SOUTH ORMSBY, St. Leonard (TF 369 752), LINCOLNSHIRE. (Bedrock: Upper Cretaceous, Lower Chalk.)
A modest church dating back to c. 1200, that raises some questions for dating.
This church, pleasantly situated on a small hill above the lane, is another in this area constructed chiefly of Spilsby sandstone which outcrops some three miles to the southwest, though externally its colour is greyer than that at Alford or Old Bolingbroke, for example, and it is only seen to its best effect inside, where the stone shades from olive green through to brown and black.
The
building comprises a chancel with an independently-gabled S. chapel, a
nave with a lean-to S. aisle and a N. porch, and a W. tower, and - which
is not obvious on approach along the path from the northeast - its
earliest work is Norman or Norman-Transitional. This may include the S. aisle W. doorway (illustrated left),
which retains its original hood-mould with billet decoration even though
many of its other details have been renewed, although not the carved
heads and floral motifs decorating the sunk chamfer running down the
jambs, which are mediaeval albeit not Norman. Notes in the church
record a tradition that this doorway came from the ruined church at
neighbouring Calceby, but if so, it accords very well with the
three-bay nave arcade (seen below
right, viewed from the southwest), which is Norman-Transitional work
of c. 1210, with two round arches and a third with
a slight point (the westernmost), all double-flat-chamfered and supported
on circular piers and semicircular responds, each differing from its
neighbours in both dimensions and precise design, but displaying leaf volute decoration
on the capital of the western pier and the eastern respond, recalling,
it would seem, the transition from water leaf to stiff leaf. Many
questions arise from this. Are the variations in design along its
length the result of incompetence, or of a number of changes in plan, or
of the engagement of different workmen? Does the pointed and slightly narrower arch to the west
imply this was constructed
last (which is conceivable as mediaeval
churches
The church windows today are mostly Victorian in the aisle, chapel and chancel, but Perpendicular in the N. wall of the nave, which is lit be a three-light window towards the east and a four-light window towards the west, both with supermullioned tracery of an idiosyncratic kind, especially in the western window. (See the photograph, left.) This has two tiers of sub-reticulation units separated by a castellated supertransom above lights 2b and 3a, which is relatively commonplace in eastern England, and a non-standard design above lights 1 and 2a and lights 3b and 4, more akin to West Country alternate tracery. The square-headed windows in the S. aisle are by the work of the restorer - apparently the omnipresent James Fowler of Louth - and the windows in the chancel and chapel, with reticulated tracery, may also be his, while paying a greater or lesser debt to whatever was there before.
The W. tower
rises in three stages to battlements, crocketed pinnacles at the angles,
and prominent gargoyles beneath. The arch to the nave
bears two hollow chamfer that die into the imposts, and the
bell-openings are two-light with reticulated tracery, suggesting an
early fourteenth century (Decorated) date for
the structure as a whole. Pevsner's ascription of the work
Finally, a brief description of the church’s furnishings should begin with the font (right), which is Perpendicular and octagonal, with detailed carving on the faces of the bowl depicting angels holding shields within rings seemingly coming from their ears, bearing the Instruments of the Passion and other motifs, including the Sacred Monogram and a crowned 'M' for Mary. The building contains a number of minor monuments, the most notable of which, on the N. wall of the chancel, is dedicated to the memory of Anthony Floyer (d. 1834) and signed by John Earle of Hull (1779 - 1863), whose best work is at North Ferriby (Ruper Gunnis, Dictionary of British Sculptors, London, The Abbey Library, 1951, p. 137), while on the S. wall opposite, brasses to Sir William Skipwith (d. 1482) and his wife have been re-set in wood: three supporters beneath appear to suggest they left two daughters and a son. Last of all, there are also some notable fragments of sixteenth and seventeenth century Flemish stained glass, re-arranged in the S. window of the chapel. The church contains no significant carpentry anywhere.
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