The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
Augustinian house, former
Augustinian house, former
A nave and chancel church demonstrating a number of different building phases. The nave, constructed from well-cut ashlar, appears to represent the earliest, 12thc., phase of building. A vaulted chancel was added to the E end in the 13thc. Changes made in the 15thc., included the revaulting of the chancel, possibly due to the insertion of an elaborate tomb in the S wall. The W end of the nave was also extended, and a fortified dwelling incorporated into the W wall. In the 18thc. Captain (later Sir) Edward Doddington remodelled the church for use as a place of protestant worship until a new church was built in the village in 1711–6. He was also responsible for the construction of a large house and bawn (defensive wall) to the W of the church. The site is now in the care of the Department of the Environment Northern Ireland (DOENI). 12thc. features comprise what appears to be blind arcading on the E wall of the nave, antae on NE and SE angles, a moulded S window, and a carved fragment, now lost.
Augustinian house, former
Lilleshall Abbey is 1 mile to the SE of Lilleshall village, 4 miles NE of Telford in the E of central Shropshire. The ruined site, now administered by English Heritage, is at the end of a track on the N side of the minor road linking Lilleshall and Weston Heath. What survives is the church, a cruciform building with a 4-bay chancel, 2 bay transepts with E chapels and a long, aisleless nave. The cloister is on the S side of the nave, and substantial remains of the E and S ranges survive. These are treated as a separate site (Lilleshall Abbey Cloister Buildings).
Of the church, the chancel, transepts and crossing are late-12thc, while the rest of the nave, except for the E bay which goes with the crossing, dates from the 13thc. The crossing is unusual in that the W crossing piers are larger and more complex than the E, because the W crossing arch was by far the most elaborate, with extra orders framing the view into the chancel. Unfortunately, little survives of this above base plinth level, so the only crossing arches that can be described in any detail are the S arch and the E arch. The most impressive Romanesque feature is the doorway from the cloister into the first nave bay on the S side.The chancel is 4 bays long, 2 storeys high and vaulted. The vault responds and their capitals survive and are described below. The S transept arch responds and their capitals survive, but little remains of the N transept. The most impressive Romanesque feature is the doorway from the cloister into the first nave bay on the S side.
Augustinian house, former
What survives of the precinct consists of the cloister square in the angle between the nave and S transept of the church, and buildings on the N, E and S sides. The open W side is presumed to have contained the Abbot's lodgings. The finest scu;lpture is on the processional doorway to the nave of the church, at the E end of the N cloister walk, and this is recorded with the church rather than here. In the E walk, from N to S, is the end of the S transept with a book locker in the wall, a sacristy at the S end of the transept, the slype leading to an area that is empty now but may have contained the infirmary and the cemetery. Next comes the chapter house. Finally the S range contains the refectory with a doorway towards the W end.This was later divided in two; the E part becoming a warming room. The features described here all belong with the first campaign of work on the site, dateable to the 1170s.