The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
Buckinghamshire (pre-1974 traditional (England and Wales))
Parish church
The Lillingstones, Lovell and Dayrell, are villages in the NW of the county. Lillingstone Lovell was originally a detached part of Oxfordshire, and was transferred to Buckinghamshire in 1844. It is a small village 4 miles N of Buckingham, set in rolling, wooded pasture land. It consists of a few dwellings and farm buildings on a minor road that runs E off the A413 Buckingham to Towcester road, and the church is at the centre of this cluster with a large 18thc stone-built parsonage immediately to the W.
The church consists of an aisled and clerestoried nave with a S porch, a W tower and a chancel. The S doorway, now reset in the aisle, dates from the 1170s and its porch dates from 1639. The 3-bay nave arcades are 14thc, and do not extend the full length of the nave. At their E ends are stretches of plain walling pierced by windows, and behind these are N and S chapels. The N chapel is higher and slightly wider than the aisle and now houses the organ; the aisle being blocked off to prevent access to it from the W. The S chapel is a simple extension of the aisle and remains a chapel. The chancel arch and chancel were rebuilt in the 14thc, but a 12thc blocked priest’s doorway remains on the S side. The chancel is extremely short, the E end having been removed in 1777 and the reticulated E window reset in the new E wall. It is slightly wider than the nave. The tower is unbuttressed and is likely to have been begun at the same time as the S doorway and completed early in the 13thc. Its bell-openings were replaced in the 14thc, and it now has a modern saddleback roof. Construction is of coursed rubble. The church was restored in 1891-91 and the clerestory was added then. Romanesque features recorded here are the S nave and chancel doorways.
Parish church
Water Stratford is in the NW of the county adjacent to the Oxfordshire border, in the Domesday hundred of Stotfold, 3 miles E of Buckingham. It consists of a few houses and the church scattered along the line of the old Roman road from Bicester to Towcester and Northamptonat a crossing of the Great Ouse. The village and church are on the N bank of the river, on rising, wooded ground given over to pasture.
The church is at the S end of the village, near the river crossing. It consists of a nave and chancel with a low W tower, and the nave has been extended alongside the tower on the S to provide a staircase. All walls are of stone rubble, mortar rendered and marked with fake coursing lines in the render. The entire church is 12thc, with carved Romanesque doorways on the N side of the chancel and the S side of the nave. The chancel arch was renewed in the 13thc, and lateral lancets were added to the chancel towards the W end at the same time. Both originally had low side openings below them, and the N still survives, with its hinged shutter. The chancel was lengthened in the 14thc (see the straight joint in the S wall) and the E window is of that date with flowing tracery. Slightly earlier in the 14thc diagonal W buttresses and a reticulated W window were added to the tower. The nave windows, two on the S and one on the N, are apparently 17thc imitations of medieval traceried windows. A date stone above the S doorway suggests that this work was done in 1652. The church was rebuilt by Willmoor of Buckingham in 1828-30, and there was another restoration in 1890. The S nave doorway is one of the highlights of Romanesque sculpture in Buckinghamshire, and the N chancel doorway is unusually elaborate for a priest’s doorway.
Parish church
Weston Turville is a village in E central Buckinghamshire, in the Domesday hundred of Stone, 2½ miles SE of the centre of Aylesbury and just beyond its outskirts. To the S rise theChiltern Hills. It lies along and to the S of the Ickneild Way (B4544), with the old village centre to the S of the main street. The manor is immediately N of the church, and in its grounds are the remains of a motte and bailey castle with a moat.
The church has an aisled and clerestoried nave, chancel and W tower. The nave aisles have 4-bay arcades; the two E bays of the S arcade dating from the 13thc. In the 14thc the nave was lengthened, along with the S arcade, and the present N aisle was added. The aisle windows are mid to late -14thc, square headed but with flowing tracery. The N porch is timber-framed with brick infill. On the S a modern brick lavatory has been erected over the doorway. The nave clerestory is 15thc, as is the W tower, which has diagonal W buttresses and a polygonal NW stair that rises higher than the main parapet.. The nave aisles have been extended alongside the W tower. The chancel arch is 13thc, but the chancel is 14thc with flowing tracery windows (the E window of 1860). On the N side of the chancel is a 19thc vestry. The church is of flint and stone blocks, all cement rendered except the tower. The church was restored by David Brandon in 1860 and the chancel by J. P. St Aubyn in 1879. It contains an important Aylesbury group font, and various fragments are reset in the S chancel wall, including the shaft of a 12thc pillar piscina.
Parish church
Bledlow is a village on the northern edge of the Chiltern Hills, in the east of south
Buckinghamshire. The village is two miles SW of Princes Risborough and a half mile
east of the Oxfordshire border. The church stands in the centre of the village. Holy
Trinity has an aisled nave with a S porch, a chancel and a W tower. The nave is 4 bays long,
with 13thc. arcades with stiff-leaf
capitals indicating an early-13thc. date for the aisles. A scar against the E tower
wall indicates an earlier roof that was much steeper. The clerestorey windows are three-light, trefoil-headed
bar-traceried openings under square heads, and appear to date from the later 13thc.
Both aisles have been extended westwards alongside the tower. The N aisle contains a
reset 12thc. doorway, indicating the original date of the unaisled nave. The aisle
windows are a mixture of geometric and flowing tracery on the N and geometrical and
Perpendicular on the S; both the W aisle windows are early 13thc., contemporary with
the arcades, but they may have been reset when the aisles were
lengthened. The chancel arch is contemporary with the arcades too, but the original, short chancel was 12thc. (indicated by the arch of the former priest's doorway in
the S wall). It was lengthened eastwards and refenestrated in the 13thc. The church
was reseated and restored by G. G. Scott in 1875–77, and repaired in 1961–62 by H. J.
Stribling of Slough, and in 1967 and 1975–76 by Roiser and Whitestone, architects of
Cheltenham. At the W end of the N aisle is a display of loose stones, some
Romanesque, that were found in the wall of the tower. The font is also 12thc., and
belongs with the Aylesbury group.
Parish church
Chearsley is a village in the east of central Buckinghamshire, six miles SW of
Aylesbury. It stands on the rising ground on the W bank of the river Thame, and the
church is at the SE end of the village, in rolling wooded pasture near the river. The
church has a nave with a S porch, chancel with N vestry and a W tower. The relation
between nave and chancel is an odd one; the chancel is slightly lower than the nave, and offset to the N. A local
tradition suggests that the lower walls of the chancel may
have been part of a single-celled 11thc. chapel. There is certainly a change in the
masonry, from very irregular rubble below to coursed and more regular rubble above. A
priest's doorway was added to the chancel in the 13thc., and
it was completely remodelled in the 15thc., when ashlar buttresses (including
diagonal ones at the E angles) and Perpendicular windows were added. The vestry was added c.1850. The nave has some herringbone masonry in the N wall, but no other signs of its early
origins. The lateral doorways and two side windows are 13thc., and the N doorway has
been blocked in its lower part to leave a window. The S porch
is an 18thc. utilitarian brick structure, and the wooden W gallery of the nave also dates from this period. The tower is 15thc., and has
a polygonal turret with a pyramid roof on the S side that
rises above the battlemented parapet of the tower. The only Romanesque sculpture here
is the font.
Parish church
Bletchley is now part of Milton Keynes, but in 1967 when Milton Keynes was designated it was already a town, one of three that were to be encompassed by the "new city". It is in the SW of the Milton Keynes designated area. Bletchley is best known for Bletchley Park, the World War II codebreaking centre, and the church stands on the southern edge of the grounds of the mansion.
It consists of a chancel with a N chapel, an aisled nave with a S porch, and a W tower. Most of the fabric is 13thc or later: the nave and chancel are of this date while the S nave aisle was added c.1300 and the N aisle, chapel and porch are 14thc work. The tower is 15thc. The arch of the S doorway, however, contains 12thc voussoirs reused in the 1300 wall. This is the only Romanesque feature.
Parish church
The church has an aisleless nave with early 14thc wallpaintings considered by Pevsner to be among the finest in the county. The chancel is originally 13thc, from the evidence of a low side lancet in the N wall, but for the rest, both nave and chancel have no features earlier than the 14thc. There is no tower but a double bellcote over the W gable, brought here from Eythrope Park after 1811. Construction is of flint and rubble with stone dressings. The only Romanesque feature is a plain font.
Parish church
Worminghall is a village in the east of central Buckinghamshire, 11 miles SW of Aylesbury near the Oxfordshire border, formed at this point by the river Thame. The village is in the wooded, rolling pasture-land of the Thame floodplain, and the church stands at the end of a lane at the southern edge of the village.
The church has a nave with a S porch, chancel with a 19thc N vestry and a W tower. The chancel arch is narrow and early 12thc., and alongside it is a round-headed squint. The S nave doorway is 12thc too, but later in date, while the 12thc N doorway was remade when the nave wall was rebuilt, reusing its 15thc windows, in 1847. On the S side are plain 13thc lancets, one a replacement, the other much restored. The chancel dates from the early 14thc and was given a new E window in the 15thc. The other chancel windows are 19thc replacements in a geometrical style. The tower is 15thc with diagonal W buttresses and a S stair. Its battlements have been replaced. Construction is of coursed rubble, except for the replaced N wall, of coursed squared blocks. Romanesque features recorded here are the N and S nave doorways, the chancel arch and the plain font.
Parish church
Wotton Underwood is a village in the west of central Buckinghamshire, 8 miles W of Aylesbury and a similar distance SE of Bicester. The church stands in the landscaped grounds of Wotton House, built for Richard Grenville between 1704 and 1714 and rebuilt by Soane after a fire in 1820. All Saints’ church consists of a nave, chancel and W tower, and on the S side of the nave the Grenville aisle, separately roofed. The church dates largely from the early 14thc, and the Grenville aisle was originally a chantry chapel founded by William de Grenville in 1343. It received new wrought iron gates by Jean Tijou at the E end in the early 18thc, and was rebuilt with a stone screen in the Decorated style by the Duke of Buckingham in 1867. Around that time the entire church was comprehensively restored. The W tower was rebuilt in a 13thc style at the beginning of the 19thc, and the green copper spire also dates from that time. The only Romanesque sculpture is a section of frieze now set as a pseudo-lintel above the door connecting the nave to the W tower. It is described below as interior decoration.
Parish church
The church stands in the centre of the former village of Little Woolstone, on the W side of Milton Keynes. It consists of a chancel with a N vestry, and a nave with a S porch and a weatherboarded bell-cote at the W end. Construction is of limestone rubble with yellow stone dressings and red tiled roofs. The late-12thc font is older than any of the present fabric, so far as can be seen. The nave was rebuilt in the 14thc, the porch added in the 16thc and the chancel was rebuilt in the 19thc (although the chancel arch is 13thc). There is evidence for a projected N transept that was not completed.
Only the chancel and its N vestry are now given over to liturgical use. The nave, separated from it by lockable doors, is now the Woolstones Community Centre. It should be noted that a second church of Holy Trinity, Woolstone (formerly Great Woolstone), built in 1839, is less than half a mile away (SP 875 386). This has also been removed from parish use and is now the Rosebery Music Room.