The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
Herefordshire (pre-1974 traditional (England and Wales))
Parish church
Pembridge is a small town towards the NW of the county, seven miles W of Leominster. The town is built on rising ground on the S bank of the river Arrow, which has a crossing here. It boasts a tiny market place with a 16thc. timber-framed market house, and a good deal more timber framed housing of the 14thc. to 17thc. The church stands on a steep rise to the E of the market, and is unusual in having a detached timber-framed bell-house to the N. This is octagonal in plan with three storeys having hipped and pyramidal roofs. It was dated by RCHME to the later 14thc., but more recent dendrochronological dating indicates a single build of 1206-17 and a rebuilding after 1668/69 (see Tyers, Morriss). The church itself is a substantial building with an aisled six-bay nave with clerestories and N and S transepts, and a lower chancel with a modern N vestry and evidence on the S interior wall of a chapel arch, with an early 13thc. capital. The main entrance is from the N, via a porch, and inside this is the only evidence of 12thc. fabric here in the form of a loose pillar piscina head. For the rest, the narrow chancel, built of roughly course irregular blocks, may date from the 13thc. while the ashlar nave, arcades and transepts are early to mid-14thc. Curiously the nave arcade takes no account of the transepts at all.
Parish church
Wolferlow is a village in NE Herefordshire, in a tongue of land projecting into Worcestershire. It is thus half a mile from two Worcestershire borders - to the E and the NW. The nearest Herefordshire town of any size is Bromyard, 4 miles to the S. The village comprises the church, two farms, Wolferlow House and a few cottages, and is the site of a Deserted Medieval Settlement SW of the church.
The church consists of a chancel with a N vestry, nave with S porch and a timber-framed bell turret with a broach spire. It was restored by James Cranston in 1863-64, but has medieval material in the shape of the N and S doorways; the former blocked and the latter protected by a porch. It has been disused since 2002, and it was not possible to gain entry. Hence only the two doorways are recorded here.
Parish church
Blakemere is a village in SW Herefordshire, midway between Hereford and Hay-on-Wye. It lies E of a wooded ridge separating the flood-plain of the Wye to the NE from the valley of the Dore to the SW. The village is one of a chain of settlements on the E side of this ridge, including also Tyberton, Moccas, Bredwardine, Shenmore and Cublington. The church stands in the centre of the village, and is simple two-cell building of coursed sandstone rubble with a triple bell-cote on the W gable and a timber S porch. It was rebuilt in 1877 by G. Truefitt, who reused the 12thc S doorways to both nave and chancel, and the 12thc chancel arch. The font is also 12thc.
Parish church
Yarkhill is 6 miles E of the centre of Hereford, and lies on the river Frome. The compact little village is on rising ground on the N bank of the river, among woodland and pasture. The church is on the eastern edge of the village centre, and to the S, by the river, is a moated site. St John’s is a stone church with nave, chancel and W tower. The S nave doorway is of c.1200, and the tower arch and the lower storey of the tower are of a similar date. The upper storey of the tower 15thc., probably of 1466, and has a battlemented parapet and a modern tiled pyramid roof. In a major restoration of 1862 by C. R. Ainslie and T. Blashill of London, the church was practically rebuilt except for the tower and the chancel walls, and a S porch and N chancel vestry added. The church possesses three fonts: a 12thc. one with a scalloped bowl; a 13thc. one, and a 17thc. one with a fluted bowl. It also contains two small mortars of uncertain date, probably post-Medieval. The S doorway, tower arch and the oldest font are described here.
Parish church
Little Hereford is a village in the N of the county, half a mile from the Worcestershire border and a mile from the Shropshire border. The closest town is Tenbury Wells, 2 miles to the E, and Leominster is 6 miles to the S. The village stands on either side of the A456 that links Kidderminster to the main Ludlow to Leominster road. The River Teme flows past the southern edge of the village. St Mary's is at this southern edge, close to the river, and is dominated by its massive 13thc W tower. It has a large 13thc chancel, remodelled in the 14thc and a 12thc nave with a single surviving N window. An interesting survival is the arrangements for the rood altar, with a niche above the chancel arch and the remains of an entrance on the nave wall to the S. The only Romanesque feature here is the plain font.
Parish church
Little Cowarne is a village in central Herefordshire, 3½ miles SW of Bromyard and 9 miles NE of Hereford. The area is sparsely populated and mostly given over to mixed farming. The village straggles along a network of minor roads, with Little Cowarne Court and the church at its N end. St Guthlac's is a rebuild carried out by F. R. Kempson in 1869-70, incorporating the N walls of the chancel (with a 12thc lancet) and the nave (with a 13thc window). It consists of chancel, nave, S porch and W tower. The lower part of the tower may be 13thc, but the saddleback roof is by Kempson. A description of the medieval church may be found in Duncumb (1812), which describes a small church consisting of a chancel and nave separated by a stone wall, no tower nor spire but two small bells suspended under the W end of the roof. The only feature described here is the font.
Parish church
Thornbury is a village in the NE of the county, 7 miles E of Leominster and a mile S of the border with Shropshire. It is a small, compact village at the foot of Wall Hills, with its hillfort, and the church stands at its centre. St Anna's has a chancel rebuilt by F. R. Kempson, in 1865-66, with a N vestry and organ niche; a long aisleless nave with a N wall in which are a window and a blocked doorway of 12thc date. The S wall has a 13thc doorway under a 19thc porch. At the W end is a massive, unbuttressed 13thc tower with a pyramid roof. Romanesque features are the N doorway and a tub font.
Parish church
St Mary's has a nave with a N aisle and a square-ended chancel, all built by F. Kempson of Hereford in a style described by Hilary White (SMR) as a 'terribly pretentious neo-Norman'. The nave dates from 1861, and includes a genuine 12thc. S doorway with chevron ornament, which must be the excuse for Kempson's excesses. The chancel is of 1847, and includes Kempson's S doorway, which is far too big and elaborate for a priest's doorway. The chancel arch is 12thc. work too, and there is a large conglomerate font. At the W end, the tower is of c.1300 in its lower parts, with a later 14thc. bell stage and parapet.
Parish church
Linton is a village in S Herefordshire, 4 miles E of Ross-on-Wye. It extends along a low ridge in the E bank of the Rudhall Brook, a tributary of the Wye that joins the river at Ross. The church is an imposing and architecturally complex one, consisting of a chancel, a long aisled nave and a W tower with a spire. Both aisles extend the full length of the nave. The N aisle is 12thc, and separated from the central vessel by an arcade of 2 full bays with a short bay at the E end. This arcade takes up slightly more than half of the length of the aisle, which is separated from the nave at the W end by a plain wall, presumed to belong to a Norman W tower.. The S arcade is of 3 bays; the 2 E bays 13thc while the W bay corresponds to a 14thc extension of the aisle. The S doorway is largely overbuilt, but the W jamb survives. There is also N doorway, 13thc under a 13thc porch, and the tower is 14thc. On the S wall of the N aisle, originally an exterior wall, is a section of 12thc stringcourse. Construction is of sandstone rubble. The church was restored in 1875 and the spire repaired in 1904 and 1913.
Parish church
Orleton is a village in the N of the county, 5 miles N of Leominster and just over a mile S of the Shropshire border. The church stands in the village centre, and has a long and broad nave, a 13thc chancel with a S vestry, and a W tower with a broach spire. The nave is of 12thc date, the chancel was rebuilt in the 13thc, but the W tower is somewhat problematic. Its W doorway is round-headed but deeply chamfered. If it is 12thc it must be reset, because the 1st-storey W window is a pointed lancet. The 2nd –storey N and S windows, however, are round-headed. The font and a shaft section are the only carved survivals of the original Romanesque building and both are works of the Herefordshire School. The mutilated stone was in the crypt of Hereford Cathedral in 1989, but had been returned to the church by 2012.