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The cruciform Anglo-Saxon church is depicted on a sketch plan showing the development of the church is diagrammatic and not to scale. For reference, the bays are numbered from west to east, 1 to 8. The first four bays comprise the original main part of the building. In bay 4 was the crossing and north and south porticos; an east porticus, in bay 5, formed the chancel. Of the other cruciform Anglo-Saxon churches in Winchester Diocese - at Breamore, Colemore and Ropley, the north and south porticos are narrower than the nave. Here at Nether Wallop, the porticos are the same width and the plan is almost Romanesque. At Breamore, over the chancel arch, there is a Saxon inscription to mark the entrnace from the nave, the church militant to the chancel the church triumphant. At St Andrew’s the space over the chancel arch is painted with a “Christ in Majesty” in the style of the “Winchester School” of manuscript illuminators. The traditional theme of a “Majesty” is a seated figure of Christ giving a Benediction enclosed in an oval frame, a mandorla supported by flying angels. The painting has been dated to the beginning of the 11th century. Unfortunately, the Normans, in widening the chancel arch, destroyed the central motif of the painting, leaving only fragments of the angels and the very tip of the mandorla, sufficient however to enable a reasonable impression to be made. It is considered that a painting of such high quality, of about the year 1030, implies Royal patronage. It follows that the wall on which it is painted must be of the same date or earlier. The church must therefore be of an Anglo-Saxon foundation. Architectural evidence for the north and south porticos, and therefore the cruciform shape (described by C R Peers in the Victoria County History of 1911), may be seen on the north face of the compound pillar between bays 3 and 4 and the south face of the pier between bays 4 and 5. A small piece of evidence to confirm an earlier than Norman origin for the church may be seen in the cover to a Saxon tomb, with a floriated cross, now resting on the floor at the entrance to the vestry. This had been used as a foundation to the Norman column of the south arcade between bays 2 and 3. It was found in 1978, when the column was underpinned.
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