The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
Staffordshire (pre-1974 traditional (England and Wales))
Parish church
Yoxall was built along the river Swarbourn, which runs from N to S here. It was on the edge of the Needwood Forest, which was not enclosed until the 19thc. Its main street is now the A515 from Lichfield to Ashbourne and the church stands back from this in a spacious churchyard. St Peter's is mostly by Woodyer of 1865-68 and has an aisled nave with a clerestorey, a chancel with N and S chapels and a W tower. The nave is spacious with five-bay
arcades in a Decorated style and a clerestorey with square-headed quadruple lights. The S doorway is genuinely medieval and of c.1200 and has no porch; the N is 19thc. The chancel chapels are both of two bays, and the N now contains the organ. The W tower has a battlemented parapet and tall crocketed finials. Drawings predating Woodyer's restoration show a similarly aisled nave, apparently without a clerestorey and with no N porch; a very similar W tower and a much lower chancel without chapels. The only feature included here is the S doorway.The present hexagonal font is Woodyer's, but a drawing by Buckler of 1839 shows a slender, neo-classical font with a baluster
shaft (William Salt Library SV XII 153b).
Parish church
Enville is in the extreme SW of the county, less than 4 miles W of Dudley, but only 9 miles SE of Bridgnorth (Salop) and 6 miles N of Kidderminster (Worcs). The church is on a hill at the northern end of the village, and to the S and W are the extensive grounds of Enville Hall. St Mary's is a red sandstone church comprising a chancel with a N organ room; a nave with N and S aisles and a N porch; and a tower, incorporating a S porch, at the W end of the S aisle. The four-bay nave arcades are carried on cylindrical piers of coursed ashlar; the S arcade 12thc. and the N 13thc. but heavily restored. The tower does not respect the S arcade; i.e. its N wall blocks the W bay completely. The church was restored and enlarged by George Gilbert Scott in 1871-74. His work included the rebuilding of the chancel (including the organ room), the insertion of new aisle windows on both sides, the erection of new porches and the rebuilding of the tower. This has an elaborate crown based, according to Pevsner, on Gloucester Cathedral or Dundry. The tower was restored in 1990-92, following falls of masonry onto the aisle roof. Romanesque sculpture is found in the S nave arcade and on carved panels and corbels set into the spandrels above pier 1, on the nave and aisle sides.
Parish church
Gayton is a scattered village in central Staffordshire, some 5 miles NE of the centre of Stafford. It stands on a rise above the Trent, a mile away to the SW, and Gayton Brook, a tributary of the Trent, runs to the N of the village centre. The church is on the W side of the village with a moated site alongside it. St Peter's has a nave, now with a 19thc. S aisle but previously with a N aisle. This has been removed, the arcade blocked, and the wall rebuilt in brick of the same type found on the tower, and presumably at the same time (1732). The 15thc. N arcade remains visible on the interior, and both this and the 19thc. S arcade are of four bays. The nave has a S doorway only, under a 19thc. porch. The chancel arch is 12thc. but heavily restored, and the chancel was rebuilt in 1870 by Habershon and Pite of London (who were apparently responsible for the S nave aisle too), the work paid for by John Purcell Fitzgerald the Lay Impropriator. It contains a 13thc. wall tomb with an effigy and has a N vestry. The battlemented W tower is of brick and dates from 1732. From the exterior the church appears entirely post-medieval; the tower and N nave wall in industrial-looking red and blue brick and the rest in Habershon and Pite's rusticated yellowish ashlar. The William Salt Library holds two views of the church from the SE, dating from 1838 and 1841, before the S aisle was added (SV-IV.215a and SV-IV.214a). The only Romanesque feature is the over-restored chancel arch.
Parish church
Grindon is a remote village high in the Staffordshire Moorlands, situated in a loop of the River Hamps. It is surprising to find a church there that seems more suited to an urban setting, but All Saints is just that; a tall and solid ashlar building ofc.1845, built by F. and H. Francis in an early-14thc. style. Its wide nave has four-bay aisles with no clerestory, and it has a broad low chancel with a N vestry, and a tower with a tall broach spire with lucarnes at its foot. The old church was demolished in 1845, and a drawing by Buckler of 1847 shows the present building (William Salt Library SV IV 227). An undated watercolour entitled 'All Saints Church, Grindon' (William Salt Library SV IV 226b) shows a distant SW view of a church with a pinnacled tower without a spire, and a nave with a clerestory, i.e. not the present church, so presumably the old one. In the same collection is a Buckler drawing of 'One of the Capitals and remains of the Shaft of the Old Church at Grindon' (William Salt Library SV IV 228b). This shows a cylindrical pier carrying a low cushion capital with a square impost. The only Romanesque feature is a disused font bowl, at present under the tower.
Parish church
The church and the manor house alongside it were foundedc.1140 by Hugo Malvoisin, also founder of Blithbury Priory. All that remains of the medieval manor house is the timber-framed gatehouse ofc.1400. By the end of the middle ages, the church had a nave with N and S aisles and a S porch, a chancel and a W tower. In 1782 it was described as 'very damp and ruinous', and was taken down and rebuilt except for the N aisle and the tower. The present eccentric confection is the result. The church as it stands today has a broad, brick nave with a W doorway, a coved plaster ceiling, and small polygonal apse at its east, both dating from 1782. On the N side of the nave, and at a slightly lower level, is the Trinity aisle, or Cawarden Chapel, separated from the nave by a 14thc. arcade of three bays. The aisle is older than this, retaining 13thc. lancets in its E, W and N walls. In the chapel are collected a large number of memorials of the Mavesyn, Cawarden and Chadwick families, including two 13thc. effigies of knights. There are also contains hatchments and reliefs, largely retrospective and dating from around the time of the 18thc. rebuilding. The Perpendicular W tower (actually NW of the nave) is the only other medieval fabric, and both this and the N aisle are of grey ashlar. Romanesque interest centres on the foliage-ornamented font.
Parish church
St John's has an aisled nave with three-bay
arcades and a S doorway under a porch. The chancel is square ended and the W tower has diagonal buttresses. The S arcade and S doorway date from the 12thc., both with round arches and the arcade with cylindrical piers. The N arcade also has round arches, but the piers have a quatrefoil plan and the capitals have crockets. The style is early 13thc., therefore, but Pevsner suggests that it belongs to the rebuilding of the aisle in 1854 by F. W. Fiddian and Ewen Christian. This is incorrect; Fiddian's plan suggests that the arcade was not replaced, and it also appears on J. Buckler's drawing of 1844 (William Salt Library SV VII 69). The S porch is dated 1866, and must replace the porch shown on Fiddian's plan. The chancel windows have Y-tracery or (at the E) reticulated tracery, pointing to a date in the first half of the 14thc. The external cresting of the chancel roof looks 18thc. According to an inscription on its W face, the tower was begun by T. Rolleston in 1515. It has Perpendicular bell-openings and W window and doorway, and a battlemented parapet with eight tall pinnacles. Construction is of reddish ashlar. A plain 12thc. window head is reused as facing stone above the S porch. Two 12thc. lancets are shown above the porch in a Buckler drawing of 1839 (William Salt Library SV VII 66), but they are no longer there, and this window head probably belonged to one of them. Romanesque features recorded here are the S arcade and the S doorway.
Parish church
Church and Hall originally formed a group, with the Hall to the W, and this is shown in two views by Stebbing Shaw (1798-1801) in the William Salt Library (SV VIII 62a, 62b). Nothing is known of the Hall before the early 16thc., and such remains as survive today are of that period or later. St Michael's has a W tower with an octagonal spire behind a plain parapet, and a long nave and chancel in one, with no chancel arch, a single roof and a continuous clerestory. J. C. Buckler a produced a SE view of the church (1839), now in the William Salt Library (SV VIII 61a), looking much as it does today. The separation between nave and chancel was once by means of a rood-loft reached by a spiral stair on the S side, which remains in part. The present position of the chancel is marked by a step, and there are three nave arcade
bays to the W of this and one similar chancel
arcade
bay, plus a smaller bay to the E. On the N side of the chancel, both arches give onto a chapel, now containing the organ and a vestry. On the S the smaller E arch acts as the canopy of the Cotton tomb ofc.1500, and the chapel is still used for its proper purpose. There is another vestry to the E of the S chapel, so that overall the S chancel aisle extends to the E end of the church, while the N aisle stops one bay short. The nave is 12thc., and its upper W window survives in part, along with traces of another on the N side of the chancel, and masonry to either side of the tower at the W end. The tower and chancel are 14thc, and the arcades and clerestory Perpendicular. The church is of grey ashlar inside and out; the interior apparently recently cleaned and looking very bare. The church has three fonts, or at least three bowls, two 12thc., one inside and one out, and the third the 19thc. piece that is actually used. Curiously, Pevsner mentioned only the less interesting of the Romanesque fonts.
Parish church
The village of Maer is in the Staffordshire uplands, in the NW of the county. On Berth Hill, half a mile to the N, is an Iron Age hill fort, and the settlement has presumably moved down the hill towards the lake or mere that gives the village its name, and that is now in the grounds of the hall. The entire area was heavily wooded, but clearances must have begun before the Conquest, and by the time of the Domesday Survey there was land for two ploughs as well as woodland a league square. Church and hall are very close together; the road that now separates them originally ran behind the hall but was diverted in the 19thc. so that it did not divide the hall from the lake. Despite their proximity, the precipitous slope on which the church is built raises it high above the hall. The effect of this slope on the architecture of the church is best seen inside the building. Nave and chancel share a single (horizontal) roof, but the chancel floor is four steps above the nave. There is no chancel arch. The nave has a late-12thc. S doorway under a porch (of which more below), and a N aisle with a two-bay
arcade, perhaps 15thc. in date. The chancel has a N organ chamber with a vestry to the E of it, both dating from 1877, and the W tower is 13thc. with a battlemented parapet and stumpy pinnacles added, perhapsc.1600. They may, indeed, belong to the rebuilding known to have taken place in 1610. Two drawings of 1838 and 1843 show the S porch with a room above it, entered by an external staircase (William Salt Library, SV VII 62a and 62b). By 1875, when an early photograph was taken, the tower was entirely overgrown with ivy. There was another restoration in 1877, when the ivy was cleared, the porch was reduced to a single storey, the entire church was re-roofed, the old organ loft and gallery were removed and the present organ chamber and vestry were added. The E window also dates from this restoration. The only Romanesque work described here is the S doorway.
Parish church
All Saints, Standon is wildly asymmetrical inside and out. From within it can be seen to have an aisled nave with a clerestory on the N but not the S. The N arcade is of two 13thc. bays but occupies only the eastern part of the nave. To the W on this side is a stretch of 12thc. walling that still contains the original N doorway, which is thus inside the church now (as is the case with the S doorway at Rolleston on Dove). The S arcade is much taller, too tall to accommodate a clerestory above it, and is of two and a half bays; the half-arch bearing on the W wall of the nave. The W tower is not set symmetrically between the arcades, but is set towards the S. Its S wall is in line with the S arcade but its N wall is well inside the line of the N arcade. The tall 14thc. tower arch is thus place to the S of the nave rather than in the centre. Further confusion at the W end has been caused by the later additions. The S aisle has been extended alongside the tower as far as its W face. There is also an addition to the N of the tower, but it extends only as far as the line of the N arcade. In compensation, however, it is much taller, and a large and entirely inappropriate window has been inserted in the W wall of the nave to provide it with some indirect light. The result of all this is the bizarrely calligraphic outline of the W elevation of the church. At the E, the chancel is by Scott, of 1846-47 in a 13thc. style. He chose to line up the chancel fairly between the nave arcades. There is an organ loft to the N of the chancel, and a vestry to the S. It is difficult to suggest a logical sequence of building that would have resulted in All Saints Standon, and the old views in the William Salt Library do not help much. SV IX 122a and 136a, of 1837 and 1841 respectively, show the SE view before the restoration, with no vestry to the S of the chancel and with S aisle with a gablet. SV IX 131 is a similar view after the restoration, showing the new form of the aisle and the new vestry in place. SV IX 130 is a SW view of 1847 that shows the rebuilt S aisle, and shows too that the W elevation was much the same then as it is now. The only Romanesque feature of the church is the N doorway.
Parish church
Rolleston is now practically a suburb of Burton-on-Trent; what was a small village with an economy based on arable (cereals and beans) and dairy farming situated on the edge of Needwood Forest having largely abandoned its agricultural activities and expanded its housing stock in the 20thc., not without some resistance from the older villagers. It was an estate village until the Rolleston Estate, landlord to most of the local farms, was broken up and sold off in the 1920s. Little evidence of this remains, owing to the post-1945 expansion of the village.Its church, St Mary's, has a 12thc. nave and chancel and a W tower ofc.1300 with a later embattled parapet and a spire behind it. The 12thc. nave still retains its N and S doorways in their original positions, but as a result of later additions, the S doorway (not the N, as Pevsner reports) is now inside the church. The S, or Mosley aisle has a two-bay
arcade ofc.1300 at the E end of the nave, but in fact it extends E alongside the chancel (but not to the E end) and W alongside the nave, enclosing the S doorway (but again, not as far as the tower. It includes a 19thc. doorway under a porch. On the N, a matching arcade was inserted in 1892, forming an aisle at the E end of the nave known as the Lady Chapel. This extends eastwards the entire length of the chancel, but in the W it stops short of the nave doorway, which is still outside and has no porch. This curious arrangement manages to look symmetrical inside the church, because the arcades match each other. Romanesque sculpture is found on the two nave doorways, and there is a plain 12thc. window in the chancel (not recorded here). The most interesting of the drawings in the William Salt Library are SV VIII 83, showing the NE view in 1848, before the Lady Chapel was added, and SV VIII 82b showing the N doorway in 1844, before its restoration.