The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
West Yorkshire (now)
Cistercian House, former
The chapter house is the chief space opening off the E side of the cloister. To the N of the chapter house was the sacristy (Kirkstall Abbey: 03. Sacristy), to the S was the parlour (Kirkstall Abbey: report 05); an archway that gave entry to the day stairs to the monks’ dormitory, and lastly, at the S end of the E wall an archway with a passage that may have led to the monks’ cemetery, and later to the infirmary and the abbot’s lodging. The first opening off this passage was to the monks’ dayroom (Kirkstall Abbey: report 06). Over the chapter house, parlour and dayroom ran the monks’ dormitory or dorter, with their rere-dorter at the S end of the range.
The chapter house is entered through an elaborate façade on the E walk. The earliest version of the interior survives as the four western bays, which formed a vestibule relatively open to the cloister. The ceiling is fairly low; it is vaulted 2 bays by 2, and is approximately 28ft (8.5m) square. An eastern space was entered up the steps and through two boldly moulded semi-circular arches; this inner room was the main area of the chapter house, which was rebuilt late in the 13thc (Hope and Bilson 1907).
The chapter house has sculpture on capitals and corbels of the facade and vaulting.
For History and Bibliography, see report Kirkstall Abbey: 01. Church.
Cistercian House, former
This gatehouse, also called the inner or great gatehouse, was inside the precinct according to the plan (Hope and Bilson 1907, foldout, opp. p. 8). However, it now lies north of the modern main road and away from the other stone buildings of the abbey. Excavations in the area of the inner gatehouse found a paved way leading towards the church, in contrast to a rutted roadway on a southern route into the precinct.
Three bays of the passage through the gate survive, embedded on either side within a later house; it is now used as the café for the Abbey House Museum. Between the central and S bays the gatehouse divided the traffic into a narrower passage for pedestrians to the E, and a wider part for carts and horsemen to the W.
The building is oriented NE-SW. For simplicity, the three bays are called here N, central and S bays.
For bibliography and other general matter, see report for Kirkstall Abbey: 01, church.
Boundary marker
This site consists of a block of limestone enclosed by a metal railed fence. It is beside the Ferrybridge Road, on the S side opposite Darkfield Lane, and recently (2014) approached by new housing. The stone is the socket of a roadside marker, and the four sides have two or three bays of blank arcading, simply carved - as it now seems after centuries of weathering - on two levels and with minimal indication of the features of capital and base in the arcade.
The shaft base is a listed Ancient Monument (no. 1011848).
Chapel
The chapel is close to the mansion, Lotherton Hall, near Aberford, and part of an estate that now belongs to Leeds City Council, although the chapel is not redundant. Neither the site of the earliest settlement nor of any ‘manor house’ has been identified.
Ryder (1993) says the chapel is the smallest church in West Yorkshire. It is a simple two-cell building, with what may be a 13thc. or 14thc. bellcote and some later windows. John Bilson's description of 1912 is quoted in Kirk (1919, 122-126). At some unknown date the building was shortened by about 1m on the W end. It is built of uncoursed rubble, with worked limestone on facings and doorways. If it were not for later furnishings, including memorials, it might resemble a barn.
It was restored ‘by the great architectural historian John Bilson’ (Pevsner) in 1913/1917; a pre-restoration view was enclosed when this report was first submitted. Before this, the chapel was plastered outside, apparently thickly enough to have hidden the priest's doorway from view.
Romanesque carving can be found on two window heads and on the N doorway; inside there is a stoup.
Country House
The present Nostell Priory, an 18thc country house in the care of the National Trust, was built on the site of a medieval Augustinian priory, of which nothing is now visible.
According to Pevsner 'Of the Augustinian priory...nothing is preserved', although his footnote reads 'Mr Pace [George Pace senior] tells me that many stones, carved and moulded, are stored in outbuildings.' Some stones were seen in 1989 by Kit Galbraith ‘in the cowshed near the entrance gate’. Currently, loose carved stones are stored in the stables and in the cellars of the house. Some of these may be from the estate, others collected by Charles Winn in the early 19thc. Nothing of 12thc date has been found in recent years in excavation in the stables area.
Selected stones that might be from the Romanesque period are described in this report. Seven items were identified. Items 1 and 2 were in the stable block. Items 3 to 7 had been brought in from outside near the gate prior to our visit in 2010 and had dry moss still attached. These were stored in a cellar of the house.
Parish church
Woolley is a village about six miles S of Wakefield, and the church lies to the W of the village. The building consists of a chancel of three bays with chapels to N and S, an aisled nave of four bays, a S porch and a W tower. The church was extensively restored in 1871. Nikolaus Pevsner (1967), 558, describes the church as ‘Perpendicular throughout’; Ryder (1993), 180, thinks the nave walls may date to the 12thc. Romanesque sculpture is found on a reset tympanum, a reset shaft and a font.
Parish church
Tong village lies along a hilltop at an altitude of 160m, between Bradford and Leeds, in relatively open country. Modern housing has not joined it to other settlements, but changes are taking place within the village.
The present church of St James was consecrated in 1727, but its nave and chancel are lying approximately on the foundations of the nave and chancel of a 12thc chapel. To this layout were added a N aisle and two chambers off the N of the chancel, and also a W tower. Some medieval windows were reused or copied for the W and N walls. Inside the church, the tower arch reuses an original 12thc arch. The building is analysed in a leaflet of the West Yorkshire Archaeology Service (WYAS 1991; see also Ryder 1993, 87-88, 128-132, 176; Swann 1993).
Excavations in 1979 found three pieces with sculpture which were assigned to the 12thc; there is also sculpture on the tower arch.
Parish church
Bramham village runs down a west-facing slope of the Magnesian limestone outcrop. The church, of local limestone, stands in the middle of the village within an irregular layout of streets and within a large elliptical churchyard which slopes gently uphill. The building has, or had, a 12thc nave (although Ryder (1993) recognised some Anglo-Saxon walling there), W tower and N aisle, and an Early English S aisle as well as an extended 13thc chancel. Restoration in 1853 included the removal of a W gallery and the insertion of a wider imitation tower arch, and a Norman-style font. The round-headed W doorway in the tower was removed. (Borthwick Institute Faculty papers 1853/2; Kirk 1936 reproduces plans and elevations from Faculty papers.) Further work was necessary after a fire in the tower in 1874, which resulted in the insertion of new 'Norman' windows and long stones across the face of the tower to bond it. Sculpture can be found on corbels on all sides of the tower, in the N arcade, the tower arch (spurious), and on a loose slab.
Parish church
The village of Swillington lies on the River Aire about 5 miles east of central Leeds. The nave of the church is essentially 12thc. with 14thc. aisles and a 14thc. chancel, with organ and vestry spaces on the N side of chancel. The W tower and S porch are 15thc. (Kirk, 1934, with plan; Leach and Pevsner, 2009, 727-28).
There is a reset 12thc. window head with an incised pattern of saltire crosses, and another undecorated. A blocked window was recorded in the N wall of the nave.
Parish church
Birstall church is separated by a stream at the bottom of its churchyard from the core of the old town on the opposite hilltop. The churchyard is extensive and rises above the church. Carved pew-ends preserved in the church suggest that there was a good late medieval church, but that church was demolished and completely rebuilt 1863-1870 except for the W tower, the lower two levels of which are 12thc., and the belfry level 15thc. (Ryder 1993, 30, 142-3). The present building has an aisled chancel, a nave with double aisles, N and S porches, and a W tower enclosed by the aisles. On its E face a wall built since our first visit in 2000 fills the tower arch (plan in Cradock 1933, pl. 16).
The tower has slit windows on the N and S.
Otherwise, the Romanesque period is represented by fragments: most of a grave-marker or small coffin lid with lozenge decoration and a patterned font that has been broken in two but could be made serviceable. The 'sculpted' capitals mentioned by Sir Stephen Glynne do not seem to have been preserved.