The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
Mortuary chapel
Mortuary chapel
Heythrop is in N Oxfordshire, 3 miles E of CN. The original parish church, dating from the 12thc, was a two-cell structure made up of a nave and a chancel of rendered rubble with freestone dressing. No major changes were made until the 15thc when the roof was raised and a square-headed windows installed. It was never enlarged because Heythrop remained a tiny hamlet. However, when Heythrop House was revitalised in the 1870s, a new church was built nearby as the existing church was deemed insufficient. After the new church was consecrated in 1881, the nave of the old one was demolished. The decorated Romanesque S nave doorway was taken down and reset within the chancel arch. Buttresses were built at the W corners of the chancel, and in the 18thc a bellcote was rebuilt at the new W end. The building has since been used as a mortuary chapel. Several Romanesque features survive, some of which are unique in Oxfordshire. Besides the reset S doorway, the chancel arch itself bears an unusual cable, now exteriorised on the W face, and is flanked by paired blind arcades. Also on the S wall there are two original figurative relief panels.
Mortuary chapel
The old church was pulled down in 1879 and a chapel built on the site. It has a two-bay nave and chancel in one with bell-turret.12thc. sculpture exists on a font originally from the old church at nearby Doddenham.