Church Of St Romald

Church of St Romald

Parish church of mixed date, late 12th to 16th centuries, incorporating Saxon masonry. The building comprises a west tower, aisled nave with north and south transepts, south porch, chancel with north vestry and organ chamber. Construction is in dressed and rubble sandstone with graduated green slate roofs. The chancel was restored in 1890–4 and an organ chamber was added in 1929.

The nave dates from the late 12th to early 13th century with Transitional arcades. The south aisle and south transept were added in the late 13th century. The north aisle and north transept were rebuilt around 1330. The chancel dates from around 1360. The north vestry wall was rebuilt in the 16th century. The 15th-century tower is the most imposing feature, built in three stages with stepped diagonal buttresses, a 3-light Perpendicular west window to the first stage, scattered slit openings above, and 2-light mullioned-and-transomed bell openings with cinquefoil heads. The parapet is embattled with worn gargoyles and later corner pinnacles.

The 3-bay nave has a steeply pitched roof beneath Transitional arcades. The 4-bay chancel has stepped buttresses with crocketed pinnacles dividing the bays; the central and south-east buttresses contain ogee niches. The south side features three 2-light windows with Geometrical tracery, a restored low-side window, and a priest's doorway. The wider east bay has a 3-light window with Reticulated tracery. The diagonally buttressed east end has a 5-light window combining Geometrical and Perpendicular styles. The south aisle has angle-buttressed returns, Y-tracery and lancet windows, and a pointed doorway of two chamfered orders with single flanking colonnettes and a pair of boarded doors with 17th-century ironwork. The south porch has stone side benches. The south transept is one bay wide and two bays deep, with angle buttresses, a 5-light south window with unusual Geometrical tracery, and two Y-tracery windows on the east return. The north aisle has a blocked pointed doorway to the west, restored lancets to the east, buttressed bay divisions, and a 2-light square-headed window with Reticulated tracery to the west return. The north transept has a 3-light pointed north window with two tiers of reticulation and an embattled transom, and a 3-light square-headed window with Reticulated tracery to the east return. The 3-bay organ chamber adjoins a one-bay vestry to the east; the vestry has a 2-light square-headed window and stepped buttresses.

Interior

The nave arcade columns have moulded bases and octagonal capitals (the north-east capital features flat-leaf decoration) supporting semicircular arches of two stepped orders under chamfered hoodmoulds with keeled responds. The north-west column bears fragmentary painting of St Mark. Evidence of long-and-short work flanks the chancel arch. The chancel has a pointed arch of two hollow-chamfered orders with a fragment of spiral rood stair and stoup to the north. The east end of the north wall contains a small squint and square window to the vestry. A double piscina with cinquefoil-headed niches under a crocketed ogee arch occupies the south wall; the floor is Italian marble laid in 1890. The south transept, formerly a chantry chapel to St Thomas, contains two piscinae and an aumbry. The tower has a pointed arch of two chamfered orders dying into the walls and a stone vault with eight radiating ribs and a central ring. The roofs may incorporate some original timber work.

Fittings and Monuments

A tall grave slab with incised cross is inserted into the blocked north door. A recumbent straight-legged stone effigy of Hugh Fitz Henry (died 1305), depicted in chain mail and holding a shield, lies on a chest tomb in the north transept. A probably 12th-century font at the west end of the south aisle has a circular bowl with three tiers of horseshoe-shaped leaf decoration on a base with four attached colonnettes, with a probably 17th-century ogival wood font cover. Late 15th-century fragments of a Newlyn grave slab with matrix are built into the chancel north wall. A circa 1728 panelled oak pulpit, originally part of a three-decker, has an octagonal tester and staircase with turned balusters and ramped handrail; the tripartite reading desk section now stands at the west end of the north aisle. Several good 18th-century wall monuments include those to Joseph Heaton (died 1750) and Georgio Ledgard (died 1727), both on the chancel north wall. Four monuments to members of the Maire family are in the north transept, including one to Thomas Maire (died 1752) signed by William Palmer.