The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
"Conisbrough"
Parish church
Thorne is two miles due E of Fishlake and ten miles NE of Doncaster. The church is in a large churchyard, in an urban setting on three sides, and on the N there are the substantial remains of a motte and bailey castle called Peel Hill.
The church is built of creamy Magnesian limestone, both rubble and ashlar, and has had many parts rebuilt or added. It consists of an embattled W tower and nave enclosed in aisles and has a two-storey S porch. The chancel has N chapel and vestry, and S chapel. The scars of earlier roofs of both chancel and nave are visible.
Among the surviving Romanesque features, three round-headed windows remain in the walls of the chancel. The four-bay nave arcades are pointed and appear to be of the early 13thc, but the bases and capitals of the piers could be earlier. The E capitals are bonded into a wall and could mark the eastward extent of the nave of a preceding church, perhaps the ‘chapel’ mentioned in 1147.
Two round-headed doorways are recorded below but their features make them difficult to date. The window facings, although similar to remnants at several other churches recorded in the S of the Riding, are probably impossible to date. The arcades were recorded as they are likely to be of the same date as the doorways.
Shaft
As seen in August 2012, the ‘cross’ is an eye-catcher at the south end of South Parade; the fake inscription about 10 feet up the main shaft is weathering; there is no vestige of any twelfth-century material.
Parish church
This church is built of sandstone and limestone, and the same material was used for the older houses in the village. The church consists of a chancel and nave, W tower, S aisle and a porch. The S wall of the aisle is of rubble, roughly coursed at the foot, with rubble above. The chancel, N side and tower of three stages are ashlar, with battlements. The roofs are brown and grey slate. In 2010 the church was restored, with a new roof and refurbished S porch. A little more of the structure around the tympanum, which is the main relevant feature for the Corpus, has been exposed.
Parish church
Spofforth is a village 5 miles S of Harrogate in North Yorkshire. The church is a large one, outwardly Victorian neo-Norman, c.1855 (Leach and Pevsner 2009, 715). Lawrence Butler (2006, 390) describes the church as 'destructively restored' by J. W. Hugill. It has a Perp W tower with late 12th-century N and S arcades and chancel arch remaining from the medieval church; the head of the S doorway is also largely of this period. The exterior of the church before restoration is illustrated in Butler 2007, 390, but shows no sign of 12th-century work.
Cistercian House, former
This report includes the remains of the W range and a passage adjacent on the E side.
The W range was vaulted in 11 double bays and divided into three main functions: an outer parlour of one bay at the N end; a four-bay cellarium; one bay for access through the range; and five bays at the S end for the lay brothers’ refectory. The lay brothers’ rere-dorter or latrines were in the block attached to the SW end of the range, where is no sculpture; this is now used as the Visitor Centre and entrance to the site.
The passage was defined by the E wall of the range and by a wall that ran N-S at a distance of 25 ft (7 m). This separated the lay brothers’ area from the monks’ cloister, and its scar can be seen in bay 7 on the S aisle wall of the church and on the S wall of the cloister. In the passage, against the W range, were stairs leading to the doorway into the lay brothers’ dormitory, and at the N end of the passage was their doorway into the nave of the church (report Kirkstall Abbey: 01 Church). At the S end of the passage is a large blocked arch in line with the S wall of the cloister; this arch, and the similar one to the S of it, were inserted in the late 12thc after the rearrangment of the S side of the cloister (Hope and Bilson 1907, 53, fig. 48).
Four doorways led from the passage into the W range at ground level. The doorway in bay 1 is blocked and appears to have been plain. A second doorway in bay 4 of two plain orders is now used by visitors to enter the cloister; the window openings are also plain. Sculptural interest is confined to the doorways in bays 6 and 9, and the doorway to the dormitory, and above all to the vault corbels inside the W range.
For History and full Bibliography, see report Kirkstall Abbey 01. Church.
Cathedral church
Made a cathedral in 1888; Pevsner thinks this building still looks like 'a large and proud parish church'. It has the tallest spire in Yorkshire, 75m high. Little of the 12thc. building survives, although in 1974 archaeologists found 'Norman' foundations (Speak and Forrester 1976, 4-6; Swann, Roberts and Tweddle 2006). Restored in 1858-74 by Sir Gilbert Scott (Pevsner 1967, 527-28). Building has continued into the 20thc.: most recently the nave has been paved and the pews removed. Plan in Speak and Forrester 1976.
Originally a simple cruciform building, there are remains of a N arcade of c.1150, also walling in various parts, although some features noted by Micklethwaite, when he had oversight of the building between 1864 and 1874, later disappeared (Micklethwaite, 1888, 37n.). There is a Norman wall which contained a staircase on the SW angle of the S transept at end of S nave aisle. Micklethwaite (1888, 37) says: 'The large block of masonry in the south-west corner of the south chapel is the corner of the twelfth-century transept, though the facing is all of later work. Inside it there are the remains of a stair which were exposed during the work of Sir Gilbert Scott.'
Sculpture is confined to pier bases in the N arcade.
Parish church
Barnburgh is seven miles west of Doncaster. The honey-coloured stone church stands high in a village of which the older houses are of the same stone. It has a chancel with a N aisle or chapel, nave with N and S aisles and a porch, and W tower. The tower has four stages, the lower part including ashlar walling with two windows with one-piece heads; it is buttressed to the height of the S aisle, the roofs battlemented. A plan of the church is in the Borthwick Institute (Fac. 1869/2).
The earliest work inside the building is the nave N arcade of two bays with octagonal imposts and pointed arches. The base to pier 1 is the nearest to Romanesque forms.
Apart from two simple windows in the tower, the Romanesque remains are the two reset fragments of a sculpted pillar, formerly outside the church and now erected close to pier 1 in the N arcade.
Parish church
A large church of creamy limestone, on a hill, overlooking a wide plain. Stone W tower in stages, with parapet; battlemented nave. A rectangular church with a S chapel addition and N vestry as a smaller addition. The earliest structures of the building were built in the 12thc; Romanesque sculptural remains are abundant and consist of a N and S doorway, a round-headed window visible in the exterior wall of the chancel, windows at W end of nave and tower, N and S porches, nave and S aisle arcades, string courses, and a piscina. Faculty papers in the Borthwick Institute, Fac. 1868/12, include a plan but it is extremely fragile and was not opened.
Parish church
Marton-cum-Grafton is a village 6 miles NE of Knaresborough in North Yorkshire. The present simple church of nave and chancel, with S vestry and N porch, was consecrated in 1876. It replaced an even humbler medieval church situated a distance away from the village (at site of the graveyard on Church Lane, SE 416 623).
This new church reused much stone of the old one, including a sizeable quantity of 12th-c carved work harvested from the walls by the vicar, Mr Lunn, during demolition. 12th-c worked stone was reset in the entrance doorway to the nave, the vestry’s exterior doorway and interior, and in the reconstruction of a supposed chancel arch, now an internal doorway opening from the chancel into the vestry (the latter includes much new work).
Museum
The Museum is housed in a fine Art Deco building. The best items from the excavations of the Pontefract Priory were on display, although much Romanesque material was omitted. For this see the report on the Pontefract Museum store at Normanton.
The most relevant exhibits are parts of a standing monument and a chevron voussoir. A later stone lectern table has also been photographed and described, as it may be a useful comparison for Romanesque examples.