The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
"fishlake"
Parish church
The earliest sections of the church are 12thc. This church appears originally to have consisted of a rectangular nave and rectangular chancel. Carved work from the 12thc. survives on the baptismal font, S doorway, a grave cover and a small chancel window. Various additions were made in the 13thc. and the W tower constructed in the 14thc. Fragments of an early cross were found in excavations carried out in 1880. The N aisle was built in 1882.
Barn
The chancel of a late 12thc manorial chapel survives in a much altered with further buildings attached to its E and W ends. The buildings are on private property and used largely for farm purposes except for the easternmost section of the chapel, its chancel, where loose sculpture is kept. No medieval masonry is standing beyond the W wall of the chancel (Tomson 1996, 30). The chancel is built largely out of Magnesian limestone and a light-yellow sandstone. The chapel is to the S of a modern house which is on the site of the medieval manor house; both lay within a moated site. An archaeological survey of the chapel was done in 1994; restoration followed and was completed in 1997. For full details, see Tomson 1996. A watercolour of the chapel by Rowland Hibbard may have been prepared for the Rev. Joseph Hunter, c. 1828 (Tomson 1996, 6-7).
The E wall of the chancel, which is 3.85m wide internally, remains. The N wall, facing the modern house and containing a doorway with a lintel, survives, as does a part of the S wall having a window with one-piece head; on the W side the position of the chancel arch is now walled over. The nave area is open on the S side and extends S of the medieval line. It is used for farm storage.
Inset in the chancel wall are a piscina with a drain, and an aumbry. There are remains of 4 or 5 round-headed, splayed windows. The octagonal column in the S wall of the chancel is at the limit of the twelfth-century work, and is likely to have been moved there from the chancel arch; the N column of the arch is probably still in situ against the N wall. The sum of work seen is Transitional, with rather more Gothic than Romanesque features.
As well as standing remains of the building, there is a collection of loose stone kept in the chancel, while a wall butting onto the NE corner of the chancel and running N towards the house contains various reset fragments of sculpture in both faces. There is also a round-headed doorway at Owston Hall, which probably once belonged to the chapel.
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.
Parish church
Large church of nave with N and S aisles, chancel, and W tower engaged with the aisles. From the exterior there is little trace of the antiquity of this church, with its Perpendicular tower and clerestory, battlemented nave and south aisle. The W tower may be Romanesque from interior features, and heightened in the 15thc. (Ryder 1982). The restored porch and south doorway, and two windows on the north side, show signs of earlier work. The church was heavily restored in 1866, with minor changes in 1882/3. The faculty for 1866 has only one plan, that for the ‘Proposed Restoration’. Instructions for the work include ‘if funds will allow… take down the wall of the north aisle… and rebuild… making the aisle similar to the south aisle… take down… take away…’ etc. ‘A great portion of [the church] was almost level with the ground’ says James Raine of his visit during this restoration. A restoration in 1913-4 included the restoration of the outer archway on the porch (Borthwick Fac. 1913/49). Romanesque sculptural remains of the chief interest are the chancel arch; a decayed relief reset in the porch; the nave arcades, and the tomb or memorial near the pulpit; there are many minor items as well.
Parish church
The church has a rectangular nave and chancel, with a bellcote of 1839 above the W gable. There are square traceried windows on the S side, and the E wall has been rebuilt, but otherwise the whole is substantially 12thc. The church is built in local sandstone and stands in a large churchyard overlooking suburban Leeds on one side and fields and woodland on the other.
Romanesque sculpture is concentrated in the S doorway, the corbel tables to N and S and on the chancel arch, but there are also decorated window heads and an unusual array of corbel-like heads on the W gable. The remains of a plain font are near the SW gate. The top of a pillar piscina, which had been re-set outside the chancel doorway, was stolen in 2002.
Parish church
Simple church in Norman style with nave and chancel, N vestry: bell turret too elaborate to be a copy. Morris 1919 says the church ‘was gutted by fire some years ago, but has since been extensively restored'; other sources do not mention a fire. R. D. Chantrell rebuilt the church 1849-50 reusing Norman sculpture and masonry but was apparently restricted in what he could do.
The stone of the original building was a local Jurassic limestone and it is weathering fast where exposed. Almost all the original work is outside: Chantrell made a pleasing interior, but a plain one: his chancel arch, with blocky capitals, and plain and square orders, is as plain as the replacement corbels on the N wall. A restoration in 2015 included preservation work on the old corbels, mainly treating with lime plaster; photographs of corbel CS4 taken by Matthias Garn (by permission of Ferrey and Mennim, architects).
When Fangfoss church was rebuilt in 1849-50 many old stones were left lying in the churchyard. The late Kit Galbraith visited Fangfoss church and found, among the jumble of discarded broken or worn stones at the E end of the church, five which she obtained permission to remove for study. These ended up in Birkbeck College, where they were seen by the fieldworker in June 1999. At that time they included two voussoirs with beakhead, two with a radial fluted motif and one fragment of integral base, ring and column. The two pieces with radial fluted decoration were jambs stones, not voussoirs, but that was only possible to assess by eye. Eventually the stones were allowed on loan from the church to the Hull and East Riding Museum, where two were (2004) on display as “Romanesque Stonework”. The other three stones were not displayed.
In 2003, there was a loose chevron voussoir by the chancel arch; this was outside in 2015. It is shown outside in the later photographs, but has since been taken inside again. A permanent display at the church of old carved stonework is being discussed (2016).
There is a remade doorway and two patterned string courses; original corbels, all except one, are on the S side of the church. Inside, there is one reset stone over the S doorway.
Museum
Reading abbey stones
1. Holme Park, Sonning (Keyser)
In 1912 Charles Keyser was engaged in excavating the site of the palace of the bishops of Salisbury on the Holme Park estate, Sonning. While the excavations were in progress, Keyser took the opportunity to look around the house (now Reading Blue Coat School) and its gardens about a quarter of a mile away, and he noticed some Norman capitals lying about in the flower-beds. He soon discovered that the stones had not been in the gardens at Holme Park for very long, but had come there from an outlying part of the estate called Borough Marsh, some two miles down the Thames. He obtained the owners' consent to remove them from Holme Park, and by 1916 the fifteen capitals and two voussoirs had been deposited in Reading Museum. Keyser (1916) illustrated all the stones, and numbered the capitals from 1 to 15. He did not number the voussoirs.
2. Shiplake House
In 1889, twelve voussoirs and fourteen double springers were erected by the Rt. Hon. Sir Walter Phillimore, Bart. to form an arch over the path between Shiplake House and the church, and a decorative coping on top of the wall to either side. Keyser discovered their provenance while he was at Sonning. One Mr Palmer, the owner of Holme Park estate at some time in the late 19thc., had paid a visit to Borough Marsh and interrupted two young men in a punt who were busy removing several carved stones which were in use as steps leading up from a landing place on the island. The young men had come from Shiplake House, which faces Borough Marsh across the Thames, and Mr Palmer gave them permission to carry the stones away on condition that they did not take any more. The stones were seen in situ at Shiplake by Keyser, and he numbered them (Keyser (1916)) according to their positions: the voussoirs from 1 to 12 counting from the left of the arch; the springers from 1 to 7 from right to left along the wall to the right of the arch, and from 1 to 7 from right to left along the wall to the left of the arch. These identifying numbers are given in the entry headings below. He also noted three carved stones built into the wall but did not illustrate them. The voussoirs and double springers were purchased by Reading Borough Council from Col. Phillimore in 1977, when they were dismantled and removed to the museum.
3.Borough Marsh (CL#)
In view of the discoveries described above, Keyser visited Borough Marsh and was attracted by signs of a ruined building which led him to the opinion that excavations at Borough Marsh might result in more finds, but the Great War intervened and he was never able to carry out his plans. In 1948, George Zarnecki of the Courtauld Institute of Art was alerted to the presence of carved stones at Borough Marsh Farm similar to those forming the Shiplake arch. The owner of the farm generously gave the stones to the Courtauld Institute. In fact, Borough Marsh Farm was not the site that had attracted Keyser's attention thirty years before, but this did not become apparent until Dr Wilfred Bowman, owner of Barn Acre Cottage, Borough Marsh, built himself some new gate-posts using carved stones he had found in his garden. News of these stones quickly reached Zarnecki in London, and in the autumn of 1948 he led a group of staff and students from the Courtauld Institute to Barn Acre Cottage.
What he found left him in no doubt that he had found the site that Keyser had hoped to excavate. The garden was bounded by the River Loddon, and its level had been artificially raised by a 16thc. embankment wall to prevent flooding and soil erosion. Some of the fabric of this wall was reused 12thc. stone, clearly from Reading Abbey. In the garden of Barn Acre Cottage, Zarnecki's team also uncovered the foundations of a building complex, made of brick reinforced with stone.
Zarnecki's excavation at Barn Acre Cottage brought to light some sixty carved stones, including two of the four great corner springers which marked the angles of the cloister arcade.
The stones were generously given to the Courtauld Institute by Dr Bowman, and after cleaning they were lodged in the Victoria and Albert Museum until such time as they could be accommodated in the Reading Museum. Plans for a new museum building were approved by Reading Corporation in 1973, and in the same year the Courtauld Institute Management Committee accepted Zarnecki's proposal that the stones be transferred from the V and A to Reading as a gift to the museum. The transfer was completed on 16th. October 1975. These stones were marked "CL" followed by a digit (for Courtauld Loan), and these identifications are given in the entry headings below.
4.Avebury Manor
A capital at Avebury Manor, Wiltshire, carved with men and dragons, which had been taken there from a garden in Reading was first examined by Zarnecki in 1959 and proved to be another Reading Abbey cloister capital. After lengthy negotiations it was purchased by Reading Museum for the sum of £6,250 (including a grant of £1,000 from the National Art Collections Fund) in 1971.
5.Twyford
Three further pieces, a double springer carved with birds, a lion capital and a bird beakhead voussoir, were purchased by Zarnecki from a private collector in Twyford, Berkshire, and offered to the museum on loan on 2. September 1971. They have now joined the other fragments in Reading Museum.
6. Plummery wall
7.Forbury Gardens rockery
8.Wall to west of St James's church
9.Unprovenanced fragments
By and large the museum has been assiduous in keeping records of provenance, but in 1993 when all the stones were at last moved into the enlarged premises in the Town Hall it was discovered that there were several which had been in store for many years for which no provenance was known. They may have been there for many years: Keyser (1916) refers to "a few (stones) in the Reading Museum dug up in various parts of the town."
Parish church
St Kyneburgha's is described by Pevsner as the most important Norman parish church in the county (i.e. Huntingdonshire). An aisleless cruciform church was built in the early 12thc. and dedicated in 1124. In the 1220s a S aisle was added and the chancel replaced; in the 1260s the S transept was replaced by a large chapel with an E aisle; and early in the 14thc. a N aisle was added. A broach spire was added to the tower around 1350, and the nave clerestoreys were inserted in the mid-15thc. The tower is of ashlar, the rest of the church of stone rubble.
Romanesque sculpture is found in the crossing arches and the exterior of the tower, in the W window of the nave, the reset S nave doorway, a tympanum reset over the S porch entrance, the dedication lunette set above the S priest's doorway and a pair of corbels set in the S porch. Part of a relief showing figures under arcading, now set in the N aisle, is discussed below but probably belongs to the 9thc.
The tower has two elaborately decorated storeys above a plain plinth storey, each of the three storeys being topped by a corbel table supporting a decorated frieze. The upper storey has five double units of blind arcading on each face, the three central units covering bell-openings. The area above the arches is diapered with fish-scale. The lower storey on each face has a central double arched window, flanked by a double unit of blind arcading to either side. Again the area above the arches is diapered, this time to give the effect of opus reticulatum. At each angle of each of the upper storeys is a nook-shaft.
Cathedral, formerly Benedictine monastery
The church begun by Abbot Simeon in 1082 had a 13-bay aisled nave, four-bay aisled transepts, a crossing with a tower, and a four-bay aisled chancel terminating in an apse. At the W end was a second transept with E chapels and a second tower. A western Galilee porch was added in the 13thc. (1198–1215), and the chancel was extended to the E with a six-bay retrochoir, completed in 1252. In 1321 the Lady Chapel was added to the N of the choir, and a year later the crossing tower collapsed. The octagon, built to replace it, was completed by 1342, and in the same campaign the remaining bays of the 11thc. chancel were replaced. The only above-ground survivals of the original chancel are the two easternmost piers of its straight section. Elsewhere in the building, the N section of the W transept collapsed in the late 15thc., and the NW corner of the N transept in 1699. The former was merely consolidated, the latter rebuilt.
The generally accepted chronology for the standing Norman work dates the lower parts of the entire S transept and the E wall of the N transept to the period between 1082 and the start of the abbatial vacancy in 1093. Stylistic comparisons with work dated between 1118 and 1125 at nearby Peterborough Cathedral suggest that the remainder of the transepts and the nave were completed between the appointment of Abbot Richard in 1100, and the 1120s. The earliest work in the lowest levels of the W transept also belongs to the 1120s, but there is a marked stylistic break above gallery level, and thereafter such late-century features as pointed arches, keeled mouldings and crocket capitals begin to appear. These apparently belong to the campaign of Bishop Geoffrey Ridel (1174–89), who also completed the tower. Not included in this report is the new Galilee porch built, or posthumously funded, by Bishop Eustace (1197–1215). The following description of the various parts of the cathedral roughly follows the building history.
S transept:
This must begin inside the S transept, whose E and W walls have a three-storey, three-bay elevation of arcade, gallery with twin openings and clerestorey with a passage. The three arches of the E arcade were originally entrances to chapels, and the S one still is, but the other two have been blocked off with masonry and combined to form the Old Library, accessible from the S choir aisle. On the W side, the aisle was screened off in the 12thc., but the evidence of two blocked doorways in the E walk of the cloister indicates that entry to the transept was originally possible from the monastic buildings via this aisle. The arcade level to E and W (including the E chapels and W aisle and extending to the first respond of the S nave aisle wall) is the earliest standing fabric of the church. Arches are unmoulded, capitals are of the Norman volute type, some carved with foliage and animals, and the ashlar is coarsely tooled. The same features are noticeable in the lowest level of the S wall, but not in the arcade erected in front of it, which provides a support for the platform linking the E and W galleries. Above the arcade level on all three walls there is a marked change. Tooling is finer, volute capitals have been replaced by cushions, and the orders of arches have acquired angle and soffit rolls. It is normal to connect this disjunction with the abbatial vacancy that lasted from the death of Simeon in 1093 to the appointment of Abbot Richard de Clare in 1100, although Barlow has suggested that the presence of Ranulf Flambard, who managed the abbey's finances from five years before Simeon's death, and throughout the interregnum might have provided a stabilising influence.
Whatever the date of the change in design, it is clear enough that the upper levels of all three walls, the tall arcade on the S wall, and the blocking of the W aisle all postdate it. Much later comes the addition of the 15thc. Fourth storey window in the S gable. Some evidence for the original arrangement appears on the exterior, where remains of the springing of a wall arcade are visible. The E windows of the E chapels were replaced in the late 13thc., and those of the E and W galleries in the 15thc.
On the exterior the S transept facade reflects the nave and aisle structure within. The gabled, five-storey central section is divided from the two-storey aisles by broad, flat buttresses that transpose, at the bottom of the fifth storey, into two-storey octagonal turrets with pyramidal roofs. The two storeys of the turrets are decorated with blind arcading and there are cusped corbel tables under the eaves and sets of three corbels at the top of the lower storey.
N transept:
The interior of the N transept shows the same change in design as the S, but not in the same places. Only the E arcade and its two southernmost chapels have all the earlier forms, the N chapel has cushion capitals on the vault supports and a roll moulding in its N window. The N and W sides of the transept have the newer forms throughout (although roll-moulded arches do not appear on the W arcade). Examination of this area of the building is complicated by the restoration following the 1699 collapse of the NW corner. This affects the W half of the N wall, inside and out, and the N part of the W arcade and aisle wall. Other changes to the fabric in the N transept are the replacement of the windows of the E chapels, the W gallery and the N clerestorey in the later Middle Ages.
A comparison of the arcades of the two transepts reveals a rather curious disjunction. Both have an alternation of compound and circular piers, but the system has been reversed so that in the S those nearest the crossing are circular, whereas in the N they are compound. The original arrangement, with four-bay transepts and a smaller, square crossing, would have made this inconsistency even more obvious. The reason for the change surely has nothing to do with the balcony at gallery level on the end wall, but might relate to the original roofing arrangements. Both transepts have wooden roofs now, and did originally, but the present roofs date from the 15thc. In the S there is nothing to indicate the original form of the roof beyond the thin buttresses between the bays at clerestorey level only. In the N, however, a half-column respond runs the entire height of the wall between the two northernmost bays only. This would seem to imply a roofing system based on double bays, although it is curious to find the strong roof support here rather than a bay further S.
The N transept facade differs from the S in the treatment of the turrets. A square plan with chamfered and shafted angles is maintained from ground level up to their sixth storey, where they clear the gable. At this point the plan becomes circular, and decorated with a blind arcade syncopated with the cusping of the corbel table above. The E turret is original; the W is a copy.
Nave:
The original 13-bay nave had its easternmost bays communicating with the transept W aisles. This arrangement was lost with the introduction of the Octagon at the crossing, and the present 12 bays are all W of the transept. The elevation is similar to that of the transepts, with alternating round and compound piers, galleries with double openings and triple openings to the clerestorey passage, and it is remarkably regular. Unlike the transepts, however, every pier has a respond running the entire height of the wall as a roof support. Again, too, the original roof is no longer evident; the present ceiling dates from the 19thc. Pevsner finds the ambiguity between a double-bay and a single-bay system indecisive. Within this uniform system there are differences between the N and S elevations. On the N side the roof support responds have the form of half shafts against dosserets, but this system is used only for the first two piers on the S. Further W the main half shafts are flanked by a pair of smaller ones. The treatment of the circular piers also differs between the N and S elevations. In both cases the arch they carry is of three orders, and the piers are supplied with a broad cushion capital for the two inner orders linked to a smaller one for the outer order. On the N side these small capitals simply hang, with no member to support them, whereas on the S they have half-column supports coursed with the piers. These differences suggest that the N arcade was laid out before the S, but above the level of the capitals the two arcades apparently proceeded side by side. The key to this is a change of arch design at bay 5 on both sides, and a change of gallery opening design at bay 4. In the arcade arches the four E bays have angle rolls on their inner and outer orders only, whereas from bay 5 all three orders have angle rolls. In the gallery the change is the addition of a hollow moulding to the face of the inner order. Both changes seem slight, but they provide valuable evidence for the sequence of building.
Capitals are mostly cushions, but they are by no means entirely uniform. Common variables include the presence or absence of clearly defined shields, or keels or tucks at the angles, but scattered seemingly at random around the upper levels are a few scallop capitals, capitals decorated with fluting, and decorative imposts.
The interior nave aisle walls are decorated with simple blind arcading and a chevron string course at dado level. On the N side the aisle windows have been replaced, but on the S a change of design can be seen in bays 9–11, where the windows are taller, the chevron units of the string course are longer, and the blind arcade has five units per bay instead of four. The easternmost bay on this side (bay 12) has no window (because of the SW transept chapel alongside it), and is articulated with two rows of blind arcading, the upper with intersecting arches, and with opus reticulatum in the lunette below the vault. The arch into the W transept from bay 12 is richly decorated with chevron ornament. The elaboration of this bay is the only preparation for the riot of surface decoration that breaks out in the SW transept.
The gallery windows on both sides of the nave, and the N aisle windows were replaced in the later Middle Ages.
W transept:
In the SW transept, the E wall is the plainest, having two bays with single openings on the ground storey, twin openings at gallery level and triple openings to the clerestorey passage. The two lower levels of the S bay give onto a two-storey E chapel, dedicated to St Catherine, which was ruinous in the early 19thc. and was rebuilt in 1848. Only the S wall is original. The S and W walls of the transept are much more richly articulated. Each has six storeys of arcading, which include a gallery and a clerestorey with a passage. The S wall also has a triforium passage, and the remaining storeys, three on the S and four on the W, are of blind arcading of various designs. There is a stylistic progression from the lower storeys to the upper. On the lower levels capitals are predominantly simple cushions, there are scallops at gallery level and trefoil, waterleaf and crocket capitals above this. In the clerestorey arcade too the arches are pointed, all suggesting that the upper levels were not completed much before the end of the 12thc. What little remains of the NW transept suggests that it was organisationally a mirror image of its companion, but with some differences in detail, including fret decoration on the E wall gallery arches and cushion capitals where the S transept has crockets, implying that it was built first.
The largely rebuilt transept chapel is built right in the angle of nave and transept, so only two windows are possible. On the exterior, it is divided into eight bays by responds, the third and sixth bays from the S being wider and containing the ground floor and gallery windows. Bays 1, 2, 4 and 5 each contain a blind arch at both levels. The exterior of the transept displays perhaps the most spectacular and satisfying ensemble of superimposed arcading in the country: five storeys of arcading above a plain plinth storey on the main walls, rising by two more arcaded storeys on the decagonal angle turrets.
W Tower:
The cathedral is liberally supplied with corbel tables: at gallery and clerestorey levels on nave and transepts, on the main transept turrets, below the battlements of the west transept and on the turrets there, and at the eaves level of St Catherine's chapel (although these almost all date from the 1847 restoration). The quality is high, although the range of subjects is fairly restricted, including human, animal and grotesque heads and a few exhibitionists. String courses too are limited in type, the carved examples confined to billet, sawtooth, single chevron and chequer ornament.
The same system continues higher on the walls of the W tower, which, in its 12thc. lower part, rises six storeys above the nave battlements. It is square in plan with octagonal angle turrets rising no higher than the tower body. It was completed by around 1200, and provided with a spire some 30 years later. The spire was replaced by an octagon storey in the later 14thc. Presumably the tower arches inside were replaced at the same time, but the original chevron-decorated arches remain visible.
Cloister:
Of the Romanesque cloister nothing remains except sections of wall arcading on the outside of the S nave aisle, and the handsomely carved doorways for which Ely is famous. The Prior's doorway, at the W end of the cloister walk, is deservedly the most celebrated, but the remains of the Monks' and Vestry doorways at the E end of the walk are considerable works by the same carvers. All three must date from around 1130–35, and the remains of an earlier doorway into the S transept aisle also survive at the N end of the E walk.
Tombs:
Only one tomb is included in the survey; the beautiful Tournai marble slab depicting St Michael carrying a naked soul, assumed to be Bishop Nigel's (1131–69), in the N chancel aisle.
In the following descriptions, features such as piers and bays are always numbered starting at the crossing. Hence bay 1 of the N transept is the S bay, while bay 1 of the S transept is the N bay. The interior treatment of windows and doorways is only described when it includes some elaboration.
The author is grateful for the assistance of Stephen Wikner, the Cathedral Bursar, Susan Matthews, the Curator of the Stained Glass Museum, and for the cheerful and unfailing support of the clergy, vergers and cathedral guides.
Parish church
A small church comprising an 11thc. nave with a plain N doorway, a 19thc. N porch and 14thc. S chapel which was rebuilt in the 19thc. A W tower was demolished before 1791; the W wall, with its bell-cote, was rebuilt in the 19thc. The square chancel dates from the 11thc. Some herringbone masonry is visible in nave and chancel.