Saxon remains in Churches of Norman origins

My interest in this topic came from a visit on the 28th May 2003, to SS Mary and David's Church, Kilpeck, Herefordshire. This highly decorated Norman church, the doorway of which is figured below, is justifiably famous for it's carved decoration. Round it's immediate environs is a circular bank, truncated at its eastern end, by the ditch and vallum of the subsequently installed Norman Motte. Good physical evidence that this was an early christian site , as confirmed by "The Book of Llandaff suggests a church existed at Kilpeck ('Lann degui cilpedec') in the (Book of Llandaff, reproduced by J.Evans, The National Library of Wales, p. 275)", cited from here. In the Herefordshire Council's online database of sites and records, they state: " Preserves in the NE corner of nave a megalithic quoin and about 4' of rough rubble wall of earlier church," contra Thurlby (1999, p. 42). Here, I must disagree with Thurlby, as it is unlikely that 19th century restoration, would have resulted in the production of a wall section built on a different alignment, on a reduced plinth and with a different fabric, to the rest of the building. Much more likely is the fact that the restorers recognised the antiquity of this section of wall and wanted to draw attention to it by, from their mind, restoring the long and short work at it's end. Or perhaps, they merely removed a subsequently installed butress, put in to re-inforce a recognised weak, ancient section of wall, to reveal the existing restored structure.

Highly decorated Norman, South doorway to Kilpeck Church.

Showing the circular bounday of the church's site.

An end view of the section of possible saxon wall, showing both it's in'ward lean and different alignment.

A side view of the section of possible saxon wall, showing both it's in'ward lean and different angular alignment.

Showing the other end of the wall section and it's junction with the main body of the Norman build.

Showing the side view of the wall section and it's junction with the main body of the Norman build. The inward inclined edge, visible in the above picture is present behind and just to the right of the right most tomb stone. It also shows the different nature of the plinth of the wall fragment, as opposed to either side. as well as the different colour
and texture of it's fabric.

Front view of the portion of saxon wall

Front view of the portion of saxon wall, again showing it's different angular alignment.

Undoubtedly the Normans valued the ancient remains of earlier churches and incorporating fragments of them in their new churches added to their sanctity. This could be taken to extremes, as with the two Purbeck, Dorset churches already described by me.

Forward to April 2007 and a visit to Somerset and Dorset, when on our way home we visited Christchurch, which looks essentailly a Norman construction, with subsequent modification and alteration.

St Catherine's Chapel, Milton Abbas, Dorset, is set on the hill side overlooking the eastern end of Milton Abbey. This relationship is clearly shown in the following photograph of the side of the chapel with the Abbey below. This photo also clearly shows the fabric of the northern wall of the chapel., basically a mortar structure, reinforced by small flint fragments and nodules, which contrasts with the much larger blocks of flint used in the southern wall. It also helps to explain the presence of several butresses, subsequently installed to support a relatively weak structure

General view of the situation of St Catherine's Chapel.
The small Saxon window, is just visible behind the top of the furthermost butress.

Saxon door

Saxon door, with a good illustration of the nature of the fabric of the north wall.

The south, Norman door set in the large flint blocks wall, the interior of which shows the presence encased within it of an original Saxon door, with it's characteristic flatter arch.

Norman door closeup.

Norman door in closeup, showing the underlying Saxon door more clearly. The carved inscription is just visible at the top of the left door jamb.

Saxon inscription

The Saxon inscription, recognised as such in the late 18th Century.

A facsimile of the inscrption engraved in a brass plate in 1793

A facsimile of the Latin inscrption engraved in a brass plate in 1793, now mounted on the back of the door.

Interior view of splayed not 'Gothic', but Saxon window.

Interior view of splayed, not "Gothic", but Saxon window.

St Catherine's Chapel is an excellent example of the Norman's attitude towards existing church structures. Where political factors were important, such as Durham or old St Pauls, London, they would go for a complete rebuild. Where this political neccessity was missing, the sanctity of ancient christian buidings became more significant, and they would go out of their way to preserve existing fabric, as long as they could impress Norman style and ornament on it. as examples the Purbeck churches described here. St Catherine's was possibly in a poor state of repair, prior to the Norman restoration, which is what it was, because more than %40 of the fabric is of Saxon age, which added centuries of Christian worship to it's history! Kilpeck and Christchurch illustrate a continuation of this argument, with the preservation of small patches of earlier churches in their structure, again to provide a physical connection with the existing ancient sanctity of the sites.

Back in September 2005, we visited Romsey Abbey of St Mary and Ethelflaeda in Hampshire, which is one of England's largest Norman churches, bigger even than Christchurch. This has a diffent pattern of preservation of pre-conquest Saxon material.. Rather than wall fragments they went for the preservation of carved art works from the large saxon Abbey structure. Externally there is a large figure of Christ, with his arms out-stretched in greeting, and with the hand of God descending from on high, whilst inside is preserved a fine crucifixation scene, complete with the two Roman soldiers.

The above examples typify the mode of preservation of Saxon remains in existing churches. There is not really a completly unaltered Saxon church in the country, although there are a couple of Chapels which are in an original state. The church at Deerhurst, although displaying a huge number of Saxon architectural features, has been highly altered by suceeding generations, as with other churches of a similar orogin, but does have the rather fragmentary remains of Odda's Chapel nearbye. The most complete, original Saxon Chapel is St Lawrence's Chapel, Bradford on Avon, whilst the most complete church, although slightly modified in it's windows is St John's Church, Escombe. St Lawrence's Chapel survived because it got buried in later buildings, whilst Escombe survived because of it's decimated population, following the Norman invasion, something which did not change until the Industrial Revolution, when it's significance was recognised.