The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
"Enville "
Parish church
Enville is in the extreme SW of the county, less than 4 miles W of Dudley, but only 9 miles SE of Bridgnorth (Salop) and 6 miles N of Kidderminster (Worcs). The church is on a hill at the northern end of the village, and to the S and W are the extensive grounds of Enville Hall. St Mary's is a red sandstone church comprising a chancel with a N organ room; a nave with N and S aisles and a N porch; and a tower, incorporating a S porch, at the W end of the S aisle. The four-bay nave arcades are carried on cylindrical piers of coursed ashlar; the S arcade 12thc. and the N 13thc. but heavily restored. The tower does not respect the S arcade; i.e. its N wall blocks the W bay completely. The church was restored and enlarged by George Gilbert Scott in 1871-74. His work included the rebuilding of the chancel (including the organ room), the insertion of new aisle windows on both sides, the erection of new porches and the rebuilding of the tower. This has an elaborate crown based, according to Pevsner, on Gloucester Cathedral or Dundry. The tower was restored in 1990-92, following falls of masonry onto the aisle roof. Romanesque sculpture is found in the S nave arcade and on carved panels and corbels set into the spandrels above pier 1, on the nave and aisle sides.
Parish church, formerly chapel
Trysull is a small village in the SW of the county, only a mile from Womborne and two from the edge of Wolverhampton, both to the E. For the moment the village is surrounded by the rolling farmland of the area; the prospect least affected by the industrial sprawl being westward towards the Severn and the Shropshire Hills. The village itself lies in the shallow valley of the Smestow Brook, which runs W to E at this point before turning S to follow the line of the Staffordshire and Worcestershire canal, eventually joining the Stour near Kinver.All Saints stands at the crossroads in the centre of the village, and is a stocky building of pink sandstone. It consists of a nave and chancel under a single roof with no chancel arch, low N and S aisles, and a W tower. The present boundary of the chancel is marked by a screen of c.1500, which makes the chancel very short. The nave arcades are of four bays, the easternmost on either side being significantly taller than the rest. Bay 1 on the N side is part of the 19thc. lengthening of the aisle, but its companion on the S may originally have been the entrances to chapels. The arcades date from the years around 1300, but they are of different designs; the N with circular piers and the S with octagonal ones. Pevsner notes that the arcade
bays match neither the aisle windows nor each other. The E window of the S aisle has intersecting tracery of c.1300, and the chancel E window a flowing design of c.1350. The masonry of the N aisle shows that it has been extended eastwards, and two 1837 drawings indeed show a shorter aisle and a correspondingly longer chancel (William Salt Library SV XI 66a, 70b). The nave has no clerestorey, although dormers have been added on the S slope of the roof to provide more light. In the N nave aisle is a low blocked doorway with a monolithic semicircular head. It may have been the original N doorway, re-set after the aisle was built and later blocked, but its height is difficult to explain. There is a S doorway under a 19thc. porch, and a polygonal vestry on the N side, next to the tower. Pevsner considers the tower to be Decorated or Perpendicular, but the lower storey may be 12thc.; its angle buttresses are a later addition. A date of 1897 on the rainwater heads probably indicates a restoration. Buckler's NW view of 1846 shows the vestry already in place at that date (SV XI 68). The only 12thc. work recorded here is a large monolithic door or window head re-set in the exterior N aisle.