The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
"fishlake"
Parish church
Fishlake is now a satellite village of Doncaster, but in the 12thc. it was a small settlement in the vast area of fen around the Humber. Drainage works from the 17thc. onwards mean that the River Don no longer threatens to undermine the church as it did in times past, and a high dyke now overlooks it.
St Cuthbert’s is spacious, with a W tower, nave and aisles and chancel, with a mainly Perpendicular fenestration. It is almost entirely late Gothic, but retains its Romanesque nave doorway, which is recognised by Pevsner as 'perhaps the most lavishly decorated in Yorkshire'. There is also a plain S doorway to the chancel but no other visible 12thc. remains. During re-roofing work on the S aisle some time after 2001, the lowest parts of a row of window openings in the S wall of the nave could be seen; these could have been Romanesque, and recalled the situation at Hatfield (West Yorkshire).
Parish church
Sherburn is a village about 11 miles SW of Scarborough; it is known historically as Sherburn in Harford (or Herford) Lythe and is not to be confused with Sherburn-in-Elmet (West Riding of Yorkshire). The building is quite a large church for the area and consists of an aisled nave, S porch, chancel and W tower.
Romanesque sculptural elements are found externally on the S doorway and in the simple 12thc windows located in the S wall of the tower. Inside, there is a Romanesque high chancel arch, a pillar piscina and a cylindrical font.
Augustinian house, former
The refectory is on the S side of the cloister. It was rebuilt in the 13th century, but is thought to have reused the doorway of the late 12th-century phase.
For History, Bibliography etc., see report for Kirkham Priory: the church.
Parish church
Darrington is a small village, 3 miles SE of Pontefract, now divided by the main A1 road. The large church stands prominently on its hill. Built of magnesian limestone and local red sandstone, it consists of a nave, chancel, W tower, S aisle, N aisle and a chapel. It was restored in 1880, but lower parts of the tower may be Norman (Pevsner 1967,175), and the tower arch retains some relevant work.
Parish church
‘A surprisingly large, dominating cruciform church with a crossing tower so big and proud that it might stand in Somerset’ - Pevsner 1967, 254.
The church is cruciform with a central tower, an aisled nave and chapels flanking the chancel.
The church has a round-headed, late twelfth-century western doorway, a west facade with the remains of walling, and windows on both north and south aisles. There is a doorway on the south aisle, and walling of field-picked glacial rubble mixed with blocks of limestone, with facings and a doorway of Magnesian limestone. There are records of a fire in 1760s and a restoration in 1870s.
On the visit in 2002, windows had been broken and we took pictures of the wooden chests near the windows. Two of them 'could easily be Romanesque' according to a letter from Prof. E. B. Hohler (Norway). The chest shaped like a coffin is of bog-oak, which is found in Thorne Moors.
Parish church
This is a small church in a hamlet in the flood plain of the Don. The Duchy of Lancaster was the sole patron until the uniting of the benefice with that of Fishlake and Sykehouse in 1987. It consists of a W tower, nave and chancel.
As at Fishlake and Kirk Sandall, the church was sited very close to the river Don. Due to the constant movement of ground water, or actual floodwater, the church has suffered settlement. This has, for example, caused water seepage down cracks on the S side of the chancel arch and some decay to the sculpture there, while the N side of the nave has had to be supported by buttresses.
The tower and nave are likely to follow the original 12th-century plan because of the preservation of the two doorways and the chancel arch, but the chancel itself was probably altered in the later middle ages, and was again rebuilt in 1847; the roof-line of the first chancel can be seen on the exterior E wall of the nave. The tower appears later on the exterior, but inside in the NW angle is a spiral vice, while the lower part of the tower space is vaulted very crudely, as if in an emergency repair.
The font is a later item: it recalls octagonal pillar bases with angle lugs, the chiselling-out of the basin is later too (see Comments). The shield with the cross on the NW buttress of the tower is not relevant to this Corpus (church guide 2001, 2, 6).
Romanesque sculpture is in the chancel arch and S doorway; there are also 3 reset fragments.
Cluniac house, former
A major monastic site in the Romanesque period, but now not a stone is to be seen. Remains are in hands of museums and in ‘a garden adjoining the site’ (Lockett, 1971, 57, 58). Much stone is said to have been taken in the 16thc. to build the nearby ‘New Hall’, N of the Ferrybridge Road, but this has itself been demolished, see Bellamy (1965, xiii) and Pevsner (1967, 396, 644).
The site is now a large grassed area to the E of the castle. One level area through the middle of the site once included the cloister; a hummocky area to the N was the site of the church. The medieval builders probably terraced the site. In recent years the grass has been mown in order to pick out the areas covered by the church and main buildings. The site was over 8 acres (3.2 hectares) and is approximately bounded by Mill Dam Lane, Ferrybridge Road, Box Lane and Bondgate. The church was over 230 feet (70m) long.
Records for the Priory in the Heritage Environment Records for West Yorkshire (www.heritagegateway.org.uk) give further details on the Priory (monument no. 2088), and New Hall (monument no. 7743).
For the excavations c.1957-1961, see Bellamy (1965), which illustrates some chevron voussoirs with schematic drawings (fig. 23). Sculpture from the excavations was eventually taken to Pontefract Museum in Salter Row and its store (see separate reports).
Parish church
The medieval church, dedicated to St Mary Magdalene, fell into disrepair, and the parishoners used the church of Carnaby until a new church was built in the 18th century. In 1893-4, the present church of St Magnus replaced it, being built slightly to the N of the previous one. The modern centre of the settlement, the West Hill estate, has the daughter church of St Mark on Bessingby Gate (VCHER II, 19-21). The 19th-century church of St Magnus contains ‘a rather good old Norm. font’ (Morris 1919, 64).
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.
Parish church
The village lies along a stream springing from the foot of the Wolds. The church has west tower with spire, aisled nave, and chancel. It is a 19thc. building but retained parts of the medieval church. With tasteful fittings, fine mosaic floor and well-placed lighting, the interior effect is very good. The architect was J. L. Pearson for Sir Tatton Sykes, and the work was done about 1858-9. The sculptural remains for this corpus are confined to the S doorway and the chancel arch: the structure of the chancel itself is said to be ‘Norman too, though few traces remain’ (Pevsner & Neave 1995, 331); 12thc. worked stones have been identified reused in the fabric of the N aisle wall (L. A. S. Butler).
The south doorway is a round-headed doorway of four orders and label, rebuilt by Pearson using 50-60% of the old work in the arches. It is easy to tell the old from the new by the colour of the stone. The new parts he supplied follow the old work, clearly so in areas that are of continuous pattern, but where the entire stone is new the content is also credible (Wood 2011). The chancel arch was reconstructed from finds in the Victorian rebuilding, but the jambs may have remained in place, under a pointed Gothic arch.