Winchester Style

Style of manuscript illumination, ivory carving, stone sculpture, metalwork, embroidery, and architecture from the capital of Late Saxon England, c 10th century AD. The emphasis was on naturalistic figure design and acathus decoration is prominent in manuscripts and the stone angels carved over the chancel arch of Bradford-on-Avon church.

From the beginning of the 10th century until the Norman Conquest the Late Saxon kingdom of Wessex was a prominent artistic centre. This renaissance was directed from Winchester, where the building of the New Minster had inspired an artistic tradition based on the revived antique models of Carolingia. The term Winchester Style is applied to a range of categories including manuscript illumination, ivory carving, and stone sculpture as well as, to a lesser extent, metalwork, embroidery and architecture. The new emphasis on naturalistic figure design and acanthus decoration is especially prominent in the sumptuous manuscript, the Benedictional of St Aethel-wold, and the stone angels carved over the chancel arch of Bradford-on-Avon church.