The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
School chapel, formerly Hospital chapel
School chapel, formerly Hospital chapel
Brackley is a town in the far S of the county, sited in a loop of the
Great Ouse, which forms the border with Buckinghamshire. It is an ancient site
on the main road from Northampton to Oxford, and evidence of Iron Age and Roman
settlement has been found in the town. There seem to have been two centres to
it; one around St Peter's church towards the E of the present town, and the
other on its southern edge, overlooking the river, around the site of the
Norman castle, of which a motte 3m high and 40m in diameter survives. The
church is a long single-celled building with a short tower attached to the N
side, W of centre. There is no chancel arch, but the
extent of the original chancel is marked by an
arcade of four bays on the N
wall, now blocked but originally giving onto a chapel. There was apparently
another chapel on the N side of the nave, W of the tower, where a tall
quatrefoil-section pier
survives with the first few voussoirs of vault-ribs above its capital. The exterior masonry is much
disturbed on the S side, where blocked doorways and a total lack of
fenestration at the W end indicate the removal of conventual buildings which
communicated with the church. An elaborate late-12thc. W doorway is the
earliest dateable feature of the fabric, but most of the remainder suggests a
13thc. date, including the W window, the triple-lancets of the chancel S wall, and the simple lancets of the tower.
Construction is of stone rubble. There was a restoration in 1869-70 by
Buckeridge. The only Romanesque features are the W doorway and the font, both
of c.1200.