Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Middle Tysoe, Warwickshire

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Location
(52°5′45″N, 1°30′13″W)
Site Location
Middle Tysoe
National Grid Reference
SP 341 443
Boundaries
pre-1974 traditional (England and Wales) Warwickshire now Warwickshire
Diocese
medieval Worcester now Coventry
Type of building/monument
Report authors
  • Harry Sunley
Photographers
  • Harry Sunley
Visit Date
21 June 2001 (scanning date)

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Description

Tysoe lies under the Edge Hill escarpment, 14 miles S of Warwick and 7 miles W of Banbury. The Assumption is a large parish church with N and S aisles, chancel, tower, S porch and vestry. There is a plain splayed round-headed 12thc. window on the W face of the tower and the remains of two plain, round-headed windows on the wall above the S arcade, the interiors deeply splayed. The tower also has a plain round-headed S doorway. 12thc. sculpture is found on the S doorway, and in the S arcade.

History

Tysoe was held by Vagn before the Conquest ab]nd by Robert of Stafford in 1086. It was assessed at 23 hides with16 acres of meadow and 3 houses in Warwick. The three Tysoes were Lower, Middle and Upper, and Middle Tysoe was previously known as Church Tysoe. The manor remained in the hands of Robert's descendants until 1520, when Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckinghams conveyed it to trustees for the use of Sir William Compton. The following year, Edward Stafford, a nephew of Edward IV and constantly under suspicion by Henry VIII, was tried for treason and executed.

Features

Exterior Features

Doorways

Exterior Decoration

Miscellaneous

Interior Features

Arcades

Nave

Interior Decoration

Miscellaneous
Comments/Opinions

The S arcade is dated to the mid-12thc by Pickford, who suggests that the waterleaf W respond was re-used when the arcade as remodelled in the 13thc. The corbel of a mounted knight in the S aisle does not merit a mention in Pickford, although it is described in VCH as follows, 'above the west half of the second bay of the arcade is reset a large 12thcentury stone carving of a Norman knight astride a horse and having a pointed shield with a round top like those depicted in the Bayeux tapestry. The upper half of the knight is missing.'

Bibliography

C. Pickford and N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England: Warwickshire, New Haven and London 2016, 633-34.

VCH Warwickshire, V, 175-82.