The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
Yorkshire, West Riding (pre-1974 traditional (England and Wales))
Cistercian House, former
Several groups of fragments of carved stonework from Kirkstall Abbey have been preserved:
a. On-site in a store off the S transept, the largest cache.
b. On display in the Visitor Centre: the stonework seen in 2010 was not displayed in 2017.
c. In the inaccessible monks’ parlour: fragments glimpsed in 2017 included waterleaf capitals.
d. In the Leeds City Council stores, finds including excavated stonework. A stone from a cornice with an interlace cross illustrated in Irvine (1892, 29-30) may perhaps be in a City Council store, but not seen.
For general remarks see report for Kirkstall Abbey: 01 Church.
Cistercian House, former
This report includes the remains of the W range and a passage adjacent on the E side.
The W range was vaulted in 11 double bays and divided into three main functions: an outer parlour of one bay at the N end; a four-bay cellarium; one bay for access through the range; and five bays at the S end for the lay brothers’ refectory. The lay brothers’ rere-dorter or latrines were in the block attached to the SW end of the range, where is no sculpture; this is now used as the Visitor Centre and entrance to the site.
The passage was defined by the E wall of the range and by a wall that ran N-S at a distance of 25 ft (7 m). This separated the lay brothers’ area from the monks’ cloister, and its scar can be seen in bay 7 on the S aisle wall of the church and on the S wall of the cloister. In the passage, against the W range, were stairs leading to the doorway into the lay brothers’ dormitory, and at the N end of the passage was their doorway into the nave of the church (report Kirkstall Abbey: 01 Church). At the S end of the passage is a large blocked arch in line with the S wall of the cloister; this arch, and the similar one to the S of it, were inserted in the late 12thc after the rearrangment of the S side of the cloister (Hope and Bilson 1907, 53, fig. 48).
Four doorways led from the passage into the W range at ground level. The doorway in bay 1 is blocked and appears to have been plain. A second doorway in bay 4 of two plain orders is now used by visitors to enter the cloister; the window openings are also plain. Sculptural interest is confined to the doorways in bays 6 and 9, and the doorway to the dormitory, and above all to the vault corbels inside the W range.
For History and full Bibliography, see report Kirkstall Abbey 01. Church.
Cistercian House, former
The chapter house is the chief space opening off the E side of the cloister. To the N of the chapter house was the sacristy (Kirkstall Abbey: 03. Sacristy), to the S was the parlour (Kirkstall Abbey: report 05); an archway that gave entry to the day stairs to the monks’ dormitory, and lastly, at the S end of the E wall an archway with a passage that may have led to the monks’ cemetery, and later to the infirmary and the abbot’s lodging. The first opening off this passage was to the monks’ dayroom (Kirkstall Abbey: report 06). Over the chapter house, parlour and dayroom ran the monks’ dormitory or dorter, with their rere-dorter at the S end of the range.
The chapter house is entered through an elaborate façade on the E walk. The earliest version of the interior survives as the four western bays, which formed a vestibule relatively open to the cloister. The ceiling is fairly low; it is vaulted 2 bays by 2, and is approximately 28ft (8.5m) square. An eastern space was entered up the steps and through two boldly moulded semi-circular arches; this inner room was the main area of the chapter house, which was rebuilt late in the 13thc (Hope and Bilson 1907).
The chapter house has sculpture on capitals and corbels of the facade and vaulting.
For History and Bibliography, see report Kirkstall Abbey: 01. Church.
Cistercian House, former
This gatehouse, also called the inner or great gatehouse, was inside the precinct according to the plan (Hope and Bilson 1907, foldout, opp. p. 8). However, it now lies north of the modern main road and away from the other stone buildings of the abbey. Excavations in the area of the inner gatehouse found a paved way leading towards the church, in contrast to a rutted roadway on a southern route into the precinct.
Three bays of the passage through the gate survive, embedded on either side within a later house; it is now used as the café for the Abbey House Museum. Between the central and S bays the gatehouse divided the traffic into a narrower passage for pedestrians to the E, and a wider part for carts and horsemen to the W.
The building is oriented NE-SW. For simplicity, the three bays are called here N, central and S bays.
For bibliography and other general matter, see report for Kirkstall Abbey: 01, church.
Boundary marker
This site consists of a block of limestone enclosed by a metal railed fence. It is beside the Ferrybridge Road, on the S side opposite Darkfield Lane, and recently (2014) approached by new housing. The stone is the socket of a roadside marker, and the four sides have two or three bays of blank arcading, simply carved - as it now seems after centuries of weathering - on two levels and with minimal indication of the features of capital and base in the arcade.
The shaft base is a listed Ancient Monument (no. 1011848).
Chapel
The chapel is close to the mansion, Lotherton Hall, near Aberford, and part of an estate that now belongs to Leeds City Council, although the chapel is not redundant. Neither the site of the earliest settlement nor of any ‘manor house’ has been identified.
Ryder (1993) says the chapel is the smallest church in West Yorkshire. It is a simple two-cell building, with what may be a 13thc. or 14thc. bellcote and some later windows. John Bilson's description of 1912 is quoted in Kirk (1919, 122-126). At some unknown date the building was shortened by about 1m on the W end. It is built of uncoursed rubble, with worked limestone on facings and doorways. If it were not for later furnishings, including memorials, it might resemble a barn.
It was restored ‘by the great architectural historian John Bilson’ (Pevsner) in 1913/1917; a pre-restoration view was enclosed when this report was first submitted. Before this, the chapel was plastered outside, apparently thickly enough to have hidden the priest's doorway from view.
Romanesque carving can be found on two window heads and on the N doorway; inside there is a stoup.
Country House
The present Nostell Priory, an 18thc country house in the care of the National Trust, was built on the site of a medieval Augustinian priory, of which nothing is now visible.
According to Pevsner 'Of the Augustinian priory...nothing is preserved', although his footnote reads 'Mr Pace [George Pace senior] tells me that many stones, carved and moulded, are stored in outbuildings.' Some stones were seen in 1989 by Kit Galbraith ‘in the cowshed near the entrance gate’. Currently, loose carved stones are stored in the stables and in the cellars of the house. Some of these may be from the estate, others collected by Charles Winn in the early 19thc. Nothing of 12thc date has been found in recent years in excavation in the stables area.
Selected stones that might be from the Romanesque period are described in this report. Seven items were identified. Items 1 and 2 were in the stable block. Items 3 to 7 had been brought in from outside near the gate prior to our visit in 2010 and had dry moss still attached. These were stored in a cellar of the house.
Ruined parish church
Swinton is a small town north-east of Sheffield. The church is a large 19thc building surrounded by a churchyard and an open grassland, the Vicarage Field, to the north. Sculptural remains of the Romanesque chapel of St Mary Magdalene, which was formerly located on the site of the present church hall before being dismantled in 1815, were retained after the fire of 1897 and re-erected to the NE of the new church: they consist of jambs, capitals and voussoirs of the S doorway, and remains of the chancel arch. However, over the years their deterioration caused some of the carved stones to be moved in a storeroom in 1950, while uncarved stones were buried in the Vicarage Field.
Architect Edmund Isle Hubbard had produced plans for the enlargment of the E end before the fire. Some papers regarding the rebuilt chapel, the chapel yard and the new church (1817 CD.81) have been transferred to the Sheffield Diocesan Registry. Some watercolours of Swinton chapel before 1815 survive. An engraving of the doorway was published by James Storer (1817, vol. 6). The reconstructed arches appear on postcards of c.1900-1905.
Parish church
Loversall is a village in the Doncaster borough of S Yorkshire. The church of St Katherine lies up a farm lane, on the northern edge of the small hamlet, surrounded by fields. Built of a creamy limestone, it is mainly Perpendicular with substantial Victorian rebuilding by Giles Gilbert Scott in the mid 19thc. The lower part of the tower is of c.1300. The only trace of the Romanesque here is the remains of a chancel window.
Parish church
Woolley is a village about six miles S of Wakefield, and the church lies to the W of the village. The building consists of a chancel of three bays with chapels to N and S, an aisled nave of four bays, a S porch and a W tower. The church was extensively restored in 1871. Nikolaus Pevsner (1967), 558, describes the church as ‘Perpendicular throughout’; Ryder (1993), 180, thinks the nave walls may date to the 12thc. Romanesque sculpture is found on a reset tympanum, a reset shaft and a font.