The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
Hertfordshire (pre-1974 traditional (England and Wales))
Parish church
Graveley is a village in the North Hertfordshire district of the county, 2 miles N of Stevenage and 4 miles S of Letchworth Garden City. Graveley High Street was formerly the Great North Road, but the modern A1(M) bypasses the village on the W. The church stands at the end of Church Lane on the eastern outskirts of the village and is surrounded by farmland, largely arable. St Mary’s consists of a chancel with a N vestry, nave with a N aisle and a S porch, and a W tower. The nave is 12thc in origin, as indicated by the rere-arch of the S doorway and the doorway that now gives access to the vestry from the E end of the N aisle. Both are plain and are thus not included as features in this report, but photographs are included . The nave was reroofed in the 15thc; its roof carried on low trusses decorated with angels, and the wall-posts carried on corbels. The chancel is largely of 13thc date with 3 pointed lancets on the lateral walls, the tower is of the late-15thc throughout, and the S porch is dated to the 18thc by VCH and the List Description. The N nave arcade and the vestry were added in 1887, and presumably it was then that the N nave doorway was re-used as an interior vestry doorway. The church is face with flint rubble with clunch dressings. The nave roof is of lead and the chancel roof of red tiles. The only Romanesque sculpture surviving here is a piscina basin in the form of a scallop capital, now set in the S nave wall at the E end, under a 14thc pointed trefoil head.
Parish church
Gilston is a village in the East Hertfordshire district, less than half a mile from the Rover Stort, which forms the Essex border at this point. It is 7 miles E of Hertford, but the nearest town is Harlow, a mile to the S in Essex. The church is a mile outside the village to the NW. St Mary's has a nave and chancel in one with a N vestry to the chancel and narrow nave aisles with a timber S porch. The W tower doorway is 13thc, but above it the tower is of 16thc brick for most of its height, with a flint battlemented parapet and a slender lead-covered broach spire. The flint-faced nave (including the blocked N doorway) and chancel are 13thc, the knapped flint S aisle was added or rebuilt in the 19thc, along with the vestry and the S porch. The only Romanesque feature here is the Purbeck font.
Parish church
A flint rubble church with stone dressings comprising chancel, nave with N and S aisles and S porch, and W tower. The nave is 13thc, as is the N aisle. The S aisle is 14thc. The tower is late 14thc – early 15thc. The church was restored in 1872-3 by A. W. Blomfield who rebuilt the chancel, chancel arch, and S porch. The plain font is the only Romanesque feature.
Parish church
Meesden is a village in the East Hertfordshire district of the county, 5 miles NE of Buntingford, 8 miles N of Bishop’s Stortford, and half a mile from the Essex border. The church stands at the end of a lane, half a mile E of the village centre, close to the course of a Roman road that runs NE from Brent Pelham.
St Mary’s consists of a 12thc nave with short transeptal chapels of the 13thc, the N now a vestry and the S an organ room. The brick S porch is an attractive addition of the early 16thc, and over the W gable is a shingled timber bell turret with an upper traceried stage and a shingled pyramid spire. This feature dates from the restoration of 1877. The chancel was rebuilt c.1300 and includes an important tiled pavement of the early 14thc. Apart from the features mentioned above, construction is of flint rubble with stone dressings. The church is now part of the benefice of Anstey, Brent Pelham, Hormead and Wyddial. The only Romanesque feature found was the S doorway.
Parish church
Apart from the 15thc. W tower (c.1470) the church was entirely
rebuilt in 1862 by W. Slater. A number of 12thc. fragments survive from the
original church and are currently located on windowsills in the N aisle. All
are carved from Totternhoe stone.
Parish church
Willian is a small village in the North Hertfordshire district, on the southern edge of Letchworth Garden City. The church is in the village centre, and is built of flint rubble with ashlar facings. It consists of a chancel with a N vestry, a nave with a S porch, and a W tower with a polygonal NE stair turret. The chancel has been traditionally dated to the 12thc on the basis of the blocked, round-headed S doorway, but its deep chamfer makes such an early date unlikely. Otherwise there is nothing in the fabric to indicate a date before the 13th - 14thc for the present building. The tower and S porch are 15thc and the vestry 19thc. Fragments of an early building are seen in chevron voussoirs re-used as facing material on the N side of the nave.
Parish church
Stevenage was the first of the post-war New Towns built to relieve pressure on housing in London after the blitz. It was begin in 1946 in the face of much local pressure from the residents of what was then a town of 6000 inhabitants on the Great North Road, whose prosperity had historically been built on the stage coach service. The New Town was built in 6 neighbourhoods, mainly to the S and E of the Old Town (whose High Street still remains). The parish church of St Nicholas is in a village-like setting to the NE of the Old Town.
It consists of a nave and chancel in one, both aisled, separated by a screen and with no chancel arch. The chancel has 2-bay aisles to chapels on N and S; the S chapel converted for uses as an organ room and vestry. to the E of the S chapel is a small modern vestry. The 4-bay nave has clerestories, and there is a S porch at the W end of the aisle and a S transeptal chapel, extended to the E. The W tower is 12thc (of the plain lancets, all but the lower N window are replacements) and square in plan with diagonal buttresses added at the western angles. It has an embattled parapet and a leaded spire (releaded in 1899). The nave aisles were added in the 13thc, and their arches remodelled in the 15thc when the clerestories were added. The N chancel chapel has 14thc tracery in the windows, and both chancel arcades are of that date, while the S transept dates from 1841. The S porch appears modern. but may simply be heavily restored. Construction is of flint with ashlar dressings, but the S transept and the E wall of the chancel are rendered. The battllements of the S transept are of brick. Clunch piers in the nave and chancel arcades have been lavishly graffitied, apparently in the Middle Ages. The transept and its modern eastern extension are now given over to parish use as meeting rooms. The Romanesque features described here are the W tower doorway, the tower arch and the font.
Parish church
The church has a chancel with an attached vestry on S, nave with attached organ
chamber at the E end, and a wooden N tower with a tall spire over the N porch. The E
end of the nave is probably 12thc. with a 19thc. (1874) extension to the W. The
chancel was also probably 12thc. originally. The chancel arch was rebuilt in the
16thc. The organ chamber, N porch and vestry are 19thc. Much of the exterior is
rendered, the area around the N doorway is uncoursed flint. The N doorway is the only Romanesque feature.
Parish church
The church has a chancel with attached vestry, nave with N aisle and S porch, and W tower. The nave is 12thc., the N aisle late 13thc. and the W tower and chancel 15thc. (The lower part of the tower is late 14thc. and the top stage is 19thc.) The chancel was remodelled in the 17thc. The porch is late 16thc. or early 17thc. A restored doorway in the S wall of the nave may be partially 12thc., and 12thc. material survives in the S wall and NE and NW angles of the nave. The exterior is rendered apart from the N wall which is flint with brick buttresses, and the top stage of the tower which is flint and ashlar.
Parish church
The church comprises nave and chancel and a turret at the W end of the nave (to give
access to the bells). The church was originally 12thc. in its entirety but the
chancel was rebuilt in the 14thc. and the S porch added in the 18thc. Archaeological
evidence demonstrates that there was probably an earlier church on this site (see
VII). The church is covered in render apart from the E angles of the nave which are
brick.