The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
Lancashire (pre-1974 traditional (England and Wales))
Castle
The keep of Lancaster Castle is a four-storey tower, which is 20 m high (albeit the upper storey may have been heightened or added at a later date) and has shallow pilaster-like buttresses at the corners and at the centre of each side. The outer walls are approximately 3 m thick. There is a spine wall running E-W which divides the keep internally.
The original main entrance of the keep was via a long set of stone stairs to the 1st floor on the S side, still extant until the 18thc. This elevation is now hidden by the Debtors' Wing of 1796. The W side of the keep is also hidden by the building of the new Shire Hall and Crown Court, begun after 1796. The 1796 prison for male felons is built on the N side of the keep. These additions were all designed by Thomas Harrison, albeit the Shire Hall and Crown Court were finished by Joseph Gandy.
Adrian's (also referred to as Emperor Hadrian's) tower, in the S-W corner of the Castle, has 13th-c style masonry internally, but was entirely refaced externally at the end of the 18thc.
The imposing gatehouse was built by Henry IV after 1399. It has been suggested that the lower levels of the gatehouse contain earlier work from the early 13thc. However, nothing relevant in terms of Romanesque sculpture was observed. The same is true of the Well Tower to the E of the gatehouse, which was largely built in the 15thc. Some structural timbers were dated by Oxford Archaeology North using dendrochronology to a primary phase after 1265, and later refurbishment or building to the late 14thc or early 15thc. Any evidence of earlier building from the 13thc in the lower levels did not include any Romanesque sculpture.
Castle
The remains of Clitheroe Castle consist today of the Norman keep standing on rocky outcrop dominating the town. The keep is one of the smallest in the country, measuring no more than 10.8m on each side externally and 5.2m internally. It is square with small, flat, pilaster-like corner turrets, one of which contains a spiral staircase. It consists of a single room on three floors, with an extra intra-mural chamber on the 1st floor. The original roof or floor timbers is lost. The main entrance was on the NW elevation at 1st floor level. Entry must have been by an external, wooden staircase. The substantial stepped buttresses are part of the 1848 restoration work.
On the elevations, all apertures are either simple slits - some enlarged at a later date - or round-headed doors which appear to have been rebuilt and renewed or what appear to be breaches in the wall (particularly at ground floor level). It may be that the door apertures on 1st floor level are in their original position, however the jambs and arches appeared to contain rebuilt or newer fabric.
There was no sign of any moulding or decorative work on the extant jambs, lintels or sills.
The museum, occupying the 16thc Steward's House, was visited and checked for any ex situ fragments of stone but none were seen.
Parish church, formerly chapel
The previous church was a plain red-brick Georgian chapel of 1766, which may have been built on the site of the medieval church, itself replaced by a massive Neo-Romanesque building to its N built 1869-71 by Lancaster firm Paley and Austin. The two buildings were photographed together but the older building was soon demolished, and its site and small plan is still visible in the graveyard, marked by a monumental cross. The new building is a powerful and essay in Romanesque and Early Gothic, both sympathetic to period motifs and highly inventive. At the W end of the nave is the Romanesque font, which appears to be from the original building.
Parish church, formerly chapel
Woodplumpton, from approach, seems like an entirely post-medieval church. The S aisle was apparently built in 1748 in a rather English Baroque manner. The crennelation however suggests it was a refacing of a Late Perpendicular wall. Inside its medieval origins are clearer. There are two arcades, no chancel arch, similar to nearby St Michael on Wyre. The capitals on the S are extremely crude and may be post-Reformation. The end wall of the N aisle is in a different stone and suggests this was the first medieval expansion. There is an early 20thc vestry built on the E end of the N side of the N aisle. Set into what was originally the N aisle outer wall, are some Romanesque fragments found c. 1900.
Parish church, formerly chapel
The medieval church was demolished except for the tower in 1823. There are no surviving images of the church of Broughton, but it seems to have been plain, late Gothic like the surviving tower, with through arcades and no chancel arch, typical of the area. Some fragments of this church are in the chancel S wall. The body of the church was replaced by a commissioners-type single-roofed, ashlar-faced box with lancets. A chancel was added 1905-6 by Austin and Paley.
Parish church, formerly chapel
In 1852-5, St Luke was built on this ancient burial ground. The precise location of the original chapel is not known, and no fragments remain, except the font.
Church
Aldingham is located on the E coast of the Furness peninsula in southern Cumbria. The church consists of a rectangular chancel, aisled nave, and W tower. The earliest surviving part of the church is the south arcade of the nave. There is also a loose waterleaf capital. The present chancel may date from about 1300, with some modifications made to it in later centuries. The W tower is thought to have been constructed in the 14thc. and added to in the 15thc. The S aisle appears to have been rebuilt in the 14thc., while the N nave aisle was built in 1845-6. There is also a modern vestry built onto the N side of the church.
Augustinian house, former
The site of an Augustinian priory founded in the late 12thc. near Ulverston on the Furness peninsula, about 8 miles east of Furness Abbey. A neo-Gothic mansion now covers the site.
This capital was found by the author by chance in overspill from a collapsed section of perimeter wall, near a temporary car-park on the right side of the priory entrance drive, on the evening of 24 May 2014 and photographed the following day. Given the chance circumstances leading to its discovery, it is likely that this piece has never been identified by scholars. It is clearly ex-situ. While there is other worked stone present here, no other medieval sculptured pieces – of any date – were visible in the wall or anywhere else on the site. More material may survive buried in the perimeter wall and in its continuation in the field beyond; the latter was inaccessible.
Parish church, formerly Augustinian house
Cartmel Priory was founded in 1189. Most of the surviving architecture is from the Gothic period, including its most unusual feature, the top stage of the tower rotated 45 degrees to make the corners face the cardinal points of the compass. A piece of ex-situ sculpture identified as originating from Bradenstoke Priory, Wiltshire, is preserved inside.
Parish church, formerly hospital chapel
Stydd is a small collection of buildings - the church, cottages, a farm and an 18thc Roman Catholic church - a very short walk from Ribchester. The church is a single-celled building, with an Early English S doorway, and an E window with intersecting tracery. The N wall has two small lancets, while the S wall has a very tall narrow one. The W wall has a Y-tracery window, and a blocked opening high up. The monastic buildings seem to have been to the N of the church, but excavations have not proved conclusive. There are now some sheds erected over the area.