The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
Huntingdonshire (pre-1974 traditional (England and Wales))
Parish church
St Helen's has an aisleless nave with a large S transept, no tower but a bellcote on the W gable, and a chancel with N vestry. The chancel, facing the road, is neo-Romanesque work of 1850, replacing an 18thc. chancel, which in turn replaced the original. The nave is 12thc. and the transept dates from c. 1300. Construction is of coursed rubble except for the ashlar chancel. The restoration of 1850 involved the rebuilding of the chancel and vestry, the rebuilding of the N wall of the nave, and the addition of the bell-cote. There is a 12thc. chancel arch and N doorway.
Parish church
St Nicholas' has an aisled nave, the aisles embracing the W tower, a N transept and a chancel with N vestry and W tower with no spire. The three-bay nave arcades belong to the early years of the 13thc., but are included here since they include a multi-scallop capital. Their round piers have been heightened considerably. Above them is a tall Perpendicular clerestorey, so that the nave is unusually high. This heightening is most spectacularly seen in the vertiginous tower arch. The aisles were rebuilt and extended W alongside the tower c.1300. The vestry has a two-bay quadripartite rib vault. The chancel was rebuilt in two phases, 1839-40 and 1857, and the remainder of the church was restored in 1869. Construction is of stone rubble except for the tower, which is ashlar faced. There are fragments of dogtooth reset high in the E gable of the nave.
Parish church
Hartford is a village on the eastern edge of Huntingdon, on the N bank of the Great Ouse. The church is at the S edge of the village, alongside the river but high enough above it to avoid all danger of flooding. It is built of rubble with Barnack and other ashlar dressings, and consists of a chancel with a N vestry added in 1895; a nave with N and S aisles and a S porch; and a Perpendicular W tower with a projecting S bell stair. On the N side of the church is an extension opened in 2004 with a hall, kitchen and lavatories and accessed from the exterior and through the N nave doorway of the church. The chancel has 12thc N and E walls with no sculptured features. Otherwise it is of the 14thc but remodelled by Robert Hutchinson in 1861, including an elaborate neo-Romanesque chancel arch. The nave arcades are of the end of the 12thc; the N stylistically earlier. Romanesque features described here are the greatly restored S nave doorway, the two nave arcades and the font.
Parish church
St Mary's has a clerestoreyed nave with three-bay N and S aisles, but extended to the W alongside the W
tower; N and S transepts and a square chancel. The
original unaisled church is represented by the spectacular early 12thc.
chancel arch. Aisles (with arcades and N and S doorways) and transepts were added in
the 13thc., as was the attractive N porch. The
chancel was rebuilt late in the 13thc. The W nave
extension and the tower belong to the 16thc. Pevsner suggests that the 13thc
design for the W end involved a bellcote rather than a
tower. Construction is of roughly coursed stone blocks. The church was restored
in 1897 and 1901.
Parish church
Holy Cross has a nave with a three-bay N aisle, chancel, W tower and the remains of a chapel to the W of the tower. Construction is of stone rubble except for the chancel E wall (of ashlar). The nave is early 12thc. and retains its W doorway (now inside the 13thc. tower) and its chancel arch. The N aisle was also added in the 13thc., but its N wall was rebuilt in the 14thc. The chancel and the S nave wall were rebuilt c.1400, and at some later time the chancel was shortened and the E wall rebuilt. The remains at the W end indicate that a chapel was built here c. 1500. The date of its demolition is unknown. There was a restoration in 1889, and the S porch dates from this campaign. Of the early 12thc. work, only the W doorway and the chancel arch remain.
Parish church
All Saints' is an aisleless church with a 12thc nave, an early 13thc
chancel rebuilt with a new chancel arch c.1300, and a W tower of c.1330, altered c.1500.
The tower may have had a spire, but if so this was removed c.1500. It now has a
pyramidal roof. A chapel was added to the S of the nave in the early 14thc, but
it was removed in the 15thc and the entrance arch blocked. There was a major
restoration in 1882-83, when a vestry and organ
chamber were added to the N of the chancel. The
exterior walls are of stone rubble with traces of mortar render on the N wall.
Romanesque features are the N nave doorway, the plain S priest's doorway, the
font, and various carved stones set into the exterior walls. There are further
architectural fragments reset inside the N vestry,
high on the S wall, but these were not accessible at the time of the visit.
Parish church
From the exterior the church is substantially of 1848-49. The medieval
work consists of a nave with 12thc. N arcade and 13thc.
S arcade, and a 13thc. chancel
with a 12thc. chancel arch. A tower was added in the
15thc., but in 1848-49 this was pulled down, new aisles were built, and the W
front was remodelled. At the same time a N transept with an organ
gallery and a N vestry were
added. The W doorway looks entirely neo-Romanesque, but includes some reused
12thc. pieces and is described here, along with the early 12thc.
chancel arch, the N arcade of
c.1170, and the slightly later font.
Parish church
All Saints has an aisled nave with aisleless chancel of coarse rubble, and a graceful W tower of ashlar
with an octagonal spire, rising to a height of 151 feet. The present building
is largely the result of a complete rebuilding, begun in 1470, but some 13thc.
features have survived, notably the N doorway, one S aisle window, and a double
piscina. The tower was blown down by a gale in 1741,
rebuilt in 1748 and again rebuilt in 1879. In 1918 an aeroplane crashed into
the spire, which fell on the nave roof, and a rebuilding of spire and roof took
place in 1924. The only 12thc. feature is the font.
Parish church
St James's has a nave with three-bay N and S aisles and a modern S porch, an aisleless chancel, lengthened in the 13thc., with a N vestry, and a W tower added c.1400. Its octagonal spire was blown down by a gale in 1741 (as was that of All Saints in St Ives, nearby), and what was left was levelled off and decorated with ball finials at the angles. The piers and the central bay of the N arcade are 12thc. and described below. The W bay arch is stylistically later, and could have been rebuilt when the tower was added. At this time the W bay of the nave was shortened, so that the W arches of both arcades die into the wall without responds or capitals. The N arcade, E bay also looks to have been rebuilt, but rather earlier, by fitting a new E respond capital and half of the pier 1 capital along with a new arch. Something similar happened on the S side, which has round arches in the two W bays, but a pointed arch in the E bay. Both piers and the E respond are original, and all capitals are moulded, suggesting an original construction date for the S arcade in the 13thc. The bizarre arrangement of the arcades is perhaps most satisfactorily explained by the hypothesis that the church originally had a central tower, which was removed in the 13thc. but not replaced with a west tower until c. 1400. There is no very obvious evidence for this. Locally, the replacement of a central tower with one at the west is known from Soham and Great Wilbraham (both Cambs). On the N wall of the chancel is a 12thc. double aumbry. It is completely plain, so not described here, but a photograph is included.
Parish church
St Giles consists of a chancel, and a nave with a N aisle and a S doorway under a porch. The S doorway dates the church to the late 12thc.; the chancel and its arch were rebuilt c.1300, and in the late 14thc. the nave windows were replaced and the E bay of the arcade was rebuilt and widened. The exterior walls are of pebble rubble and stones, except for the S nave wall, which is of rough ashlar. The roofs are covered in tiles of mixed colours, producing an unfortunate chalet-like effect. The church was restored in 1842 when the porch and north wall of the aisle were rebuilt, and a bell-cote built on the west gable. The west wall was restored and the porch rebuilt again in 1903, and the chancel was restored in 1905.