Please use this link to cite this page - https://www.crsbi.ac.uk/view-item?i=3665.
Find out how to cite the CRSBI website here.
The church has a long 12thc. nave with turrets flanking the W facade, a vaulted N porch with later upper storey, a S aisle of the 13thc., and a N aisle, crossing tower and chancel of the 14thc. Romanesque sculpture is found on the corbel tables of the nave, on the nook shafts of the W front turrets, in the S, W and N nave doorways, on the string course and vault responds of the N porch, and in the W tower arch; in the S aisle there is also a fragmentary cross-head, as well as a carved label stop.
A monastery was founded at Bredon in the 8thc., and annexed to the Bishop of Worcester in the 10thc. No traces of any buildings survive (Church guide). At DS both the manor and the advowson were held by the Bishop of Worcester.
Stratford in Pevsner 1968 (p.96, fn.) notes that continuous mouldings alternate with normal ones in the W bays of Worcester Cathedral and at Ripple, Bredon's Norton and Shrawley, among other places. The beast-head label stops can be compared with Ripple, and the chevron types with Eckington, Netherton and St Mary's, Shrewsbury, as well as with the W bays of the Cathedral and Holt (ibid.). The capitals also relate to those in the Cathedral (ibid.). Willis attributed the W tower arch to the master of the W bays of Worcester Cathedral; the work probably dates fromc.1190 (Pevsner 1968, 96).