The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
Augustinian house, former
Augustinian house, former
The ruined priory of Ranton and the remains of the Georgian hall alongside it stand in landscaped parkland 1 mile W of the village of Ranton and 5 miles W of Stafford. All that survives of the abbey church is the W tower and a short section of the S nave wall rebuilt to house the S doorway. This doorway is of the late 12thc. The 15thc. tower has angle buttresses, a five-light W window and two-light bell-openings below a saltire frieze and an embattled parapet. All the main windows are now blocked with bricks. To the S of the church is the ruined shell of the house, called Ranton Abbey and dating fromc.1820 according to Pevsner. Various antiquarian drawings survive in the William Salt Library, many by Buckler and most concentrating on the W tower. SV VIII 59 (Buckler 1842) shows the S doorway looking much as it does today, but it is not clear from this whether any more of the nave wall was standing at that date.
Augustinian house, former
A mainly early 13thc. church, on the shores of Lough Mask, T-plan, now in ruins,
with nave, chancel and N and S chambers accessible from the chancel. (nave w.
6.4 m x l. 12.49 m; chancel w. 4.65 m x l. 6.02 m) The chambers were added after
the first building campaign. (S chamber w. 3.86 m x l. 5.03 m, N chamber w. 3.81
m x l. 5.03 m) . A further small chamber (w. 1.35 m) is attached to the W wall
of the S chamber and the S wall of the nave. There is a doorway in the N wall of
the nave, plain with inclined jambs and a massive lintel. There are also a
number of large ashlar blocks in the N wall of the nave, and two arcuated
lintels (reset in the exterior S wall of the nave and interior S wall of the N
transept). These and the doorway may provide evidence for an earlier structure.
13thc. sculpture survives on the chancel arch, on the double window on the
gabled E wall of the chancel, and on the L label stop of a window in the S wall
of the nave (only part of the masonry of the window survives). There is a plain
window, with arcuated lintel, on the E wall of the N transept, which also has a
gabled N wall.
Augustinian house, former
The church comprises a chancel (w. c.8.00 m ), mainly 13thc. and an aisleless 15thc.
nave. Of the original conventual buildings the sacristy, adjoining chamber and the W
wall of the E range survive. There is a sealed chamber on the far S of the E range
which is also 13thc. Part of the original 13thc. cloister arcading survives, but most
is a replacement of c.1860 from a restoration led by Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness. Most
other surviving features are 15thc. or later.The chancel has a number of surviving, plain 13thc. features including the rebuilt N
and S windows and the triple E window. There is also a round-headed 13thc. sedilia in
the S wall of the chancel. This has bulbous bases with a chamfered torus below
nook-shafts. Simple capitals support the arch, which has a filleted angle roll, front
and rear, with a pointed moulding on the soffit. The label has a raised, central
keeled roll on the angle, flanked by a smaller roll. There is an aumbry in the E end
of the S wall, of two chamfered orders.On the S side of the chancel is a plain round-headed (not ashlar) S doorway leading
into the sacristy. This has an open stone stairway (modern) leading to an upper
floor. The entrance to the upper chamber is round-headed of one chamfered order with
a chamfered label and there is a plain round-headed window in the upper S wall. The
upper parts of the building are restored. The sacristy has a S doorway leading to a chamber with a barrel-vaulted roof and a
plain round headed window, restored on the exterior. The exterior S doorway to this
chamber is round-headed with a chamfered, restored label with acanthus label stops.
The chamber abuts onto a smaller chamber on the W, which is only accesible via the
cloister.Romanesque sculpture is found on the reset N doorway, and on the doorways and windows
of the E range.
Augustinian house, former
On the shores of Lough Conn. The church and conventual buildings are mainly 13thc. The only Romanesque feature is a reused, round-headed window with an arcuated lintel and with a thick, continuous angle roll, set high in the N wall of the chancel. No sculpture.
Augustinian house, former
A large cruciform, aisleless early 13thc. church standing next to the abbey ruins (W
wall of nave to E wall of chancel 40.23m, w. across transepts 22.86 m). The rebuilt
chapter house and sacristy survive and are also early 13thc. while the remains of the
cloister and domestic buildings are mainly 15thc. The church has a vaulted chancel
with a chamber above and two barrel-vaulted chapels in each transept, the inner
round-headed and the outer pointed and rather taller. The sacristy adjoins the south
transept and abuts onto a small chamber, accessible from the cloister walk. The
chapter house is attached to the sacristy. A 17thc. chapel adjoins the chancel on the
S. The nave was rebuilt in 1270. Plain round-headed doorways are found in the N wall
of the N transept and N and S side of nave (all reconstructed in 1965-6). The plain
sacristy doorway and the doorway to the storeroom in the E cloister range are
original. This doorway is round-headed and of three plain chamfered orders, the first
order with a tympanum and the others continuous. There are plain round-headed windows
at clerestorey level (one on S two on N); one in the E wall of each transept chapel,
with a small rectangular window above; and two, one above the other, over the triple
window on the E face, the upper being rectangular. There are a number of narrow
round-headed windows to the chapter house, some reconstructed. Romanesque sculpture
is found on the corbels of the crossing, the chancel vaulting and E window, the W
door of the chapter house, a reset corbel and a mortar (used as a font).
Augustinian house, former
The church has an undivided nave and chancel,
with the E end raised approx. 0.9 m over a vaulted crypt. The E wall has two round-headed windows traversed by a
wall-passage and is 11.2 m wide; the church is narrower at the W end. In the
15thc. the present W wall was built, shortening the church, which was
originally 39.32 m long, to 26.36 m on the N and 26.82 m on the S side. The N
wall was restored and domestic buildings added to the S. The S wall of nave is
no longer standing, apart from a partially rebuilt late medieval doorway at W
end.
Augustinian house, former
The priory is situated about three quarters of a mile to the E of the main monastic buildings at Glendalough, on the S bank of the Glendasan river. At the moment the ruins are completely surrounded by timber plantations. The buildings consist of a nave and chancel church with an annex to the N of the nave. The latter is the same size as the nave and linked to it by a doorway near the E end of the dividing wall. The masonry coursing in the W wall of the priory indicates that nave and annex are coeval. A mural stair in the E wall of the annex led presumably to an upper floor and probably also to a croft over the barrel vaulted chancel. When the Commissioners of Public Works took over the site in 1875 the buildings 'were buried under heaps of rubbish and tangled vegetation'; extensive reconstruction took place at this time. The bulk of the Romanesque carving is to be found on the chancel arch and the E window, both of which were rebuilt in the 1870s.
Augustinian house, former
Bradenstoke Priory is situated near the village of Bradenstoke-cum-Clack in the parish of Lyneham, some 10 miles W of Swindon in the N of the county. The priory is sited on a high ridge of land which overlooks the Avon valley. The priory was dissolved in 1539, and its remains, including part of the 14th century hall and undercroft of the guest house that had formed the W range of the cloister, were subsequently used as a farmhouse. There was a 15thc tithe barn and a holy well nearby. The site was investigated in the 1920s and the plan of the monastic buildings and the 12th century church were recovered. Unfortunately most of this fabric was removed in 1929 by the then owner, the American newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst, who had the hall removed and reconstructed at his property of St Donat's Castle in the Vale of Glamorgan. The only buildings that survive on site today are the undercroft of the guest hall with a 14th century garderobe tower at its north-west corner, and both are in a ruinous condition. No Romanesque fabric survives on-site, but a chevron voussoir, said to be from Bradenstoke, is preserved at Cartmel Priory (qv)
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.
Augustinian house, former
A rectangular building located off the E walk of the cloister of St Frideswide's priory (now Christ Church cathedral), Oxford. c.1230 in its present form, it has three rib-vaulted bays and 13thc windows towards the E. Romanesque masonry survives in the blind W bay. Two restored 2-light Romanesque windows in the W wall flank a sculpted Romanesque doorway. This shows traces of fire damage. The doorway is carved inside and out.