The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
Staffordshire (now)
Parish church
Tamworth stands on the river Tame in the extreme SE of the county. The Warwickshire border is just 2 miles to the E, but until 1888 it ran through the centre of Tamworth. The historic centre is on the N bank with Tamworth Castle overlooking the river and St Editha's church just to the N, occupying the N side of St Editha's Square, which is now a market place.The oldest parts of the church show that it was once a 12thc. cruciform building, and of this there remain the N and S crossing arches; the W crossing arch embrasures and the S chancel wall containing a doorway and a window above, and now enclosed by a later aisle. For the rest, the church is largely that built by Dean Baldwin de Witney after a fire in 1345. It was then that the decision was taken to replace the crossing tower with one at the W end, and to remove the E and W crossing arches, so that there is an unbroken vista from W to E. The aisled nave is of four bays with a clerestory; the arcades and clerestory dating from the 14thc., but the N aisle wall and its doorway of the 13thc., indicating that a N aisle had been added before the fire. The transepts do not project beyond the aisles. The chancel E wall is 19thc. The N chancel chapel (St George's Chapel) is separated from the main vessel by a row of three open tomb canopies dating from the post-fire rebuilding. They contain the effigies of (from W to E), a couple, probably Sir Baldwin Freville (d.1400) and his wife, a lady, possibly Lady Joan de Freville (d.1339), and Sir Thomas Ferrers (d.1512) and his wife Ann. St George's chapel extends as far as the E wall of the chancel. On the S side of the chancel the Romanesque wall extends to the E end (with two levels of 14thc. windows added at the E). The E end of the S aisle is all 19thc. work, containing the organ and a vestry. Photography of the exterior of the 12thc. S chancel wall is thus seriously impeded. At the W end of the nave, the tower dates from the 14thc.-15thc., and boasts a double spiral stair at its SW angle. It has heavy pinnacles at the angles and an embattled parapet, behind which an octagonal stump of masonry suggests that a spire was intended.The church was restored three times in the 19thc.; by Ferrey and later Scott in the 1850s, and by Butterfield in the 1870s. Prints and drawings in the William Salt library are: NE view 1792 (SV X 91), E view undated (SV X 95a), NE view Buckler 1838 (SV X 92), SW view Buckler 1838 (SV X 94), SE view Buckler 1838 (SV X 93).
Parish church
The church is set at the northern edge of the extensive grounds of Weston Park, a great house built by Sir Thomas and Lady Wilbraham in 1671, to the Lady's designs. There was an older church on the site, which Lady Wilbraham largely pulled down, retaining the W tower and the E wall of the chancel, with its 14thc. three-light reticulated E window. The present nave and chancel are a single box-like space, with a family chapel and a vestry facing one another across the chancel (added by Ewan Christian in 1876-77). The tower has tiny W diagonal buttresses and is largely 14thc. work. The tower arch is tall, pointed and continuous. Set in the interior S wall of the tower are two 12thc. carved stones from the old church. They were discovered and set here during G. E. Street's restoration of 1869-70.
Parish church
Pattingham is in the SW of the county, close to the Shropshire border. The outer suburbs of Wolverhampton are only two miles away to the E, but the western prospect is of hilly farmland towards the Severn and the Shropshire Hills. The village centre retains some of its ancient charm, but the building of dormitory estates to the S and E has changed its scale and character significantly.The church is of red sandstone and has an aisled and clerestoried nave with a second aisle added on the N side, a chancel and a W tower with spire. The nave is very short; shorter than the chancel, but its aisles extend W alongside the tower, and E alongside the chancel. The inner N aisle is narrow, and the outer N and the S aisle are much wider. Making sense of this rather complex structure requires a chronological approach. The earliest surviving fabric is the two bay
arcade of the N inner aisle, which dates from the end of the 12thc. The church ofc.1200 must have had a chancel, and probably a W tower. In the early 13thc. the S aisle was added and the chancel was replaced by the present attractive Early English one. The next major change took place around 1330, when the tower was replaced and the S aisle rebuilt. The new tower arches to N, S and E were wide, opening the space up and effectively lengthening the nave. Around this time too, the S aisle was widened and lengthened; alongside the new tower to the W, and alongside the chancel to the E. All its windows are reticulated, and those of the chapel are larger than those in the nave aisle proper, but all the windows belong to the 19thc. restorations. A view by Buckler of 1846 (William Salt Library SV VII 158) shows the E window of the S chapel with reticulated tracery, implying that the mid-19thc. replacements were copies of the originals. The clerestory also dates from this period (it appears in the early-19thc. views), but it is heavily restored. There was a fire in Pattingham in 1665, but while the village was devastated the church seems to have escaped major damage. The church was comprehensively restored from 1856-93, largely thanks to the generosity of the patron, the 5th Earl of Dartmouth, and the vicar from 1844-1900, W. G. Greenstreet. George Gilbert Scott was involved in this work. The N outer aisle and the vestry were built, paid for by the vicar, the chancel, nave and S aisle were restored and the S porch added, and in 1871 the spire was built to Scott's design. Major restoration continued in the 20thc. The flying buttresses were repaired in the 1960s and the tower and spire in the '80s and '90s. Antiquarian drawings show the tower before the spire was added, with a low pyramid roof. The most interesting are those from the N, illustrating the elevation before the building of the outer N aisle. A view ofc.1800 attributed to R. Paddey (SV VII 160b) shows the church and the vicarage from the NE, and the original N aisle had apparently been widened and refenestrated at that time. The Georgian vicarage still survives. The only Romanesque sculpture is in the N nave arcade.
Parish church
Armitage is in central south Staffordshire, to the E of Cannock Chase
and 2 miles SE of Rugeley. The village is built along the A513 road from
Rugeley to Handsacre, and the latter and Armitage now form a continuous
conurbation. This road follows the line of the River Trent, and St John's is
built on a sandstone outcrop overlooking the river. Except for its W tower, St John's was pulled down and rebuilt between
1844 and 1847 by Henry Ward of Stafford. The nave has very wide aisles, with
the windows, the four-bay
arcades and the S doorway executed in a lavish Romanesque
style with a good deal of chevron and scallop capitals
of varied forms. The S doorway is said to be a copy of the 12thc. original,
pieces of which have been used in the construction of a churchyard cross to the
S of the church. In fact the doorway itself contains some original stones,
heavily restored, while the churchyard cross is entirely 19thc. work. The
chancel arch is neo-Romanesque, and the chancel has a N chapel with a three-bay
arcade in a 13thc. style (although
the arch from the nave aisle is neo-Romanesque). The tower arch is Ward's work
- neo-Romanesque to match the nave - but the tower is of 1632 and is all that
remains of the old church. There is an 1823 view by Buckler from the SE in the
William Salt Library (SV 1 74a) showing the old church without a S aisle or an
imposing N chapel, but with a S porch, and one of 1844
showing the same building with no porch (SV 1 73). Two
views of 1845 show the new building under construction (SV 1 76 and 77). There
are also views of the S doorway by Buckler (SV 1 74b and 80). The font is a
savagely magnificent example of early Romanesque figure carving; perhaps the
finest and certainly the most alien-looking piece of medieval sculpture in the
county.
Parish church
Swynnerton is an attractive village on a low hill just 6 miles S of Newcastle-under-Lyme. It is centred on the church and the hall just to the S, the latter standing in Swynnerton Park. A view of the hall from the SW, published in 1821, shows the church in the background (William Salt Library SV X 59b). St Mary's has an aisled and clerestoried nave, a chancel with a S chapel (the Lady Chapel, now a vestry) and a W tower. The nave is 12thc. in origin, and of large, irregular ashlar blocks. It retains a round-headed W window and a W doorway to the tower. The tower itself is also 12thc. in its lower parts, including another W doorway (which Pevsner suggests is re-set here), but in the 14thc. diagonal buttresses were added and the upper stage rebuilt in more regular ashlar. Drawings of 1838 and 1841 (William Salt Library SV X 59a and 60) show the parapet with urns at the corners. The form of the five-bay nave arcades and a dogtooth stringcourse at the top of the nave walls indicate that the aisles were added in the 13thc. The clerestory has quatrefoil openings of the same period. The E bay of the each nave aisle has been enlarged to form a chapel; the S Perpendicular and battlemented, the N 13thc. in style but perhaps 19thc. (it does not appear in the 1838 drawing noted above). There is a 13thc. S doorway under a porch. The chancel arch is 13thc., with nailhead on moulded capitals and detached en-delit shafts, and the chancel is of the same date. The details of the S chancel chapel indicate that it was added in the early 14thc. Beneath it is the Fitzherbert family vault. Romanesque sculpture, elaborate for the county, appears on the two W doorways.
Parish church
St Leonard's has an aisleless nave, chancel and W tower. The nave is broad and has a S doorway under a porch and a battlemented parapet. The chancel is the same height and width as the nave, and shares the same roof and parapet. It has screened-off vestries to N and south, the S vestry now housing the organ. The tower has two storeys and angle buttresses. There are pinnacles rising from the bottom of the upper storey and a battlemented parapet. The church is of red sandstone ashlar and was begunc.1787, although the style is largely ofc.1300-50, to judge from the window tracery. It was commissioned by John Sneyd of Belmont Hall, who had quarrelled with the incumbent of the old church of St Leonard. The argument was resolved, and the old church became Chapel House. The present church was restored by Giles Gilbert Scott jr in 1877. The chancel was rebuilt in 1902-03 by Gerald Horsley, who was also responsible for the screen. There are three 19thc. drawings in the William Salt Library, two by J. C. Buckler dated 1841, before Scott's restoration. All show exterior general views, in which the church looks much as it does today except that it has no S porch. During the 18thc. campaign a 12thc. figural tympanum was discovered by the builders, in use as infill for the walls of the old church. This was salvaged, and is now installed in the S interior nave wall, between the middle pair of windows. It is the only Romanesque feature.
Parish church
The church stands in the grounds of Ilam Hall; a building of 1821 erected by Jesse Watts-Russell. The present hall replaced a hall built for John Port in 1546, and it was Port's successor, also John Port, who sold up to Russell in 1809. This John Port's son, also John, became vicar of Ilam. Watts-Russell died in 1875 and the house passed to the Hanbury family, who sold it in 1927 to a restaurateur. When he went bankrupt, the house passed to a building contractor, who promptly demolished two-thirds of it. A view before the demolition may be seen in the William Salt Library (SV V 12). What was left was purchased in 1934 by Sir Robert McDougal, who gave it to the National Trust. It now houses a Youth Hostel, and a National Trust shop, and serves as a focus for walkers. Jesse Watts-Russell was also responsible for the curious appearance of Ilam village, which he rebuilt in a Swiss style on a slightly different (and steeper) site, because the surrounding countryside reminded him of the Alps. In the centre of the village is a small-scale copy of an Eleanor Cross that Watts-Russell erected in 1840 in memory of his wife.The church consists of a nave with a three-bay N aisle and N and S doorways, the latter under a porch, a chancel with N and S chapels and a N vestry, and a W tower. The earliest fabric is in the S wall of the nave, which contains a blocked 11thc doorway. There is also a stone carved with interlace re-set in the W wall of the S chapel, and there are two Anglo-Saxon crosses in the churchyard. The font is 12thc., and is described below. For the rest, the church is largely 19thc. in appearance, although some of the walls are medieval. The lower parts of the tower are 13thc., but its gabled top postdates a drawing of 1839 (William Salt Library SV 12 5a) that shows an embattled parapet. The S chapel is of 1618, but contains a 13thc. chest tomb, known locally as the Tomb of St Bertram, as well as the tomb of Robert Meverell (d.1626) and his wife. The most spectacular feature, however, is the enormous octagonal N chapel; a chapter-house-like mausoleum erected by Watts-Russell in 1831 in memory of his father-in-law, David Pike Watts who had died in 1816. It contains a large group showing David Pike Watts and his daughter and her three children by Sir Francis Chantrey. The church was restored in 1618, but its present appearance results from Sir George Gilbert Scott's restoration of 1855-56.
Parish church
High Offley is a scattered village in the W of the county near the Shropshire border. It stands on an elevated site above the Shropshire Union Canal. St Mary's has a nave and chancel of equal width but separately roofed and with no chancel arch between them. The present chancel step is some 2 miles E of the change in roof design. S aisle runs the entire length of nave and chancel, and the E end of it is given over to the organ. There are N and S nave doorways, the S under a porch, and a W tower. The earliest fabric is seen in the N nave wall and the E chancel wall, and consists of roughly shaped sandstone blocks irregular in size and coursing. It probably dates from the early 12thc. The present three-light chancel E window is reticulated (i.e.c.1320) but signs of a plain round-headed 12thc. triplet are visible to either side of it. The plain chamfered N doorway must be ofc.1200, and the squat, three-storey tower is slightly later, with shallow clasping buttresses, a W lancet whose round head is not original, and 13thc. double bell-openings. The parapet has battlements and neo-classical pinnacles, probably 18thc. Like the tower, the five-bay
arcade dates from the beginning of the 13thc.; it is round-headed but its capitals are moulded. The E respond capital, however, is a reused 12thc. volute capital carved with heads, and this is the only Romanesque sculpture to be found here. Antiquarian views in the William Salt Library, Stafford, all dating from the first half of the 19thc. show various differences from the church we see today, indicating a later restoration. G. P. Harding's S view of 1821 (SV IV 320) shows a gabled porch, apparently of red brick, whereas J. Buckler's 1843 SE view shows a Tudor porch with a parapet (SV IV 321). Buckler’s NW view of the same year (SV IV 323) shows a two-light pointed W window in the tower, confirming that the present round-headed lancet is a replacement.
Parish church
The village of Kingswinford has now been entirely absorbed into the Dudley conurbation. In 1851 it was described as 'a small but pleasant village, with many new houses, three miles WSW of Dudley' (White). The parish, however, was an extensive one, heavily populated even then, with 22,221 inhabitants dispersed among eight villages and twenty hamlets, largely employed by the coal, iron, glass, brick and pottery industries. Kingswinford village still exists, in name at least, as the area immediately around the church, with a green and a pond. Bradley Hall, a timber-framed house dated 1596, once stood in the village too, but when it was taken down its timbers reused by K. H. Smith for use in neo-Tudor houses at Stratford-upon-Avon in the early 20thc. Views of the church in 1837 (NW view by T. P. Wood) and 1845 (SW view by J. Buckler), now in the William Salt Library, show a building with a medieval W tower flanked by N and S porches, and a nave with 18thc. aisles, apparently rendered (the chancel is not shown in either view). These features remain in the present church, but a parish room has been added on the N side, approached from the church through the N porch, by a doorway inserted at the W end of the aisle. The S porch has been converted for vestry use, and entry for worshippers is now through the W doorway or the parish room. The S aisle retains its round-headed Georgian windows, but they were fitted with three-light Gothic tracery in the 19thc. The N aisle wall is still rendered, but the S aisle wall has been covered with the kind of stone cladding more usually seen in a domestic context, and with as little success. The chancel is largely 18thc. or 19thc. and has an organ room to the S. The red sandstone W tower, then, contains the only medieval fabric of the church. Its rubble lower storey has plain round-headed windows towards the top, perhaps the original bell-openings, and must be 12thc. The ashlar upper storey is 14thc. with reticulated bell-openings, and has a modern embattled parapet. Inside, the nave arcades are of four bays: 19thc. versions of 13thc. work, with cylindrical piers, moulded and stiff-leaf capitals and pointed arches. Set inside the SW vestry, above the door to the nave aisle, is a tympanum of St Michael and the Dragon; one of the finest pieces of Romanesque sculpture in the county. The parish was transferred from the Lichfield diocese to Worcester in the 1990s.
Parish church
Alton stands on rising ground on the S slope of the Churnet valley, five
miles to the N of Uttoxeter in the region of hilly woodland to the S of the
Weaver Hills. The castle to the E of the church was built by Bertram de Verdun
from 1176, and rebuilt as a house for the Earl of Shrewsbury to designs by
Pugin from 1847-52. There was a school on the site, which was taken over by the
Sisters of Mercy in 1855, and a presbytery, which became their convent. The
castle itself remained a private dwelling until 1919 when the Sisters of Mercy
bought it to extend their boarding school. When the school closed in 1989 the
castle was left empty until 1995, when the Catholic Archdiocese of Birmingham
bought it, reopening it as a residential youth centre in the following year.
The church itself has an aisled nave without a clerestorey, a much taller chancel
with a S chapel and a W tower, all in pinkish grey ashlar. In the nave, both
aisles are of five bays with part of a sixth at the W
end, curtailed by the later tower wall. The N aisle is 12thc. in origin with a
round-headed arcade but heavily restored. It has been
screened off from the nave with wooden panelling, glazed above, between the
arcade
piers. The W end of the
aisle now accommodates a kitchen and lavatories, and the E end a chapel. The S
arcade is much higher, with tall slender
piers and stilted arches. Again it is heavily
restored, but an odd respond at the E end may give
some hint of an earlier arrangement. The nave has a S doorway without a
porch. The chancel is much
taller than the nave, and has a low chapel to the S, added by J. R. Naylor in
1884-85. It is unusual in having a four-centred chancel
arch. The W tower has a grand early-13thc. W doorway but the upper parts are
15thc. The church was restored in 1830-31 by J. T. Holmes of Cheadle, when a
gallery was added, and the church, in Pevsner's view,
was all but rebuilt at that time. This is certainly true of the aisle walls and
their arcades. The most interesting of the antiquarian
views in William Salt Library SV I 63; an undated 19thc. drawing showing the S
side of the nave and chancel. No chapel is shown, which
dates the drawing before 1885, but the nave already has the Y-tracery windows
it has today. The S doorway was then protected by a porch. There is probably no original 12thc. sculpture in the
building, nevertheless both nave arcades are described
below.