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Scheduled Monument and Grade II* listed small medieval chapel, described as dated to c1100 but conjectured to be the second Domesday church in Brimpton
The former chapel of St Leonard at Brimpton Manor Farm is both a Scheduled Monument and a Grade II* listed building. It is rectangular, of coursed flint with stone dressings and a tiled roof and measures 35 feet by 20 feet outside <1>. It is described in the listing <13> as 12th century and later in date although the Victoria County History considered it to be the church of Shalford Manor, the second church listed as being in Brimpton by the Domesday Survey <1><2>. Shalford lies over 1km to the south-east. The chapel originally belonged to the Hospitallers of Shalford; it is suggested that sometime after 1338 the Hospitallers' estate was leased to the holders of the adjacent manor of Brimpton 'to whom also the patronage of the free chapel seems to have passed' <1>. Under the Chantries Act of 1548 the chapel was scheduled for suppression, although possibly even in Henry VIII's reign the chapel might have been hardly used apart from mass once a year <1>. However the chapel did not become an entirely secular building until the early 17th century.
The north door of the chapel is Norman and has a Maltese cross carved in the tympanum <1><12><13>. There is a blocked 14th century door and window to the south. At the eastern end is an elegant window also of 14th century date <6>. Inside there is one old tie beam <13>. The walls had been considerably restored when the chapel was described in the Ancient Monuments inventory <15>, and it had also been reroofed when visited by the Ordnance Survey Field Investigator in 1963 <8>. At this time it was in used as a farm building.
The chapel was on the register of Buildings at Risk in 2001 <5> as undergoing slow decay and has been considered to be heritage at risk for several years. The Revised Pevsner Guide of 2010 noted that it had been used for housing geese <11>.
The Historic England (formerly English Heritage) archive holds several early 20th century photographs of St Leonard's Chapel <16>.
| <01> | Page and Ditchfield (eds). 1924. Victoria County History (VCH) Berks IV 1924. Vol 4. p51-5, Illust opp p54. [Monograph / SWB10281]
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/berks/vol4 (Accessed 24/09/2015) |
| <02> | Morgan, P (ed). 1979. Domesday Book - Berkshire. DB5. [Monograph / SWB14587]
https://opendomesday.org/ (Accessed 11/01/2023) |
| <03> | National Monuments Record. 1993. NMR- Ecclesiastical photographs of Newbury. [Unpublished document / SWB13513] |
| <04> | Watson, M. 1996. Curiosities of Berkshire - A County Guide to the Unusual. p77. [Monograph / SWB146924] |
| <05> | English Heritage. 2001. Buildings at Risk - The Register 2001. Product Code XH 20174. [Unpublished document / SWB12827] |
| <06> | Betjeman, J and Piper, J (eds). 1949. Murray's Berkshire Architectural Guide. p118. [Monograph / SWB10404] |
| <07> | Historic England (previously English Heritage). ?-present. NMR Buildings Files on Historic England Archive. BF107876. [Index / SWB147173]
https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/photos/ (Accessed 21/04/2020) |
| <08> | Ordnance Survey. 1960s-70s. Ordnance Survey Field Investigators Comments. F1 GHP 30-APR-63. [Personal observation / SWB14640] |
| <09> | Pevsner, N. 1966. The Buildings of England (Berkshire). p103. [Monograph / SWB10024] |
| <10> | Brimpton Parish Research Association. 1999. The Brimpton Story - History of a West Berkshire Parish. p26-7, illust. [Monograph / SWB12971] |
| <11> | Tyack, G, Bradley, S and Pevsner, N. 2010. The Buildings of England (Berkshire). p212. [Monograph / SWB147855] |
| <12> | 1950-83. Buildings included in the statutory list of buildings of special architectural or historic interest, pre Review. WBC Network. ø Map No 28 12/44. [Unpublished document / SWB10875] |
| <13> | Department of the Environment. 1974-2000?. DOE List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest. [Unpublished document / SWB10006] |
| <14> | 1860. JBAA 1860 16. XVI. online. p90 in Visit 14 Sept 1859. [Article in serial / SWB10466]
https://archive.org/details/journalofbritish16brit (Accessed 12/04/2016) |
| <15> | Historic England (previously English Heritage). Schedule of Monuments. [Unpublished document / SWB12738] |
| <16> | Historic England (previously English Heritage). English Heritage Archives/ Historic England Archive. OP11626, AL0249/040/02 and other ref nos. [Index / SWB148730]
https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/photos/ (Accessed 20/02/2023) |
| <17> | Berkshire Archaeological Society et al. 1898-1901. BERKS, BUCKS AND OXON ARCH J 1898-1901 VOL 6. vi. In ADS Journals. 10.5284/1000017. p12 in The Norman Doorways in the County of Berkshire. [Article in serial / SWB10950]
http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archives/view/berks_bas_2007/journal.cfm?volume=6 (Accessed 29/06/2016) |
| <18> | CRSBI Courtauld Institute of Art. 2007. The Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland. http://www.crsbi.ac.uk. [Website / SWB147117]
http://www.crsbi.ac.uk (Accessed 06/10/2016) |
| <19> | 1905. Sale Catalogue for Woolhampton estate. [Unpublished document / SWB149396] |