The Corpus: North Leigh 01

Volume 4: South-East England

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Current Display: North Leigh 01, Oxfordshire

Overview

Object type: Four balusters

Measurements: Unobtainable

Stone type: Brownish-yellow, shelly, oolitic limestone, cross-bedded, with prominent ribs or 'bars' on weathered surfaces; Taynton stone, Taynton Stone Formation, Great Oolite Group, Middle Jurassic; Taynton, Oxfordshire

Plate numbers in printed volume: Ills. 400-403

Corpus volume reference: Vol 4 p. 244

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Present Location

In situ in belfry stage of west tower (one in each face)

Evidence for Discovery

First recorded in (--) 1910

Church Dedication

St Mary

Present Condition

Intact, but heavily weathered

Description

Each shaft has a facetted capital; the facets are sub-triangular, and with the angles between them rounded. The capital is separated from the shaft of the baluster by a roll moulding. The shaft itself is plain, but with entasis, and stands on a bulbous base.

Discussion

Appendix A item (stones dating from Saxo-Norman overlap period or of uncertain date).

Plain balusters such as these are very difficult to date, and the occurrence on the present examples of entasis would even allow the possibility that they are reused Roman material. If they are medieval, they were presumably made for their present context, and can therefore only be dated by their presence in the fabric of a structure probably to be dated to the eleventh century.

Date

Stones dating from Saxo-Norman overlap period or of uncertain date in eleventh century

References

( --- ) 1910, 32 - 5, fig. on 33; Taylor and Taylor 1965 - 78, i, 464 - 5, fig. 222, ii, pl. 537; Sherwood and Pevsner 1974, 719

D.T.

Endnotes