CHAPTER I EARLIER RESEARCH by Michael Hare and Richard Bryant
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CHAPTER I EARLIER RESEARCH by Michael Hare and Richard Bryant Material from the western Midlands has to date played 732 and 736 Mytton journeyed round Shropshire only a minor role in the study of early medieval with an assistant called James Bowen who produced a sculpture. As in other areas of southern and midland large number of drawings of antiquities in the county England, much of the sculptural evidence from the (Baugh 994, 338). Mytton’s materials (and with area has remained unknown. When J. Romilly Allen them Bowen’s drawings) are now dispersed, but two and G. F. Browne produced a list of stones in England original drawings showing three faces of the Wroxeter with interlaced ornament in 885, they included only cross survive (see Wroxeter St Andrew , p. 34, Ills. a single monument (Cropthorne , p. 353) from the 792–3); not long after the 730s, the cross was dis- five counties covered by this volume (Allen 885, 35– mantled and in 763, the remains were built into the 8). Not long before his death in 932, Baldwin Brown new south wall of the nave (Wroxeter St Andrew –3, estimated the number of Anglo-Saxon sculptures Ills. 562–9). known from each county in England (published post- Other crosses may have remained standing in the humously as Brown 937, 02, fig. 3); he was able to eighteenth century, most notably the Lypiatt Cross list 25 monuments from Gloucestershire, but only 8 from Bisley in Gloucestershire (Bisley Lypiatt , p. from the four other counties together (Herefordshire 43), though probably not on its present site, and 2, Shropshire , Warwickshire 0 and Worcestershire the plain Llanveynoe St Peter 3 cross, Herefordshire 5). (p. 289), which was re-erected in the early twentieth The first monuments of early medieval date to century. The Newent cross, Gloucestershire (Newent receive attention were inscriptions. The dedication , p. 232) was probably also in situ, but had become inscription of Odda’s Chapel at Deerhurst, Gloucester- buried by an increase in the ground-level of the shire, was discovered c. 675 and promptly published churchyard. These crosses seem to have escaped the by Prideaux (676, 309–0) in his account of the attention of early antiquaries. Towards the end of the Arundel marbles; through Gibson’s 695 edition of eighteenth century, a local antiquary drew the cross- Camden’s Britannia, knowledge of the inscription head at Cropthorne, Worcestershire (Cropthorne , p. reached a wider public (Camden 695, 245; see p. 353), which he had recently discovered built into the 90 below). Camden’s Britannia also provided the south wall of the chancel, while in Gloucestershire inspiration for the Welsh antiquary, Edward Lhuyd, to Bigland noted (but misunderstood) the prominent propose a ‘Natural History and Antiquities of Wales’ figure of Christ built into the south wall of the tower (Redknap and Lewis 2007, 7–0); Lhuyd’s work is at Beverstone (Beverstone , p. 33) relevant here, as his travels led him to record c. 698 a From the early nineteenth century onwards, now lost inscription from Olchon House, Llanveynoe, but gaining pace in the middle of the century, dis- very close to the Welsh border in Herefordshire (see coveries began to be made on a piecemeal basis p. 29). during church restorations, enlargements and other The only cross-shaft which was know with certainty works such as the landscaping of churchyards. An to have been standing in the eighteenth century early and well-documented find is provided by the was at Wroxeter (Shropshire). Our knowledge of discovery in 822 of fragments of the Bitton rood, the Wroxeter cross comes from the papers of the Gloucestershire (Bitton –4, pp. 47–50); this case Shropshire antiquary, William Mytton, who was also provides a salutary tale since Canon Ellacombe, collecting materials for a county history. Between who was involved in the work as a young man, gave a 2 CHAPTER I different account of events when writing in the 880s. seems to be something of an afterthought describing At Evesham in Worcestershire, Anne Rudge made a relatively few, rather randomly chosen, pieces. In the drawn record of exceptional quality of a fragment of late 970s Michael Hare, who had recently arrived interlace discovered in the early nineteenth century in the county, visited every church in Gloucestershire (Evesham , p. 357). Many discoveries made in the of medieval origin and produced a provisional list of middle of the nineteenth century seem to have gone Anglo-Saxon sculpture, which included a number of unrecorded; the grave-markers and grave-covers from previously unknown fragments. This list has formed Bibury, Gloucestershire, are perhaps a case in point the basis of the catalogue for Gloucestershire in this (Bibury –4, pp. 34–8). The significance of such dis- volume. coveries frequently went unrecognised at the time. For the other four counties in the study area, a It was only with the publications of scholars like J. similar survey on a church by church basis has not Romilly Allen and G. F. Browne that the distinctive been practical. Bridges has completed a study of the character of Anglo-Saxon monuments became Worcestershire churches, although it is rather more apparent to antiquaries, architects, incumbents and architecturally focused (Bridges 2005), and Leonard others involved in their discovery and care. Thanks has recently completed similar studies for Herefordshire to their pioneering work, it has proved much easier and Shropshire (Leonard 2005 and 2004). Additional to establish provenance for fragments discovered material has been derived from the literature published from the 880s onwards. Browne did indeed become in county journals, from local contacts, and from bishop of Bristol from 897 to 94, but though he sources such as the lists provided by the Corpus team was responsible for recognising some sculptures in in Durham and the British Museum card-index. Two south Gloucestershire, he carried out no serious work undergraduate dissertations supervised by Durham on the area. members of the Corpus team have also drawn on mat- The publication of discoveries of Anglo-Saxon erial from Herefordshire and Shropshire (Dales 2005 monuments remained haphazard, taking place some- and Toogood 2004). Experience elsewhere strongly times in the major county journals (archaeological suggests that a more systematic survey would produce societies existed for all five counties by 877), but at least some additional material and that even the large on other occasions (if at all) in more obscure local Gloucestershire collection is probably not complete journals or ephemeral guide books. Although every (see also Chapter III, p. 9). attempt has been made in the context of the present Herefordshire is the one county in the study area volume to provide adequate provenances, it is likely to have been the subject of a survey by the Royal that further sources will come to light in future for Commission on the Historic Monuments of England the circumstances in which some fragments were first (R.C.H.M.(E.) 93–4). The Commission’s survey discovered. brought a number of early stones to light for the Only in Gloucestershire has sufficient material first time, including such obscurely-placed pieces as existed in the past for detailed studies to have been the interlace fragment from Clifford (no. , p. 284). made on a county-wide basis. A first attempt at a syn- Among the 20 or so surviving monuments discussed thesis of Anglo-Saxon architecture and sculpture in in the present volume, only a small number were Gloucestershire was made by Dina Portway Dobson not previously noted by the Royal Commission, in (933), who also carried out similar work in Dorset one case (Clodock , p. 285) doubtless because the in the 930s (Cramp 2006, 29). Dobson noted a good fragment was already in the cupboard in which it was number of sculptures, and her paper is a useful if by found in 959. It is likely that the presence of Alfred no means comprehensive list of what was known at Clapham on the staff of the Royal Commission was a the time. Some of the carvings carry quite extensive major factor in the recognition of early fragments in descriptions (for example the Newent 2 ‘pillow stone’, Herefordshire, and this is made explicit in the case of p. 236), and there are some suggested groupings and the recognition of the importance of the cross-shaft comparisons. Thirty years later T. F. MacKay (963) fragment at Acton Beauchamp ((——) 930–2, lxx; wrote a paper concerning Anglo-Saxon architecture see p. 28). and sculpture in the Cotswolds, mostly using Glouc- Shropshire has by comparison been less well served. estershire examples, but also extending into southern The Rev. W. A. Leighton (882) published a useful Worcestershire and eastern Oxfordshire. This paper survey of incised and sculptured grave-covers in the reaches a rather erratic set of conclusions based on an county, and this survey includes a few examples of eclectic set of comparanda, and the section on sculpture pre-Conquest date. The starting point for most re- EARLIER RESEARCH 3 search into the churches of Shropshire is, however, In the last 35 years or so, controlled excavation has the massive and magisterial An Architectural Account of added to the body of material (see below, Chapter IX, the Churches of Shropshire published by the Rev. D. H. p. 05). S. Cranage (894–92). Cranage’s main focus was Turning to modern art-historical study, it is the on the architectural evolution of the churches of the carvings of the ninth century in the western Midlands county, and stone monuments of Anglo-Saxon date do which have received most detailed attention. Frank not seem to have interested him greatly; he provides Cottrill’s 935 paper was a seminal study (Cottrill some useful information, but many early monuments 935a).