The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
"all saints huntingdon"
Redundant parish church
All Saints' is an imposing late-15thc. church with a four-bay aisled nave, a square-ended chancel with chapels to N and S, and a four-storey W tower with polygonal corner buttresses terminating in tall pinnacles. The pinnacles are known to date from 1638, and the entire tower might have been rebuilt by Sir Thomas Cotton at this time. It was strengthened with iron girders in 1862. Construction of the tower is of Ketton ashlar, but the rest of the church is built of stone rubble and cobble with Ketton and Barnack dressings. The only feature recorded here is the font, almost certainly 13thc. rather than 12thc., but related to Romanesque examples.
Parish church
All Saints has an aisled nave with aisleless chancel of coarse rubble, and a graceful W tower of ashlar
with an octagonal spire, rising to a height of 151 feet. The present building
is largely the result of a complete rebuilding, begun in 1470, but some 13thc.
features have survived, notably the N doorway, one S aisle window, and a double
piscina. The tower was blown down by a gale in 1741,
rebuilt in 1748 and again rebuilt in 1879. In 1918 an aeroplane crashed into
the spire, which fell on the nave roof, and a rebuilding of spire and roof took
place in 1924. The only 12thc. feature is the font.
Parish church
All Saints' is an aisleless church with a 12thc nave, an early 13thc
chancel rebuilt with a new chancel arch c.1300, and a W tower of c.1330, altered c.1500.
The tower may have had a spire, but if so this was removed c.1500. It now has a
pyramidal roof. A chapel was added to the S of the nave in the early 14thc, but
it was removed in the 15thc and the entrance arch blocked. There was a major
restoration in 1882-83, when a vestry and organ
chamber were added to the N of the chancel. The
exterior walls are of stone rubble with traces of mortar render on the N wall.
Romanesque features are the N nave doorway, the plain S priest's doorway, the
font, and various carved stones set into the exterior walls. There are further
architectural fragments reset inside the N vestry,
high on the S wall, but these were not accessible at the time of the visit.
Parish church
The church consists of chancel, nave, N aisle and W tower. The building is mainly 15thc. apart from parts of the nave arcade and N aisle which are 14thc. as is the N arcade. The S wall of the nave, which VCH suggests is earlier than the 14thc. (VCH, 217), was rebuilt when the 15thc. tower was constructed. The font is the only feature with 12thc. sculpture.
Parish church
Inworth is a village in the Colchester Borough Council area of the county, 8 miles SE of Braintree and 10 miles SW of Colchester. It has no obvious centre, consisting of scattered houses along the B1023 road from Kelvedon to Tiptree. The civil parish is Messing cum Inworth; Messing being a village a mile to the NE.
The church is alongside the B1023, and consists of a chancel with a nave, S porch and W tower. Nave and chancel are of flint, puddingstone and Roman brick. The brick tower dates from 1876-77 when it was constructed by Rev. A. H. Bridges. A watercolour of 1827 shows a bell turret with a short broach spire over the W gable of the nave. The chancel is late-11thc with windows deeply splayed inside and out, having exterior dressings of puddingstone blocks, roughly shaped. It was later extended. Inside are wallpaintings of c.1300 showing scenes from the life of St Nicholas. No dedication is known before 1515 and it has been suggested that the paintings are evidence of the earlier dedication. The chancel arch is the only feature recorded here.
Parish church
The largely 13thc. church has a W tower with a broach spire, an aisled nave of four bays, a N transept and a square-ended chancel. The tower was rebuilt in 1868-70. The only feature described here is the S doorway, protected by a porch.
Parish church
All Saints has a three-bay aisled nave with a S transept, and a square chancel all in ashlar and roughly coursed stone rubble; and a brick W tower. The aisles, chancel and transept all belong to the mid to late 13thc., and the tower to c.1600, but the oldest parts of the magnificent chancel arch date from the 1120s, and the N priest's doorway and the two reset nave doorways date from c.1190. The round-headed aisle windows appear to date from c.1600 rather than 12thc., as does the porch protecting the N doorway. There is a 12thc. plain font, and a single chevron
voussoir was discovered built into the W wall of the N nave aisle.
Museum, formerly hospital
The Cromwell Museum is situated in the medieval centre of the town, immediately E of All Saints parish church. It was formerly the Grammar School attended by Oliver Cromwell and houses a display dedicated to him, but was built as the infirmary hall of the Hospital of St John the Baptist.
In its present state it is simply a rectangular box with a pitched roof and gabled ends at E and W, but it was originally longer and aisled. What remains are the two W bays without their aisles. The arcade piers and arches remain, but the bays have been blocked and triplet windows inserted in the arches. At the E end a plain gabled wall has been built to close off the structure, and a simple pointed doorway and a three-light window in a late-14thc style inserted. The doorway is a reused medieval piece, probably 13thc, but the window is entirely 19thc. The W facade is the glory of the building, with an elaborate off-centre 12thc doorway with rich chevron decoration, a chevron-decorated lower window, and at higher levels arcading that frames the two upper windows and a single oculus in the gable.
Much of what we see results from a restoration in 1878, when it was completely rebuilt, and the 19thc brickwork used to raise it by 3 feet is visible at ground level. Much of the original sculpture was reused, including most of the decorated W doorway and window, parts of the W facade arcading, and the bases and capitals of the arcades.
It is clear from the E pier of the S arcade that the building originally extended further E. Pevsner states that it was seven bays long, and that there was a courtyard to the N around which the Master’s lodging, the refectory and other buildings were arranged.
Parish church
Hartford is a village on the eastern edge of Huntingdon, on the N bank of the Great Ouse. The church is at the S edge of the village, alongside the river but high enough above it to avoid all danger of flooding. It is built of rubble with Barnack and other ashlar dressings, and consists of a chancel with a N vestry added in 1895; a nave with N and S aisles and a S porch; and a Perpendicular W tower with a projecting S bell stair. On the N side of the church is an extension opened in 2004 with a hall, kitchen and lavatories and accessed from the exterior and through the N nave doorway of the church. The chancel has 12thc N and E walls with no sculptured features. Otherwise it is of the 14thc but remodelled by Robert Hutchinson in 1861, including an elaborate neo-Romanesque chancel arch. The nave arcades are of the end of the 12thc; the N stylistically earlier. Romanesque features described here are the greatly restored S nave doorway, the two nave arcades and the font.
Parish church
Swinderby is a village in the North Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, 8 miles SW of Lincoln and 6 miles NE of Newark. The church stands onm the W side of the High Street, It conists of a 13thc. W tower,a nave with a N aisle, a chancel with a two-bay N chapel, and a 19thc. apse added by J. T. Lee who restored the church in 1879. The N nave arcade and the pillar piscina in the chancel are Romanesque.