ABSTRACT
The churches at Moulton and Whaplode are sufficiently large and impressive to be assured a place in the top tier of English local churches. The century between c. 1150 and c. 1250 was one of intensive construction in the Fenlands, the scale of which suggests it formed the regional climax in a great rebuilding of churches whose origins might be sought in 10th-century continental Europe, but in England was most active in the period c. 1050–c. 1150. John the Spaniard, prior of Spalding, instigated the construction of a church at Moulton, probably during the reign of Richard I. The churches at Moulton and Whaplode served neighbouring parishes, closely comparable in terms of geography, economy and land tenure. The evidence indicates that the d'Oyry family exercised effective control over the church at Whaplode between c. 1150 and c. 1230 and that they funded and directed the construction of the Romanesque and the early Gothic church there.
