Parish church

Mersham is a large village about 3 miles E of Willesborough near Ashford, Kent. The church of St John the Baptist was described by Stephen Glynne in 1877 as 'rather a handsome church, with some singularities, and portions of various styles'. It has nave with S aisle, chancel with S chapel, tower and porch. There is a Romanesque S doorway.

Lympne

Lympne, Kent

Parish church

Lympne is a village situated about 0.5 mile N of West Hythe, less than 2 miles distant from the Channel coast. The church of St Stephen is a substantial building perched at the edge of a long downwards escarpment looking towards the coast. It comprises a nave, a central tower, a N aisle and a porch. There are two known 19thc restorations. Romanesque work includes the tower arches, tower windows, and font, together with some reset chip carving in the early Gothic N aisle window.

Falkirk

St Modan, Falkirk, Stirlingshire

Parish church

Inside the church of St Modan is a section of Romanesque cross, carved on two sides with one of the original cross arms missing. Repaired in 1632-3, the church was rebuilt in 1810-11, with only the lower part of the central tower (likely to be 15th century) and the upper section of about 1740 preserved from the previous church. This destroyed, earlier church appears to have been cruciform in shape and was likely a later-medieval building. No other part of the early church fabric was retained, though a few carved medieval stones survive.

St Mary, East Raynham

East Raynham, Norfolk

Parish church

St Mary's was built 1n 1866-8, following the design of the medieval building it replaced. It retains an elaborate Easter Sepulchre of c.1500 installed by the Townshend family of local and national significance. The spiral shafts described here constitute the only Romanesque sculpture at the site.

St Edmund

Downham Market

Parish church

Almost nothing earlier than its 13thc W tower is visible at St Edmund's, a striking building constructed of a combination of dark local carstone and even darker ferrugious conglomerate. In its present state, it dates from the 13th-15thc with much 19thc restoration in places. It has a chancel, an aisled nave and a N transept but there are also signs of a former S transept, indicating that the previous building on the site was cruciform. The small colonnette reset in a puropse-built recess in the external N wall of the N transept presumably came from an earlier church and is now the only Romanesque sculpture at St Edmund's.

Holme Hale

Holme Hale, Norfolk

Parish church

The W tower at St Andrew's was underway in 1431. Judging from the round-arched doorway preserved inside its E wall, the tower was attached to a nave that was Norman, at the latest, to which a N aisle had been added in the 13thc

Preston Bagot

All Saints, Preston Bagot, Warwickshire

Parish church

Preston Bagot is a small, dispersed village in the Stratford district of Warwickshire, 6 miles W of Warwick. The church is on the N side of the settlement and is built of grey limestone rubble. It consists of a nave with a W bell turret and S porch, and a chancel with a N vestry. The nave and chancel are largely 12thc, but the church was restored by J. A. Chatwin who lengthened the chancel, added the chancel arch, heightened the walls and added the timber bell-turret in 1878-79. The N nave wall retains its doorway and 3 plain lancets, all of the 12thc. The S doorway is also recorded here.

Southover, Lewes

St John the Baptist, Southover, Lewes, Sussex

Parish church

Lewes was the county town of Sussex before the county was divided in 1974, and is now the county town of East Sussex. It stands on the River Ouse, 6 miles NE of Brighton. The ruins of the priory are in Southover, on the SE edge of the town and the former hospitium of the priory, at the W end of the precinct, was turned into the parish church of St John the Baptist in the 13thc. The original arrangement had two parts of unequal widths, separated by an arcade, perhaps to divide the sexes. The wider N section became the nave and the S section the aisle. The nave was apparently curtailed for the building of a W tower at an unknown date (although the tower arch appears to be 14thc work). The nave is now 5 bays long on the N wall with a 4 bay S aisle. The original tower collapsed in 1698 and its replacement, of brick, dates from the 18thc. The chancel is of 2 bays, of the 15thc extended in the 19thc. At the E end of the S nave aisle is the chapel of William of Warenne and Gundrada, added in 1845 by J. L. Parsons of Lewes under the guidance of Benjamin Ferrey. It contains two lead coffins discovered during the excavations of 1845-47 carried out when the railway line to Brighton was built across the priory site. They contained bones assumed to be those of the founders, which were interred beneath the beautifully carved Tournai marble slab to Gundrada (d.1085) that had been brought from Isfield church in 1775. Romanesque work recorded here consists of part of the nave arcade, Gundrada's tomb slab and the plain font.

Bapchild

St Lawrence, Bapchild, Kent

Parish church

Bapchild is a village on the old A2 about 1 mile SE of Sittingbourne. The church of St Lawrence has a nave and chancel with N aisle and chapel, a S tower with spire, and a S porch. Romanesque features include the nave arcade and N chapel. Note that the S tower has a blocked round-headed arch and a round-headed window with later tracery, suggesting that the lower level at least is of Romanesque date, but is entirely plain and contains no sculpture.

Broadstairs

Parish church

Broadstairs is a coastal town in Thanet, NE Kent, formed from the inland old village of Thanet and small coastal settlements. The church of St Peter in Thanet is a large aisled building with a chancel, porch and a 15thc W tower of flint and ragstone. The N and S nave arcades are Romanesque.

The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland

Parish church

Mersham

Mersham, Kent

Lympne

Lympne, Kent

Falkirk

St Modan, Falkirk, Stirlingshire

St Mary, East Raynham

East Raynham, Norfolk

St Edmund

Downham Market

Holme Hale

Holme Hale, Norfolk

Preston Bagot

All Saints, Preston Bagot, Warwickshire

Southover, Lewes

St John the Baptist, Southover, Lewes, Sussex

Bapchild

St Lawrence, Bapchild, Kent

Broadstairs

Broadstairs