CORPUS OF ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE IN GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND
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ANNUAL REPORT AND FINANCIAL STATEMENT
Year ending 31 December 2024
| CONTENTS | PAGE |
|---|---|
| Ofcers and professional advisers | 2 |
| Principal actvites and responsibilites of trustees | 3 |
| Management Board Report | 4 |
| Income and expenditure | 7 |
| Balance sheet | 8 |
CORPUS OF ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE IN GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND
TRUSTEES AND PROFESSIONAL ADVISERS
| Trustees | Nicola Coldstream, MA, PhD, FSA |
|---|---|
| Katherine Davey, MA, MA | |
| Catherine English, BA, MA, FSA | |
| Professor Eric Fernie, CBE, FBA, FRSE, Hon VPSA, FSA (Scot), | |
| Hon DLit | |
| James King, BA, MA, FSA | |
| Professor Neil Stratord, BA, MA, FSA | |
| Rose Walker, PhD, FSA | |
| Charity Secretary | Simon Kirsop, BA, MA, FSA |
| Charity Treasurer | Susan Netle, MSc, MA |
| Contact Address | 122 Woburn Drive |
| Hale | |
| WA15 8NF | |
| Bankers | Barclays PLC |
| Hounslow, Middlesex | |
| Independent Auditors | Gary Dolphin |
| GHD Finance Ltd | |
| 8 Huxtable Rise | |
| Worcester | |
| WR4 0NX |
CORPUS OF ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE IN GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND
PRINCIPAL ACTIVITIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE TRUSTEES
The Trustees are responsible for ensuring that the principal activities of the Corpus are undertaken, namely, to create and maintain a publicly available record of Romanesque sculpture in Great Britain and Ireland between c1050 and c1200 through the establishment, maintenance and promotion of a permanent record and archive of such sculpture (www.crsbi.ac.uk); to advance the public knowledge of all such sculpture through engagement and education; and to assist in the preservation of such sculpture for the public benefit in such ways as the Trustees shall from time to time determine.
The Trustees are also responsible for keeping proper accounting records which disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the charity (Registered Charity No. 1168535). In addition, the Trustees are responsible for safeguarding the assets of the charity hence for taking reasonable steps for ensuring the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities.
The Trustees held two in-person meetings on 7 March and 9 October at the British Academy. Dr Rose Walker was welcomed as a new Trustee.
The Trustees are assisted in undertaking their responsibilities by the Management Board. Following the appointment of Dr John Munns as Chairman of the Management Board, the Trustees were pleased to support several new proposals. Including the expansion in the number of volunteer posts reporting to the Management Board to increase the visibility of the database as a teaching and research resource using outreach activities, to increase the number of trained fieldworkers recording sites and to focus on various fundraising activities to enhance the financial stability of the Corpus.
RESULTS
The financial results for the period 1 January – 31 December 2024 and the Charity’s financial position at the end of the year are shown in the attached financial statement.
Susan Nettle
Treasurer
Approved by Trustees at meeting on 30 April 2025
CORPUS OF ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE IN GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND
MANAGEMENT BOARD REPORT
Year end 31 December 2024
The members of the Management Board have pleasure in presenting their report and the financial statement of the Corpus for the year ended 31 December 2024.
Dr John Munns, Associate Professor of History and History of Art at Magdalene College, Cambridge assumed the Chairmanship of the Management Board on 1 January 2024.
The Management Board met on 26 January, 8 June and 11 October.
1. Financial matters
The single largest expenditure during the year was the one-off hosting fee for the digital asset management system hosted by iBase; this will remain an ongoing cost into the future.
The British Academy continued with its support of the on-going work of the Corpus. We benefitted from £5,000 given by the British Academy.
We thank all our supporters and donors, past and present, who have enabled and sustained the aims and development of the Corpus over the years and pledged to support us into the future.
2. Development of the Romanesque dataset during 2024
The database is now fully operational and available on-line to external visitors with new features and much enhanced searchability.
By the end of 2024, 3,460 site records were online and work was nearing completion of a further 800 sites. Support from our donors in 2024 enabled volunteers to visit some of the more distant sites. Rutland is now nearing completion with just 10 sites still to be added to the database. During the year several new volunteers were recruited who will be assisting, in particular with Kent and Nottinghamshire.
The death of Jill Franklin in 2023, meant that Norfolk no longer had a CRSBI champion. The Corpus, together with the British Archaeological Association and the Society of Antiquaries London organized a day to celebrate Jill’s many achievements in the promotion of Romanesque art and architecture. Many members of the CRSBI community contributed short papers. It was also made known that Bob Allies, Jill’s husband, and her family wished to financially support the completion and publication of Jill’s work in the CRSBI website. Towards the end of 2024, over 150 of Jill’s site reports and photographs were given to the Corpus and an assessment of the work still to be done is being undertaken.
CORPUS OF ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE IN GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND
A further piece of sad news was received by the Corpus in November, the death of Rita Wood who recorded over 260 sites in South and West Yorkshire, in addition to several in Gloucestershire. All Rita’s sites are available in the database.
3. Public engagement
The CRSBI Newsletter was published online twice during 2024 in addition to the regular Twitter feed which aims to drive traffic to the site via link click-throughs; highlight useful site functionalities; and, generally raise awareness of and engagement with the project/site itself. Some 1,890 followers are now aware of updates to the Corpus site.
It was decided that the memorial event for Jill Franklin on 30 April 2024 would take place instead of the CRSBI Annual Lecture. The theme was ‘Afterlives: Reusing the Past. The 2025 Annual Lecture on 30 April 2025 will be given by Dr Michele Vescovi (University of Lincoln), entitled ‘Romanesque Sculpture and Water: the art of carved vessels.’
Ron Baxter visited Durham Castle Chapel in 2009 and recently published the site on the database with photographs taken by Rita Wood. The importance of the site has been recognized with an AHRC-funded Research Network project: ‘Hidden Heritage: Multi-Disciplinary and Multi-Sector Perspectives on the Norman Chapel in Durham Castle’, co-run by Cambridge and Durham universities, with CRSBI’s Dr John Munns as the Principal Investigator and Professor Giles Gasper of Durham University as the Co-Investigator.
Other CRSBI members, Meg Bernstein and Jon Turnock are also members of the Core Team, and Ron Baxter, Eric Fernie, and Jim King all attended (and Eric and Ron spoke at) the second workshop in November. From the wider CRSBI family, Richard Plant and Sandy Heslop also attended.
Ron Baxter also spoke to members of Morley Medieval on ‘The Restoration of the Lincoln Frieze’ in March 2024.
During the year several publications or articles appeared written or edited by members of the Corpus community. These included:
Martin Biddle, Birthe Kjølbye-Biddle, Megan Kirkpatrick, Francis M Morris (eds) St Albans Abbey: the excavations of the Chapter House 1978 (Archaeopress, 2024)
Nick Hill, London Guildhall: Another Wide-Spanned Romanesque Unaisled Hall? Journal of the British Archaeological Association, vol 177 (2024), 16-21.
G Sedlezky, The Significance of Doorway Positions in English Medieval and Parochial Churches and Chapels (Archaeopress, 2023)
David Taylor, The early west front of Lincoln Cathedral: the threshold to the Heavenly Jerusalem? Archaeological Journal (2023), 1-36.
CORPUS OF ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE IN GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND
4. The Future
With the support of the Trustees, the need to grow our annual income through fundraising has become crucially important. We need to give new impetus to completing the Romanesque sites on the database and offering a better experience to researchers and visitors. To that end, a major fundraising initiative will be launched to increase the number of gifts and regular donations coming into the charity.
To assist with this aim during 2025 we shall be welcoming new volunteers to the Management Board who will be enhancing several strategic areas: Dr Aleksandra McClain, joins as Secretary; Dr Jon Turnock, will assist the management team providing training days and the development of fieldworker resources; Molly Judd will cover outreach and impact; Ryley Demchuk succeeds Miriam Mott, who after two years as Newsletter and Social Media Editor is leaving the fold. Finally, we welcome back Dr Agata Gomołka, who having been on the editorial team and looking after events, is returning to that brief but with a place on the Management Board.
It has become apparent that the present online configuration of the Corpus database on iBase is not suitable for mobile phone users, and it is hoped that during 2025 an upgrade to the system can be supported to create a more user-friendly format available at current sites.
We continue to seek support from current and new donors to support the ongoing work of the Corpus as we move towards the initial completion of the dataset.
Finally, we wish to thank all our donors, most especially the British Academy, and together with our volunteers for their continuing support.
CORPUS OF ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE IN GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND
INCOME AND EXPENDITURE ACCOUNT
1st January 2024 to year end 31st December 2024
| INCOME | 2024 | 2023 |
|---|---|---|
| £ | £ | |
| Donatons restricted | 0 | 0 |
| Donatons unrestricted | 7,021 | 5,000 |
| EXPENDITURE | ||
| Editng | (956) | (541) |
| Fieldworking | (1,777) | (1,438) |
| Wales | (0) | (0) |
| Travel to meetngs | (372) | (117) |
| Annual Donor Dinner | (0) | (177) |
| Website | (4,848) | (4,620) |
| Publicity | (500) | (890) |
| Training event | (0) | (320) |
| Sundries | (18) | (0) |
| Fund balance brought forward at | 13,544 | 17,764 |
| 1stJanuary 2024 | ||
| Fund balance carried forward at | 11,934 | 13,544 |
| 31stDecember 2024 |
CORPUS OF ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE IN GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND
BALANCE SHEET
31st December 2024
| 2024 | 2023 | |
|---|---|---|
| £ | £ | |
| Bank account | 11,933 | 13,544 |
| Represented by: | ||
| Reserves | 11,933 | 13,544 |
These financial statements were approved by the Trustees on the _________ and signed on their behalf by:
Chair