Throwley is a small and fairly isolated village near Faversham. The church of St Michael has an aisled nave and a chancel, and a S tower. Romanesque sculpture include the W doorway and some reset fragments in the S tower transept.

Domesday Book records that in 1066 the manor of 'Trevelai' belonged to Wulfnoth, being King Edward the overlord; in 1086 it passed to Herfrid of Throwley and Odo of Bayeux was its tenant-in-chief. A church is mentioned in the Domesday Survey. In 1153 William de Ipre gave the church and that at Chilham to the Benedictine priory of St Bertin in St Omer, France, in connection with the founding of an alien nearby priory, a cell of St. Bertin; this grant was confirmed by King Stephen the same year. The priory was suppressed in 1414.

The change of patronage is noteworthy. Depending on the date of the sculpture, either an English or French ecclesiastical patron may have commissioned it. However, much greater mystery surrounds the reset fragments. The small capitals could belong to a lost doorway. The zoomorphic double capital with traces of paint is particularly unusual and unexpected in this context. Did this and the others originate from another site, such as the nearby priory after it was dissolved in 1414? They could well represent antiquarian finds from the site.