The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
"polstead"
Parish church
Polstead stands on a hilltop on the N side of the Box valley, some 8
miles N of Colchester and 11 miles W of Ipswich, set in a landscape of woodland
and pasture. Church and hall are close together at the W of the village. St
Mary's is a flint church with an aisled nave, chancel
and W tower with a spire. Evidence of a unaisled 11thc. church can be seen in
the long and short quoins alongside the tower in the W
wall of the S nave aisle. The 12thc. nave arcades are
of four bays, the westernmost bay being separated from the rest by a short stretch of
walling. Above the arcade arches are the blocked
openings of the 12thc. clerestory, now rendered obsolete by the raising of the
aisles. At the W end can be seen the inside of the 12thc. facade, with the
rere-arch of the W doorway and a window above. The elaborate front of the W
doorway is now inside the 14thc. tower. At the E end, the chancel arch is also 12thc. and goes with the arcades, and the narrow, boxy chancel
has a blocked 12thc. window. The most surprising feature of this campaign is
that the arches of the arcade and chancel arch, the rere-arch of the W doorway, all the windows
and the chancel
quoins are of
brick and tufa blocks. Both Pevsner and Mortlock point
out that this is unlikely to be reused Roman brick, as the size is wrong. These
may therefore be the earliest English bricks in the country — certainly
predating those of Little Coggeshall Abbey (Essex) ofc.1200, which are
similar in size. The nave aisles were been heightened and widened in the
14thc.; the E windows of the nave aisles are reticulated (S) or flowing (N),
perhaps ofc.1350, but the lateral aisle windows are late Perpendicular,
as is the chancel E window — evidence of a major
campaign around 1500. The 14thc. campaign also included the building of the
tower, the addition of two-light lateral chancel
windows and the replacement of the nave roof timbers. At the same time the
lateral nave doorways and porches were added, and a start was made on replacing
the nave arcades with pointed arches. The W
bay of the S arcade was
replaced, and some work done on the E arches of both arcades, but the project was abandoned. The exterior of the
nave roof is now double-pitched with a flat top. Thefts of lead from the roof
led to the cladding being replaced with stainless steel in 1983-88, and dormer
windows were added at this time to compensate for the lack of a clerestory.
Romanesque sculpture recorded below is found in the W nave doorway, the nave
arcades and the chancel
arch.
Parish church
Winterbourne Monkton is a small village about 6 miles NW of Marlborough. The church of St Mary Magdalene lies to the W of the village and is a building of coursed sarsen rubble; it consists of a chancel of 13thc with N vestry, a nave rebuilt in the 14thc, a S porch added in the 15thc, W tower, and a W gallery built in the 18thc. The church was rebuilt in 1878 by William Butterfield but several parts of the old church were reused. The building has no Romanesque fabric and the only feature of this period is the late 12thc font.
Parish church
Milden is situated in arable farmland on the rising ground on the S side
of the Lavenham Brook, a tributary of the river Brett, some 5 miles NE of
Sudbury towards the S of mid-Suffolk. In the field immediately to the S of the
church, once glebe land, a stone marks the second highest point in the county
(82 m, 269 ft) It is a dispersed settlement, sparsely populated, extending
approximately 1¼ miles from Milden Hall in the W, with the motte of a
12thc. castle nearby, to the church in the E.St Peter's is a two-cell flint church with a very wide nave and a
chancel almost as wide. The nave has a 12thc. S doorway
under a 19thc. porch, and a plain 12thc. lancet. The
other nave windows are apparently 15thc. but have lost their tracery. The N
doorway is later medieval too, and its porch has been
converted for vestry use. There was a W tower, damaged
in a storm in 1827, and taken down in 1840. The W wall and its single bell-cote
were built using the salvaged stones. The chancel is
13thc., to judge from the plain lancet piscina, but
there must have been a rebuildingc.1300, when Y-tracery windows were added.
The triple lancet E window is not original, and belongs either to the 1840
rebuilding, or to a restoration of 1866. Romanesque features described here are
the S doorway and a badly damaged plain
font.
Parish church
Middleton is a substantial village in east Suffolk, midway between
Aldeburgh and Southwold and 3 miles from the coast. The Minsmere River runs
through the village on its way to the partially drained coastal marshland that
now forms the Minsmere bird sanctuary. The village
centre is on the rising arable land S of the river with the church at its
northern edge. Holy Trinity church has a nave and chancel in one, under a single roof, with a S porch to the nave, and a W tower with a spire. Both nave and
chancel are 12thc. The nave has a shaft at its SW angle and a chevron-decorated S doorway, and the chancel has the remains of 12thc. ornament around its interior
western windows on both sides. The piscina also
includes some 12thc. work. The 12thc. chancel must have
been lengthened and a new piscina built incorporating
material from the old one. The E window and two N windows are intersecting or
Y-tracery work ofc.1300, and this was presumably when the
chancel was extended. The nave also has one Y-tracery
on the N. All other nave and chancel windows are 15thc.
insertions, and there is no N doorway to the nave. The S porch is mortar rendered with flushwork panels, battlements
and a stepped gable. It has a classical
pediment over the entrance and may be 15thc.,
remodelled in the 18thc. The nave and chancel have been
refaced in mixed knapped flints and rubble, laid to give a crazy-paving effect.
The tall, slender tower is of flint with heavy quoins
at the eastern angles that may be 12thc. At the W are added diagonal buttresses
with flushwork chequers. It has been heightened, and its upper storey has a
slight setback. The bell-openings are 15thc., as is the embattled parapet with its flushwork tracery panels. The spire
is a slender lead spike, and was completely rebuilt in 1955. While the work was
proceeding, the thatched roof of the church caught fire, and the blaze spread
to the rest of the building. Villagers rescued most of the furnishings, and
surprisingly little was irrevocably lost. Romanesque work is found on the S
doorway, the nave SW angle shaft, the piscina and around two chancel
windows.
Parish church
Hacheston is a village lying on the road from Framlingham to Wickham
Market in east Suffolk. This road, now the B1116, follows the line of a stream
that rises in Framlingham and runs into the river Alde at Blaxhall. The land is
flattish and arable, and the church is built on a rise at the southern end of
the village.All Saints has a west tower, a nave with a S aisle and a N
porch, now converted for use as a vestry, and a chancel. The tower is
15thc., of flint with diagonal buttresses at the west and a plain parapet. The
nave has a 12thc. N doorway, now inside the vestry and
accessible only from inside the church. The nave and aisle windows are all
15thc. now and triangular brick buttresses have been added to shore up the N
wall. The exterior nave and aisle walls are mortar rendered. The aisle is of
four bays with the S doorway set in the westernmost
bay. It has no clerestory and a 15thc. arcade. Inside the nave is a timber west gallery, added in 1836. The N porch
is 15thc. and of flint, partly rebuilt in brick. The chancel was originally shorter, and the old E quoins are visible on the N side. The W part of the
chancel has a 13thc. window on the S side, but all
other widows are 15thc., including a three-light E window. The chancel is mortar-rendered except the E wall, which is of
mixed knapped flint, brick and ashlar blocks. Again the N wall is shored up
with a triangular brick buttress. Inside, the 13thc. piscina has been reset in the eastern extension, in the E
reveal of the easternmost S window. Davy visited the
church in 1817, and recorded that the N porch had been
block up some years before (c.1815) and was then the vestry. The nave was restored in the 1840s and '50s, and the
chancel from 1879. There were repairs to the tower and
the nave and aisle roofs around 1990, and in 1997 the chancel roof was retiled. The only Romanesque sculpture is on
the N nave doorway.