3DVisA Resources

3DVisA Index of 3D Projects: Art History. Sculpture

Romanesque Doorway, Prestbury, Cheshire, UK

The 18th-century chapel in the churchyard of St Peter's at Prestbury incorporates a 12th-century doorway and frieze decorated with sculpture. This fine doorway has been the subject of a survey carried out by the Conservation Technologies team of National Museums Liverpool. The survey involved 3D laser-scanning, photographic documentation and a 3D model created in 3D StudioMax software. A brief report was published online, on the 3DHeritage website (no longer acessible) and later included in the English Heritage guide to 3D laser scanning. The Heritage3D Project was sponsored by English Heritage’s National Heritage Protection Commissions programme.

Fig. 1. Presbury Norman Chapel, Cheshire. © Photo R. Baxter. Computer model of the doorway. © Prestbury Parochial Church Council and National Museums Liverpool. Reproduced with kind permission.

Project dates: 2004

Resource status: The model is part of the National Conservation Centre records.

Contributors: The computer model was developed by Joe Parsons from laser scan data collected by Joe, Annemarie La Pensée and Martin Cooper, Conservation Technologies, National Museums Liverpool (the service ceased in 2013).

Sources and further details:

'Recording a Norman Doorway, Prestbury Church', [2007], Case Study 2 [in:] 3d Laser Scanning for Cultural Heritage, English Heritage, PDF p. 21 (removed from the 2011 edition).

For the description and photographs of the doorway see: Baxter, R. (2004), St Peter (?), Prestbury Norman Chapel, Cheshire, The Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland, London: British Academy.

A demonstration of the computer model in the form of short animation is available. It was included, curtesy of Conservation technologies, in a virtual poster of the Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland, as part of the exhibition staged in Second Life. The display presents academic research projects affiliated to the Centre for the Computing in the Humanities, King’s College London. The exhibition was curated by Hugh Denard and developed by Drew Baker of King's Visualisation Lab, in the virtual space of the Festspielhaus in Hellerau. The animation was kindly provided by the National Conservation Centre, National Museums Liverpool. The launch of the virtual display in SL coincided with the Digital Resources in the Humanities and Arts (DRHA) Conference, Dartington College of Arts, UK, 9-12 September 2007.

Record compiled by Anna Bentkowska-Kafel, 11 September 2006. Last updated: 16 February 2015.