We use cookies to improve your experience, some are essential for the operation of this site.

St Mary, Shrawley, Worcestershire

Location
(52°16′54″N, 2°17′8″W)
Shrawley
SO 806 649
pre-1974 traditional (England and Wales) Worcestershire
now Worcestershire
  • G. L. Pearson

Please use this link to cite this page - https://www.crsbi.ac.uk/view-item?i=3264.

Find out how to cite the CRSBI website here.

Description

Built of red sandstone ashlar, the church has a 12thc. aisleless nave and chancel, the latter with a modern arch and rebuilt E wall, a W tower of the 16thc. or 17thc., and a modern vestry. The nave is on a different axis to the chancel and seems to have been built a little later. Romanesque sculpture is found in the S doorway of the nave, within a 15thc. porch, in the blocked N nave doorway and on the label of a small reset doorway in the S chancel wall; on the string courses of both nave and chancel; on the font and on loose fragments.

History

The first mention of Shrawley appears to be an entry in the Evesham Chartulary, which is attributed to the second half of the 12thc.; William Beauchamp of Elmley then held one hide there (VCH 1:329).

Features

Exterior Features

Doorways

Exterior Decoration

String courses

Furnishings

Fonts

Loose Sculpture

Comments/Opinions

The arch of the second order of the S doorway is very similar to the S doorway at Bredon, but the waterleaf capitals supporting it may suggest that it is a little later. The bowl of the font could be a reused main arcade capital. The loose fragments discovered beneath the chancel floor could have come from the Romanesque chancel arch. The pilaster buttresses pierced by a window, found here in the chancel, occur also at Cropthorne and Fladbury.

The building stone appears to have come from the quarry on the N side of the churchyard. Three ramps for bringing the stone to the site are still apparent and there are pieces of dressed stone at the quarry's rim.

Bibliography
The Victoria History of the Counties of England. Worcestershire, vol. 1. London 1901, 329; 4, London 1924, 338-41, 339-40.
J. G. Barnish, Notes on St Mary's Church, Shrawley, (nd).
C. J. Bond, 'Church and Parish in Norman Worcestershire' in J. Blair (ed.) Minsters and Parish Churches.The Local Church in Transition 950-1200, Oxford University Committee for Archaeology Monograph 17. Oxford 1988, 119-58, 154.
N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England. Worcestershire. Harmondsworth 1968, 260.