under a porch. The chancel is 12thc. too;
again one of the original windows is visible on the N, with a two-bay N aisle added at the same time as the nave aisles. It is
possible, as Thorneycroft suggests, that there was a similar arrangement of the
S side, but if so it is difficult to see why this was entirely rebuilt in the
following century whereas the N arcade was simply
augmented. At some time in the 13thc. the N aisle was extended by one
bay, and a three-bay S aisle
added. This is now a chapel, while its counterpart on the N is taken up by the
organ and vestry. The chancel
was lengthened in the later 14thc., and a crypt added
under the extension. The west tower is 14thc. work, and refaced in its upper
parts. It has an octagonal ashlar spire with three sets of lucarnes. There was
a complete restoration in 1863, by Slater of Carlton Chambers, London. This
included the replacement of the chancel arch and east
wall, the rebuilding of the nave clerestorey and the N
nave arcade, the rebuilding of the NE corner of the
tower and west end of the north aisle, and the rebuilding of the south aisle
wall on a new line. It was at this time that the original nave and
chancel windows were rediscovered. Construction of the
church is largely of ashlar. The Romanesque features recorded here are both
nave arcades and the chancel N
arcade.
Parish church
Paulerspury comprises a W tower, and an aisled and clerestoreyed nave with N and S porches and an Early English chancel with a two-bay chapel on its N side. Apart from the tower it was largely rebuilt in the 1840s.
Parish church
The core of the church is the original circular nave, now called the Round, with an annular aisle and an arcade supported on eight columns with early Romanesque capitals of various designs. The aisle wall retains one original respond with its capital. The columns now support chamfered pointed arches carrying an octagonal clerestorey wall pierced by square-headed double lights. This upper section belongs to a rebuilding of c.1375. To the E of the Round and reached by steps was originally the Romanesque unaisled chancel, terminating in an apse, and this remains as the nave and chancel of the present church. A two-bay N aisle was added to it c.1200. A second N aisle was added later, and in the 14thc. a S aisle was added. As it stands, therefore, the church has four parallel naves, terminating at their E ends with (from N to S) a vestry, the Chapel of St Thomas, the chancel with an apse, and the Chapel of St George, but it will be seen that much of the fabric is 19thc. At the W end, the original W doorway was demolished and a tower with a spire added in the 14thc. By the 17thc. only the Round was in regular use, and the rest of the church fell into disrepair. The choir and the outer N aisle were demolished. In 1851 the tower was struck by lightning, and in that year George Gilbert Scott was engaged to carry out a thorough restoration of the entire church. He rebuilt what had been lost, including the outer N aisle and the chancel with its flanking chapels, and the church was reopened in 1864. The vestry at the end of the N outer aisle was added in 1887. The Romanesque sculpture falls into two groups. The main arcade piers and their capitals belong to the original fabric of c.1110, as does the single remaining aisle wall vault respond. To these must be attached a small tympanum now set inside the aisle wall, and the corbels of the original chancel (now visible high on the inner walls of the S and inner N aisles). The N doorway of the Round is of c.1170-80.
Parish church
St Luke's was originally a cruciform church and retains its central
tower. The form of the original nave is visible on the W facade, and apparently
had no aisles. The nave has N and S aisles, extended eastwards to subsume the
former transepts, providing N and S chapels. The N chapel now houses lavatories
and a kitchen, and the S is used as a vestry. The
crossing has narrow arches to N and S, and broader,
taller ones to E and W. All four are apparently 14thc., as is the upper part of
the tower, although the lower storey may be 12thc. The nave has a
clerestorey on the S side only, and there are N and S
doorways in the aisles, the S early 13thc. under a porch, and the W windows are also 13thc. work. The
three-bay nave arcades and the
aisle windows date from c.1300, but the W respond of the S arcade is 12thc. An
altar has been installed at the W end of the nave in addition to that at the E
end of the chancel, to make St Luke's a double-ended
church with the two liturgical spaces separated by the crossing.
The font is 12thc.
Parish church
The church has a 13thc. chancel as shown by a small lancet in the N wall, now opening into the N chapel. There is a S chapel too, and both now give onto a wide, approximately square nave. This had aisles originally but after a storm in 1821 they were removed and the present nave created. The windows in the side walls are large and pointed with gothick Y-tracery. The wooden gallery at the west end dates from 1924. The nave has N and S doorways; the S of c.1200 under a porch, the N slightly later, single-order, continuous, pointed and chamfered and completely plain. This now gives access to an L-shaped suite of modern vestries and offices that surrounds the NW angle of the nave, abutting the N wall of the west tower. The tower arch from the nave is of c.1200, and the tower itself is very tall and of four slightly stepped storeys with a blocked c.1200 window in the S wall of the third storey. The fourth storey is Perpendicular with transomed bell-openings and battlements. The Romanesque features described here are the S doorway and the tower arch.
Redundant parish church
St Peter's is the finest 12thc. church in the county, and its capital sculpture is one of the highlights of the Romanesque in England. There is no structural division between nave and chancel, and the exterior treatment is uniform throughout the length of the building except for the low W tower. Nave and chancel are aisled and decorated externally at clerestorey level with blind arcading and a corbel table. Within there is no chancel arch; the division between nave and chancel being marked by a low step and the position of the choirstalls. The chancel arcades are of three bays, and both aisles are now used as vestries. In both nave and chancel the clerestorey windows are fairly regularly spaced, but their spacing is greater than a bay but less than two, so their positions vary in relation to the piers. The chancel has no provision for vaulting or roof support whereas in the nave every second pier has a respond on the nave side, running up the wall to a capital at the top, and a transverse arch respond on the aisle side. The nave aisle arches are gone now, but arch springings are sometimes visible. Intermediate piers are cylindrical. The nave arcades are five bays long (two and a half double bays), and the beginning of another bay at the W end of either arcade indicates that the nave was originally longer. It was shortened from six bays in the 17thc. when the W tower was rebuilt approximately 3m E of its original position. There are N and S nave doorways, the N under a porch.
The original tower arch was rebuilt, and shows some inaccuracies in assembly. The present tower is three storeys high with a battlemented parapet, and the western angles are buttressed by triple shafts, their diameters diminishing in stages. The middle storey is decorated with arcading and corbels, some dating from the rebuilding and some reused from the original tower or perhaps from the removed W bays of the nave clerestorey. Reset in the W wall of the tower is the arch of the original W doorway. The church is built of blocks of roughly coursed reddish sandstone (ironstone) and yellowish oolitic limestone. These are laid in decorative bands in the lower part of the tower, and there is some decorative alternation in the external blind arcading of nave and chancel, although this may not be original. Within, the lighter limestone is used throughout, except for the arches of the arcade, which use both more or less decoratively. In the 17thc. the nave was shortened by one bay, the tower being rebuilt as described above, and at the same time the original E end was demolished and a wall built across the chancel in line with the E responds of the arcade. The present E end was added by G. G. Scott in his restoration of 1850, apparently following the original foundations. Scott's E facade incorporates a central shaft with a 12thc. capital. He also rebuilt much of the clerestorey and replaced the roofs. Scott's restoration report is published in Serjeantson (1904), 259-64. In addition to the 12thc. fabric described above, St Peter's houses several loose carved stones and an important grave-slab. In 2016 it was taken into the care of the Churches Conservation Trust.
Parish church
St John's has a clerestoreyed nave with three-bay aisles, the N arcade with a short 12thc. W bay separated from the eastern part of the arcade by a short length of wall. The two E bays are also round-headed, with stiff-leaf capitals of c.1200. The S nave arcade is round-headed too, but the capitals and the aisle date from the restoration of 1842. The chancel has N and S chapels; the N, of two bays has an arcade of c.1300, and is now used for a crèche and vestry. The S of one bay, housing the organ, is 19thc. Both nave doorways are under porches, but the N porch has been extended eastwards and converted for use as a kitchen and lavatories. The W tower is 13thc. in its lower parts, with 14thc. bell-openings and added diagonal buttresses, and a quatrefoil frieze and embattled parapet added at the top. The only feature described below is the N nave arcade.
Parish church
Greens Norton is a substantial village in the S of the county, a mile NW of Towcester and less than a mile from Watling Street, the main Roman road running NW out of London. The church is in the village centre. It has a W tower with a spire, an aisled nave and a two-bay chancel. The easternmost bay of the nave is separated from the two western bays by heavy piers which appear to represent the end of an aisleless Anglo-Saxon nave. They include long and short work and carry a cross wall with a blocked, triangular-headed window. A continuous hammerbeam roof over the E bay of the nave and the chancel renders the liturgical divisions of the church ambiguous. The only Romanesque feature is the font.
Parish church
St John's is a simple stone and rubble church with an aisled nave with
three-bay
arcades, square-ended
chancel and an unbuttressed W tower, all to a small
scale. Despite its simplicity the tower is early
14thc., and of the rest only the 13thc., N arcade is
original, the S aisle and its arcade dating from E. F.
Law's restoration of 1859, and the remainder due to H. C. Vernon (1873). It
retains a 12thc. font, carved with foliage but unfortunately positioned hard
against a pier.