Notes on the Churches of Derbyshire (Volume 2); The Hundreds of the High Peak and Wirksworth. 1877 Paperback - 2010

From the publisher

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: of j]P the date of the foundation of this chapel nothing positive can be determined, but there is no doubt that one existed here in the twelfth century. The chapel (or church as we may now term it) of Ashford-in- the-Water, is dedicated to the Holy Trinity, and consists of nave, north aisle, south porch, chancel, and tower at the west end. The church has recently undergone an extensive restoration, amounting almost to a complete rebuilding, and was opened again for service on Trinity Sunday, 1870. Previous to the restoration, there was a semi-circular slab of stone built into the south wall, near to the entrance to the church, on which were carved the rude representations of a wild boar and a wolf, beneath a tree that occupied the centre of the stone. Underneath it was a tablet, placed there by the late Incumbent, with the text, The boar out of the wood doth waste it, and the wild beast of the field doth devour it, an interpretation of the stone which had probably never occured to the mind of the fanciful sculptor. This stone had undoubtedly once served as the tympanum or top stone of the semicircular doorway of the Norman chapel erected here in the early part of the twelfth century, and it has now been happily restored to its proper position. There are special characteristies about this stone which serve to distinguish it from the nearly coeval sculptured tympanums of Hognaston, Parwich, etc., for it has a classic tinge about the foliage and general style of ornament, and may fairly lay claim to the usually misapplied term of Romanesque. The general features of the building, as now restored, partake ofthe Decorated style. The west archway into the tower, as well as the three pointed archways, supported on octagon pillars, that separate the nave from the north aisle, a...