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Holy Rood, Ampney Crucis, Gloucestershire

Location
(51°42′56″N, 1°54′26″W)
Ampney Crucis
SP 065 019
pre-1974 traditional (England and Wales) Gloucestershire
now Gloucestershire
medieval Worcester
now Gloucester
medieval Holy Rood
now Holy Rood
  • Jean and Garry Gardiner
  • John Wand
06, 08 June 1998

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Description

A cruciform church with an aisleless nave retaining Saxon features, a late-12thc chancel, late-13thc N and S transepts, S porch, 15thc W tower and 19thc N vestry. In the centre of the N nave wall is one small undecorated Early Romanesque window and part of one now blocked (photographed but not described as features). A fine quality 12thc pillar piscina is in the SE corner of the chancel, and a 12thc font is in the W tower. The only other Romanesque sculpture is found on the Transitional chancel arch.

History

Known in 1086 as Omenie, the main landholders were Turstin fitzRolf and Baldwin from the king. The undertenant was Humphrey the Chamberlain. Domesday Book records a church and mill. Dugdale, in Monasticon Anglicanum. records that a gift of the manor of Ampney Crucis to Tewkesbury monastery was confirmed in 1101 (VCH 62).

Features

Interior Features

Arches

Chancel arch/Apse arches

Furnishings

Fonts

Other

Comments/Opinions

A very tall slightly pointed chancel arch; unified in appearance and technique. The shafts evolve smoothly into capitals; each pair close in dimensions and form but varied in decoration in keeping with the date of c.1180 given in the church description.

In the centre of the N nave wall is one small undecorated Early Romanesque window and part of a second, now blocked. The windows are placed very high on the wall, approximately 3.5 m from the floor to the sill. The height of the Romanesque windows perhaps reflects the earlier Saxon elevation.

Bibliography

Anon. Church of the Holy Rood, Ampney Crucis Private Press

F. W. B. Cripps et al. 'Proceedings at the Spring Meeting at Down Ampney, Kempsford, Fairford, Ampney St. Mary, and Ampney Crucis, 25 May 1925, Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society 47 (1925), 22-24.

Historic England Listing ID 1172051

Charles E. Keyser, ‘Notes on the Churches of Ampney Crucis, Ampney St. Mary’s, and Ampney St. Peter’s’, Journal of the British Archaeological Association 20 (1914), Part 2, 81.

M. Salter, The Old Parish Churches of Gloucestershire, Malvern 2008, 20

H.M. Taylor and J. Taylor, Anglo-Saxon Architecture Vol 1 Cambridge 1965 25-27

E. Tyrell-Green, Baptismal Fonts, London 1928, 18.

Victoria County History, Gloucestershire 2, 1907, 62.

David Verey, The Buildings of England, Gloucestershire, The Cotswolds, Harmondsworth 1979, 85.

D.Verey and A. Brooks, A. The Buildings of England, Gloucestershire I: the Cotswolds (3rd edition) London 1999 139-141