The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
Hampshire (pre-1974 traditional (England and Wales))
Parish church
Gatcombe church is at the eastern end of an irregular row settlement in a relatively isolated situation to the west of the River Medina and east of chalk downland. It is near the geographical centre of the island. St Olave’s church consists of an aisleless nave, western tower, chancel and south porch. The nave was extant by the 13thc on the evidence of a lancet in the north wall and the chancel arch. The small plain round-headed doorway in the north wall of the nave may have given access to the church in the 12thc but a 17thc date is suggested by Lloyd and Pevsner (2006, 148). The chancel was rebuilt in 1864-5. The tower dates from c.1500. The porch would appear to have originated in the later medieval period (Thompson 2008, 136). The organ chamber and vestry to the north of the chancel were added c. 1920 (Lloyd and Pevsner 2006, 148). The only Romanesque feature is the grotesque head reset at the apex of the porch and now surmounted by a small stone cross.
Parish church
The church is located on top of a locally prominent hill forming the core of the nucleated village of Godshill. The village lies to the N of the Isle of Wight’s southern chalk massif in the south-central area of the island. The church consists of a nave and chancel with no architectural division, a W tower, a wide S aisle, N and S transepts and a S porch. The lower stages of the tower probably date from the 14thc, as does the E end of the church. The S transept is of the late 15th or early 16thc (Lloyd and Pevsner 2006, 153-54). The only Romanesque feature is a loose capital.
Parish church
Martin is a village in W Hampshire, on the NW edge of the New Forest, 8 miles SW of Salisbury and 6 miles NW of Fordingbridge. It has been a part of Hampshire only since 1895, when 8 parishes on the SE edge of Wiltshire (South Damerham, Martin, Melchet Park, Plaitford, West Wellow, Toyd Farm with Allenford, Whitsbury and East Bramshaw) were transferred. It straggles along a minor road that descends from the Wiltshire Downs, crossing the Ox Drove and a Roman road as it makes its way to Fordingbridge. All Saints church is in the village centre. It has a nave and chancel, W tower with spire and a S porch. The chancel has a S transept and a N chapel that is joined to what was originally a transept. The interpretation is confused by the fact that the chancel arch was moved a bay eastwards – the original position is marked by the rood loft entrance on the S nave wall. The nave was originally 12thc – the only Romanesque feature is the blocked N doorway and a window head in the same wall, reset inverted. The tower was added in the 13thc but its upper parts are 15thc. The two transepts are 14thc additions and the chancel was remodelled at that time too. The N chapel is 16thc and the porch Victorian.
Parish church
Michelmersh is in W central Hampshire, three miles N of Romsey. The substantial village stands on high ground overlooking the river Test, which flows from NW to SE a mile to the SW. The land around is mostly pasture and well wooded, with Michelmersh Wood immediately N of the village. The church is at the village’s northern edge.
St Mary’s has a nave with a S aisle, sharing a single roof, and a S porch, a chancel with a N chapel, and a weatherboarded tower at the W end of the aisle. Nave and chancel are of knapped flint; the S nave aisle wall being very low, so that the porch roof overlaps the big roof over the nave and aisle. The nave is 12thc with plain doorways of that date at W and S; the latter covered by a 19thc flint and timber porch. The N nave windows are big three-light 15thc openings. The chancel must be 12thc too, as it had 12thc chapels to N and S. Both chapel arches remain, but the S chapel has been removed, the arch blocked and a three-light window inserted. A resistivity survey in 1998 suggested confirmed the presence of a chapel. The N chapel has been rebuilt larger, with a roof running E to W. It now serves as a vestry and the organ fills its arch. The chancel itself has been lengthened; the quoins of the original E angle remaining on the S wall. To judge from the fenestration this took place in the mid-13thc. The S nave aisle was rebuilt in an extensive restoration of 1846-47 by W. Gover of Winchester, and the striking S elevation of the nave is entirely Gover’s work. The church was again restored in 1888 under the supervision of Arthur Blomfield, who was extremely critical of Gover’s restoration which, he said, had destroyed “whatever beauty of detail it may have possessed many years since.” In particular, Gover’s rebuilding removed any evidence that might have elucidated the relation of the church to its weatherboarded tower. This was built as a free-standing structure, like the similar tower at Perivale (Middlesex), and is characteristic of the years around 1600. There is evidence of repairs to it in 1846 and 1897. The only Romanesque features are the chapel arches and the W and S doorways.
Parish church
The church of St Mary and St Radegund adjoins a road junction in the centre of Whitwell village, a short distance from a holy well site. The village is situated in the south-central area of the Isle of Wight in a valley within the southern chalk massif. Whitwell church consists of the chancel, the nave with a S aisle which continues to the S of the chancel to form the chapel of St Mary, a S porch, a vestry to the N of the chancel and a tower which rises above the western end of the aisle. The jambs and the springing of the N side of the chancel arch were retained when the rest of the arch was reconstructed in the early 17thc. The S arcade was originally of three bays and dates from the late 12thc The chapel of St Mary, to the S of the chancel, was widened in the 16thc. The south-western tower also originated at this time, being inserted into the W end of the aisle. The S porch was also added with a cusped image niche above the door indicating a pre-Reformation date (Lloyd and Pevsner 2006, 298-9). The Romanesque features are the northern side of the former chancel arch and the S arcade.
Parish church
The church has a W tower formed from an Anglo-Saxon W porch of the 8th or 9thc. Inside the tower is a elaborate mid-12th doorway. The S aisle is an ambitious Perpendicular structure and the chancel is also structurally probably late medieval. The S chancel chapel is clearly 14thc because of the sedilia and the chancel arcade indicating a mid to later date in the century. The S nave aisle was Romanesque but was unfortunately demolished in 1867, arcade and wall, to make way for a tall and wide Neo-Dec aisle. A capital from the arcade survives in the S chancel chapel.
Parish church
A single-vessel church with no architectural division between nave and chancel, but with a wide span. Assertive W tower with big Romanesque strip-buttresses on the corners, of three stories, with Romanesque round-headed windows in the top two stages, and two circular windows at the top of third stage. No sculpture on the tower except roll-mouldings between the stories and around the windows (the E face of the tower, and the whole parapet is of brick, with an attractively cogged lower frieze). Two inscriptions help date the fabric of the building and are likely also Romanesque in themselves. The font is also of the 12thc, but heavily mutilated.
Parish church
Bullington is in rolling woodland and sheep pasture in central Hampshire, 7 miles N of Winchester, and is one of a chain of villages than runs along the valley of the river Dever, many of which form the present benefice. This dispersed village runs for a mile along the river, with Lower Bullington to the W and Upper Bullington to the E. 1 mile N of the village is the Iron Age hillfort of Tidbury Ring. The A34 trunk road runs from N to S between the two, and the A303 from E to W, the two intersecting immediately N of the village. The church is in Lower Bullington, in wooded pasture land on the S bank of the river Dever.
It consists of a flint nave and chancel in one, with a 19thc neo-Romanesque S nave doorway set under a flint and timber 19thc porch and a blocked 12thc N nave doorway without a porch. There are plain 12thc lancets on the lateral walls of the nave towards the W end. The 13thc chancel has a N vestry and the church has a W tower of brick with a tiled pyramid roof. There was a restoration in 1871 and Pevsner suggests that the tower may date from that time. The only Romanesque feature recorded here is the N nave doorway.
Parish church
Damerham is a village in W Hampshire, on the NW edge of the New Forest, 8 miles S of Salisbury and 3 miles NW of Fordingbridge. It has been a part of Hampshire only since 1895, when 8 parishes on the SE edge of Wiltshire (South Damerham, Martin, Melchet Park, Plaitford, West Wellow, Toyd Farm with Allenford, Whitsbury and East Bramshaw) were transferred. The village straggles along a network of roads following the line of a stream called Ashford Water. It has centres at its N and S ends, suggesting an assart from the woodland which still surrounds it, but the church, in the centre, is in an otherwise uninhabitated part.
St George’s has an aisled nave (a 3 bay aisle to the N and a 2 bay aisle to the S), with a doorway in the S aisle under a long 15thc porch, and a blocked N dooway. The tower is on the S side of the nave at the E end, and has a weatherboarded upper storey and a leaded pyramid roof. The chancel was originally 12thc , and has the remains of blocked arcades visible inside and out on the N and S sides. These do not match – the N arcade is of 2 pointed bays and the S of 2 round-headed wider bays extending further E. 12thc work is found on the N arch of the tower, on the N nave arcade, which has been clumsily reworked in the later Middle Ages, and on the N, and possibly also the S chancel arcade. More interesting than any of these is a tympanum depicting a horseman riding down a fallen enemy, reset over the S nave doorway. There is also a Christ in Majesty relief, possibly c.1200, reset in the gable of the S porch, and a large loose chevron voussoir.
Parish church
Crondall is in NE Hampshire, 1½miles from the county boundary and less than 3 miles NW of Farnham, over the border in Surrey. The village is a substantial one built on rising ground, and the church stands at its highest point, towards the S.
All Saints’ has an aisled and clerestoried nave with four-bay arcades of which the eastern bays give onto non-projecting transepts with arches linking them to the nave aisles. These transepts are chapels now, with E altars, and may have been originally, but in Ferrey’s plan dating from his 1847 restoration, both transepts held longitudinal rows of seats, those on the N side designated for children. The Romanesque features within them all date from the 19thc. The nave has N, S and W doorways, the N protected by a porch that was under restoration at the time of the visit, impeding but not entirely preventing photography of the doorway. The chancel is of two bays and rib-vaulted. The present tower is a brick structure of 1659, positioned on the N side of the chancel. Evidence for an original tower over the crossing can be seen in the form of a stair turret in the angle between the E wall of the N transept and the N wall of the chancel, in the thickness of the piers at the entrance to the transepts, and in the ugly buttresses erected on either side of the crossing in the 16thc. to shore up the walls. The old tower apparently became too unstable to maintain after it was unwisely decided to install two more bells in 1642, bringing the total to six, and to re-roof it with 1,200 lbs of lead.. The church contains a plain 12thc. font; the nave arcades and transepts originally dated from c.1170-1200 but are largely 19c work now, and the three nave doorways and the chancel and its arch and vaulting date originally from c.1200-1220. The chancel has been restored, and the N doorway practically entirely replaced, while the other two doorways have not been restored. The difference is striking. A plain 12c window survives at the W end of the N aisle. There is a 19thc. vestry on the N side of the chancel, W of the tower. Very little of the fabric is in its original condition. A drawing by Anne Crane, daughter of the Rev. John Lockman Crane (vicar 1803-08) of the interior c.1840 shows galleries between the nave piers, the arch to the S transept lower than the nave arcade, and no clerestory windows above the transept arches. In 1847 it was restored by Benjamin Ferrey, who repaired the N doorway, replaced the aisle and clerestory windows, removed the galleries and restored the chancel arch and nave arcades. In 1871 the church was again restored, this time by George Gilbert Scott II. His interior work was concentrated in the chancel, where the floor level was raised and the E windows replaced, but he coated the exterior walls with an inappropriate cement render that has since caused problems by retaining water. The current restoration has seen the replacement of windows on the N side and consolidation of the masonry of the north porch.