The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
"wheel kirk"
Ruined parish church
The Wheel Kirk was sited beside the Wheel Causeway in Liddesdale. Although the church and village have long disappeared, in 1914 excavations were carried out on the site of the church, when various carved stones and the foundations of the church were unearthed. The excavations showed a two-celled church with a rectangular nave and narrower, rectangular chancel. It is uncertain when the church was abandoned, but it appears to have occurred after the Reformation. In 1600 the 'Quheill' Church in Liddesdale is mentioned as 'waist' and valued at £10. On 9 December 1604, the Wheel Kirk was united to Castleton. The church was still marked on Blaue's map in 1648, but by the mid-19thc nothing survived above ground.
Parish church
Isolated in a field, this unusual looking church consists of a nave and a chancel. The coursed, rubble, nave walls may be 13th century, like the shafted bellcote. The design of the south window in the nave and the font points to renovation work in the 14th century. In 1876 Charles Kirk, Jr. rebuilt the east end of the nave and chancel at a greater height than the west part of the nave; hence the unusual look of this church. Lewis mentions in 1848 that the church lay “in ruins” which suggests that Kirk’s renovation was a major overhaul. The Romanesque features here are the south doorway of the nave and a loose pier base.
Parish church
Kirk Ireton is a village in the Debyshire Dales district, 6½ miles S of Matlock and 5½ miles NE of Ashbourne. The church, in the village centre, consists of an aisled and clerestoreyed nave with a S porch and a W tower and a chancel with N and S chapels and a N vestry. The church is 12thc in origin, including the lowest stage of the tower and the S nave arcade. The N arcade is 13thc, but both aisles were remodelled later: the S aisle in the 14thc, and the N in the 17thc, when the clerestorey was added. The upper parts of the tower are 14thc. Romanesque features described here are the S arcade and the S doorway.
Parish church
Kirk Deighton is a village north-west of Wetherby in North Yorkshire. The church of All Saints stands in a prominent position, deceptively high after the gentle approach from the S.
There is a nave (the corners of which are dated c.1100 by Kirk 1938, plan after Kitson), a W tower, N and S aisles, S porch; chancel with organ chamber and vestry to N. The round-headed arch at the E end of the N aisle is of 1874; the chancel arch is restoration work too. There are no papers for either restoration (1849 and 1874-5).
The only Romanesque remains are in the N arcade, and a few reset pieces in the interior.
Parish church
Kirk Hallam is a village in the Erewash district of SE Derbyshire, 7 miles NE of Derby and just over a mile from the border with Nottinghamshire, to the E. It is an ancient village, but is now regarded as part of Ilkeston, a larger settlement to the NE. The village expanded dramatically from the 1950s onwards when public and private sector housing was built to the S, and later to the N of the village centre, driven largely by employment opportunities at Stanton Ironworks. The church is thus in the old village centre, but surrounded by mid-20thc housing to the N and S. It is built of coursed gritstone with slate roofs and consists of a nave with a S porch, a higher chancel and a low W tower. The earliest fabric is in the 14thc straight-headed windows of the nave, while the tower is 15thc and later. The church was reported to be ruinous in 1778 and shortly afterwards it was repaired and repewed. There were restorations of the nave and chancel in 1858-59 by Place of Nottingham under the direction of G E Street. Traces of a 12thc church survive in the form of two beakhead voussoirs and two carved with the chevron ornament, and an arcaded font.
Redundant parish church
Kirk Sandall is about 3 miles NE of Doncaster; the site is not to be confused with Sandal Magna, near Wakefield. The compact medieval church, of Magnesian limestone and cobbles, lies alongside a canal and the river Don. There are fields nearby but the approach is through an industrial estate and the site of the former Pilkington glassworks, which itself had replaced the old village (Holland 1999, 94-5).
The church has a small chancel with a larger 16thc N chapel and a two-bay nave with late 12thc to early 13thc arcades; the S porch is Victorian, from a restoration in the 1860s. The satisfying pyramidal roof on the tower over the W bay of the S aisle replaced the upper stage of a pinnacled tower of c. 1828 in 1935-1937; at the same time a vestry was added to the N aisle (Pevsner 1967, 292-3).
There is a mixed fabric of cobbles, limestone rubble and ashlar even in the later 12thc work. The grave-slab against the W wall in the N aisle is said to have the remains of a floriated cross but that is too damp and efflorescing to discern (Barnes 2001, 3). Remains relevant to this Corpus are the S doorway, a slit window at each end of the S aisle, the two arcades, a piscina and a plain cylindrical font.
Parish church
Kippax lies some 9 miles E of Leeds. The nave, rectangular chancel and west tower of the medieval church survive; the porch and vestry are modern. Original windows remain on the N side, but these are coated with cement on the exterior, so no original surface can be seen. The plan of the church, and an unusually large proportion of the wall fabric, is original and is thought to date from the early post-Conquest period. The churchyard is immediately adjacent to the remains of a ringwork castle; the visible earthwork may have been a hollow motte and the bailey may have extended into the area now occupied by the churchyard. Both castle and church are placed high and have wide views.
The walls are in herringbone stonework. In this technique the stone is not trimmed square but it seems to be left much as the slabs came from the quarry or field. The local magnesian limestone is slabby and thus well-suited to this technique. These stones are laid slanting and coursed, and opposed in successive courses, but there is the occasional horizontally-laid course too (all exterior views).
The herringbone fabric is extracted above the windows that were inserted later. It extends high into the tower, with a suggestion of the roof line on the east face. The church does not seem to have had unusually tall proportions. There was a restoration in 1875-6, which affected the interior and was not detrimental to the exterior, if we accept the additions of vestry and porch as necessities.
The label and label-stop of the blocked N doorway have some ornament, probably billet and chequer patterns. This is the only Romanesque sculpture.
Parish church
Kirkby Ireleth is sited on the peninsula of Furness, in southern Cumbria. The site of the church is listed variously by modern authors as ‘Kirkby Ireleth’, ‘Kirkby-in-Furness’ and ‘Beckside’. It has been dedicated to St Cuthbert since at least the 15thc., but there is some evidence that in the 14thc. it was dedicated to St Mary. The church consists of a nave with S porch, chancel, large north aisle and west tower, the latter built in 1829. Restorations were carried out in 1881, 1884 and 1904. The only surviving Romanesque carving is found on the S doorway of the nave, although the western part of the chancel, with its restored N window and blocked S window, as well as some walling of the nave are also believed to date from the 12thc.
Parish church
Kirkby Wharfe is a village 2 miles S of Tadcaster in the Selby district of Yorkshire. The church of St John the Baptist appears to be compact and small-scale from the exterior, but as well as usual nave and chancel, it has north chapel, north and south aisles and west tower. Inside, there is work of many periods including pre-Conquest cross pieces and window glass collected from the Continent. There is quite alot of plaster on the arcade pillars, though without any significant marks. Pevsner says the restoration was in 1860, but no papers exist at the Borthwick Institute.
The Romanesque work includes a little late sculpture on the south doorway, N and S arcades, and, most unusually, of the three fonts, two are plain and of probable Romanesque date.
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.