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St Gregory, Offchurch, Warwickshire

Location
(52°17′17″N, 1°28′35″W)
Offchurch
SP 358 657
pre-1974 traditional (England and Wales) Warwickshire
now Warwickshire
medieval Worcester
now Coventry
  • Harry Sunley

Please use this link to cite this page - https://www.crsbi.ac.uk/view-item?i=11311.

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Description

A small church sited on a hill above the village. It has an aisleless Romanesque nave with recut windows. Romanesque sculpture is found on the N doorway, on the chancel arch and on some chancel windows. Grey stone with some red; of rubble except for the grey ashlar late medieval tower.

History

According to Dugdale, Offchurch '... hath been a town of no small note in the Saxons times' and he links the name of the village with King Offa. An Anglo-Saxon cemetery was found S of the church in the 19thc. The church was appropriated to Coventry Priory in 1261.

Features

Exterior Features

Doorways

Windows

Exterior Decoration

Miscellaneous

Interior Features

Arches

Chancel arch/Apse arches
Comments/Opinions

The S side of the chancel arch is tilted some 6 degrees to S. The VCH states that it collapsed and had to be reconstructed, 'apparently in the 14thc.' There has been some restoration of the friezes of the chancel arch: a stone on the S face of the N side impost block is of a grey material, and is thought to be a concentrated cement mix with the features impressed rather than carved. The same colour is found for patching part of the chamfer beneath.

The N side windows, para. III.4 (ii) and (iii) above, are less weathered than would be expected. The VCH suggests that the circles of window (ii) were cut in 1866, and the church guide states that during 1866/7 when the chancel was almost entirely rebuilt, 'the heads of two round-headed windows were found ... and reset in the north and south walls'. The serpent moulding of window (i) has a more authentic appearance.

Bibliography
VCH. 6:196
Offchurch, St Gregory, church guide, 1977
Pevsner and Wedgewood, 368