X.—On the Sculptured Tympanum of a former Doorway in the Church of South Ferriby, Lincolnshire

Abstract

The village of South Ferriby is situate on the south bank of the Humber, and is the northernmost of a chain of small villages nearly all having names terminating in “by,” placed under or on the western escarpment of the Lincolnshire Wolds, where they approach the Humber, and overlook the valley through which flows the river Ancholme. The small parish church, dedicated to St. Nicholas, is chiefly deserving of notice on account of its peculiar situation and plan, and for the curious early Romanesque doorhead or tympanum shown by the accompanying illustration (Fig. 1). The church is built on a level platform cut out about half way up the hill. It consists of a nave standing north, and south, with a small chancel projecting eastward and considerably above the level of the nave, a low tower occupying the north-east angle between the nave and chancel, and a west porch opposite the chancel. Judging from some window tracery still remaining, the church seems to be of fourteenth century date, but it has been subjected to numerous alterations culminating in a restoration, in which the chancel has been converted into a vestry and the altar placed at the north end of the nave, which has been lengthened and made precisely like a barn in its general plan and arrangement. It is said that at one time there was a kind of western aisle formed by oak posts and struts supporting a beam, but no traces of this remain in the present renovated nave.