ST. MARTIN'S CHURCH, CANTERBURY. attention to the … - 1897/02… · ST. MARTIN'S CHURCH, CANTERBURY. ... attention to the history and structure of this remark-able Church. ... with

ST. MARTIN'S CHURCH, CANTERBURY.

BY THE REV. CHARLES P. ROTJTLEDGHE, F.S.A.

RECENT explorations have once more directed ourattention to the history and structure of this remark-able Church. If only a little more care and thoughthad been bestowed upon it during preceding centuries,not only would the present generation have beensaved a vast amount of difficult and perplexing con-troversy, but the building itself would not havesuffered from iinsuitable restoration, or been exposedto partial decay and the destruction of countlessinteresting features.

As it is, no systematic record of the Church'sannals has come down to us, no description of itsinternal arrangements save what can be inferred fromthe casual wills of parishioners before the Reforma-tion, no entries respecting its history in the Registersor Churchwardens' Accounts—I might almost add,no trustworthy picture, for the old prints, from theseventeenth century downwards, are extremely fanci-ful and inaccurate. So far has this process of silencebeen carried out that even the extensive restorationsmade fifty years ago under the guidance of Mr. DanielPinch and Canon Chesshyre have not been recorded.They were apparently executed without any facultyfrom the Archbishop, and no papers are extant shew-

TOl. SXII. B

Archaeologia Cantiana Vol. 22 1897

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ing their nature or details. We owe indeed to thesebenefactors a debt of gratitude, for without them theChurch would perhaps have become, within a reason-able distance of time, what Mr; Buskin calls an " inte-resting ruin."

Though we may naturally express our indignationand surprise at such neglect of the cradle of EnglishChristianity, we may (as archgeologists) derive, someconsolation from the fact that there is thus left to usso much new material to discover, so much scope forindividual opinion and ingenuity, so many points ofcontroversy upon -which we may enter untrammelledby the crushing weight of positive authorities in thepast, speaking of what they knew, and testifying ofwhat they had seen.

The present writer endeavoured a few years agoto collect the scattered fragments of allusions to theChurch that occur here and there in various docu-ments, and to describe some of its architectural andantiquarian details so far as they then appeared. Butmuch of his History was written in the dark, becausemany circumstances at that time prevented exhaustiveinvestigation.

Happily, with the kind consent and cordial assist-ance of the Rev. L. J. "White-Thomson, the presentHector, a series of explorations has lately been carriedout; and, without recapitulating various features ofinterest, in the Church that have been for some yearsfamiliar, I propose in this Article to give a briefaccount of the results of these recent discoveries,premising that I do so with the conviction that freshlight may any day be cast upon them. A more com-plete examination has been rendered possible by theremoval of the plaster from the walls of the Nave, and

ST. MARTIN'S CHURCH, CANTERBURY. 3

also from the lower portion of the Chancel walls to aheight of nearly 8 feet.

And first with regard to the West Vail of theNave.* Rugged and uneven as it now looks, there isstill method in its building. Its general character isthat of roughly hewn Kentish ragstones (with occa-sional blocks of chalk) bonded together by Homantiles, arranged in sometimes a single, sometimes adouble or even a triple course. Here and there asingle course of stones lies between the courses oftiles, which are then 9 ins. apart. In other portions ofthe wall five or six courses of stones intervene betweenthe courses of tiles—so that the courses of stones andtiles do not alternate regularly. The original face ofthe wall is much obscured by sundry patchings andrepairs, and by the erection of a monumental tablet onthe N. side. In the centre over the present doorwayis an Arch or opening—now filled up with courses ofRoman tiles and rubble of chalk and flint. The Archreaches to a height of 17 ft. or 18 ft. above the floorlevel, a few inches of the crown having been cut away,and is on an average 7 ft. 2 in. wide. Whether itreached originally down to the ground, or was merelyan opening of the nature of a window, cannot bepositively stated, as the fillings-up have not yet beenremoved. On either side of the Arch, at a distanceof 2 ft., are two Windows (the upper 18 ins. of which,as they now appear, are an extension made in Saxonor Norman times). The original windows (below thisextension) have their jambs of chalk-blocks filled inwith white mortar, while the arches are turned in

* The accompanying Photograph is reproduced by the courtesyof the Society of Antiquaries of London.

B 2


Roman tiles and rough voussoirs of Kentish ragstonewith interstices of bright pink mortar.

These windows are certainly huilt more Tlomano,and no sufficient evidence has yet been brought for-ward to upset the opinion strongly held by manyantiquarians—that they are Roman. They are 2 ft. 8 in.wide, and would have measured 4> ft. from sill to crown.Their jambs are splayed at an angle that would allowabout 12 ins. for the actual opening on the outer faceof the wall. Their sills are respectively 9 ft. 9 in. and10 ft. above the ground level; and the lower portionof the South Window is filled up with thin mediaevaltiles.*

The extended windows were undoubtedly blockedup when the tower was built in the fourteenth century.Their heads have no voussoirs, but were cut out of theoriginal walling, and simply plastered. Near themare portions of pink plaster still adhering to the wall.

Excavations were made below the northern por-tion of this Western Wall in hopes of finding some ofthe original flooring of the Church, but could not befurther prosecuted because vaults and even detachedskeletons were met with at a distance of no morethan 1 ft. below the existing pews.

In the same corner, partially covered by the N.Wall of the tower, there has been exposed by theremoval of the woodwork the Norman squint or.tychnoscope, the sides of which are formed of workedchalk and Kentish rag, with traces of a hinge andreceptacle for a bolt, while the lintel is composed ofa piece of oak greatly decayed by age. This lychno-scope is partially splayed on both sides, rather moreto the S. than the N. side, the actual opening mea-

* Of. Sketch.

WEST WALL OF NAVE, SHEWING CENTRAL ARCH.

»*0 ROM«« (?) WWOOWS WITH L»TER EXTENSION UPWARDS.

ST. MARTIN'S CHUECH, CANTERBURY. 5

suring 12 ins. by 8 ins., lined with plaster—and itcommanded apparently a view of the High Altar,which was dedicated to St. Martin.

The style of the N. and S. Walls of the Nave ismuch the same as that of the Western Wall, andbehind the woodwork are considerable pieces of pinkplaster, remarkable both for its hardness and texture.It is composed of carbonate of lime imperfectly burned,of silicious sand, and pounded Roman tile, in almostequal proportions. The subsequent imitations of thisplaster, occasionally found in Saxon, Norman, andeven Early English buildings, are distinguishablefrom it by the greater preponderance of sand- Aboutthe middle of the N. Wall is a doorway, 4ft. 2 in.wide, with jambs of Caen stones of irregular size,some of them shewing axe-tooling. The date of thisdoorway is a matter of controversy. The head isdestroyed and the rubble filling-in irregular, butthe general appearance seems to me to favour thetheory that it is Norman—and it is probable that inthe restoration of the Church at the end of the twelfthor the beginning of the thirteenth century there wasadded the Early English porch, which was onlyremoved some sixty or seventy years ago. On theE. side of the doorway is a stoup for Holy Water,conjectured by some to be coeval with the existingwall, and certainly of great antiquity. The shape isirregular, but it may be described roughly as measuring20 ins. by 17 ins.

On the removal of the flooring at the S.E. cornerof the Nave, near the Norman piscina, the foundationsof a wall were discovered running parallel to theS. Wall of the Nave, from which it is little more than3 ft. distant. These foundations, chiefly consisting of


flint, are about 18 ins. wide and 15 ins. deep, but theyare in parts extremely fragmentary, and they may beconnected with the parclose of the Altar of St. Nicho-las, which formerly stood in this portion of the Church.

The Rev. Gr. M. Livett, however (who has paidvery great and careful attention to the Architecture ofthe Church, and to whom I am indebted for manyvaluable suggestions and corrections in this Paper),has opened out another possibility. He writes to meas follows:—

"The portion of the east wall of the nave, intowhich the south respond of the chancel arch is bonded,is similar in character and material to the brick wallingof the western part of the chancel, with which, there-fore, rather than with the nave, it must be identifiedin date and construction. The same may be said ofthe corresponding bit of wall on the north side, which,however, has been more interfered with by thebondings of later work. In the face of the bit ofwall on the south side, though rough and plasteredwith hard cement, may be detected the broken bondersof a wall that formerly ran westwards from it, andexactly in a line with the south wall of the chancel.The vertical line of the junction of the southern faceof the destroyed wall with the bit of wall underexamination can be traced quite clearly. It has allthe proper signs of bonding, precisely similar in treat-ment to the signs of bonding seen on the face of thesouth wall of the chancel immediately above thefoundations of the Adjunct which you fortunatelydiscovered by excavation. [To be described here-after.] The foundations which you found under theflooring of the nave are in a position to have carriedthis destroyed wall. According to your description,

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ST. MARTIN'S CHURCH, CANTEUBTJUY. 7

though they are fragmentary, their material anddepth correspond exactly with the foundations of thechancel wall below the brick footings thereof. I drewMr. W. H. St. John Hope's attention to the signs ofbonding which I hare described, and from recentcorrespondence with him I infer that he accepts theevidence as sufficient to prove the former existence ofa destroyed wall. The recovery of this wall, runningin the direction described, and contemporaneous indate with the western part of the chancel, is animportant factor in the consideration of the relativedates of the existing chancel and nave—a considera-tion which so far has not yielded a unanimousopinion among archaeologists, and which, therefore,I will not now discuss."

At the same level as these foundations, and imme-diately beneath the piscina, is a hole measuring 2 ft.by 1ft. 8 in., and 5 ins. deep, with a flooring of roughconcrete—the object of which is at present uncertain.

In the N. and S. corners of the Nave, about 6 ft.distant from the jambs of the Chancel Arch, and10 ft. above the ground, are the holes made for theinsertion of the Rood-beam, on which burned " theLight of the Holy Cross/' to which frequent allusionis made in the wills of parishioners before the Re-formation.

Let us now proceed to the Chancel. The wholeof the modern stalls were temporarily removed with aview to facilitating further investigations underground;but here, as in the Ware, the excavations were almostentirely put a stop to by the existence of vaults andgraves extending right up to the walls on either side.

Owing to various circumstances it has not beenconsidered advisable for the present to strip the


plaster from the Chancel Walls above the height of7 or 8 ft., or east of the Altar Hails. Enough, however,has been done to shew clearly that the present Chancelmay be assigned to certainly two, and probably tothree, distinct periods.

For a distance of 20 ft. from the Chancel Arch thewalls are built of Roman tiles laid evenly upon oneanother, four tiles with their interstices of mortaroccupying one foot. This portion of the Churchshews very careful workmanship, and may with thegreatest probability be assigned to Roman building,although by some antiquarians it has been attributedto the time, and even the personal supervision, ofSt. Augustine. In the S. Wall there have beenexposed two doorways, one square-headed, and theother with a semicircular arch. The square-headeddoorway (as it now appears externally] has jambs ofRoman tiles, with a lintel and sill formed of massiveblocks of green sandstone. It is there 6 ft. high and3ft. 4 in. in width. Internally it seems 4ft. 7 in.wide at the top, but this may be accounted for by thefact that in later times it was partially blocked up bya stone sarcophagus and other material; and on oneside of the upper portion of the doorway, and extend-ing beyond it towards the west, there was opened alow side-window, the western splayed jamb of whichis still existing. This may perhaps have been a"Leper's Window," commanding a view of the Altarof St. Mary, occupying the site of the present pulpit.This square-headed doorway is certainly contem-poraneous with the surrounding wall.

At a distance of 4 ft. 2 in. towards the east is thesevmciroula/r-headed doorway (that can be seen in theannexed Engraving). It is 6ft. high and 2ft. 1 in.


wide. The arch is mostly formed of converging blocksof Kentish rag, generally about 1 in. apart, thoughsomewhat closer at the crown. The span at thespringing is an inch or two wider than the span ofthe jambs. The imposts are formed of two Homantiles, the upper one overhanging the lower, and thelower overhanging the jamb. The doorway is linedthroughout with plaster, on which at its first opening-out were seen what looked like rough mathematicalfigures. The jambs internally are of E-oman tiles,with occasional pieces of Kentish rag. Externallythey are almost entirely of Roman tiles, though underthe west impost, 3 ft. 10 in. above the sill, there hasbeen inserted a fragment of freestone about 2|in.high, brought from elsewhere. On it are parts of aninscription, which has been supposed to date from theninth or tenth century. The letters HONOKE . . ST^E ..ET OMNIY SCORV are still decipherable; and the wholemay perhaps be read as, " To the honour of Saint(Mary ?) and all Saints." This may have been thededication-stone of a Church, or it may not impossiblyhave been the dedication-stone of an Altar, as an orderwas issued in the ninth century by a Saxon Archbishopthat a stone should be placed at the corner of eachAltar specifying the name of the Saint or Saints towhom it was dedicated. A parallel to this has beenfound in the discovery of a stone from the SaxonChurch of Deerhurst, the fragmentary inscription ofwhich has been conjecturally read as, " In honoreSanctse Trinitatis hoc altare dedicatum est,"

This round-headed doorway has been hithertosupposed to be of the same date as the wall, butcloser investigation has clearly proved that it is alater insertion, probably made in the Saxon period.


While in the surrounding wall there are (as I havebefore stated) only four Koman tiles to the foot, thereare in the jamhs of the doorway six tiles to the foot;and at the time of the insertion nearly 1 ft. of thesurrounding wall was broken away, as will he noticedby any observer outside the Church.

The early brick wall extends eastward for 6 ft. 9 in.beyond the round-headed doorway till we reach abreak in it, which was clearly the termination of theoriginal Chancel. For the last 2 ft. the work is some-what irregular, and from this circumstance (and fromsome evidence that has been discovered at this spoton the outside) a conjecture has been hazarded thathere we have the beginning of a Homan apse. East-wards of this break the walling is of different work-manship, shewing with the mortar-joints six tilesto a foot; and after 3ft. 5in. we come to a Sedile,which was discovered a short time ago blocked upwith mediaeval brickwork (see Illustration). It hadapparently a pointed arch of which about 5 ins. havebeen cut away. The springing line is about 2 ft. 9^ in.above the seat; the radii are about 3ft. 9in., theircentres being on the springing line. This would fixits measurements as follows—span 5 ft., depth about1 ft. 3 in., height from seat to springing line 2 ft. 9|- in.,and from seat to apex about 6ft. 4 in. A difficultyhas arisen as to the date of the Sedile from the factthat the top of it has been cut away by the insertionof a lancet window, appearing at first sight to belongto the Early English period, so that the Sedile wouldseem as if it must be of an earlier date than thewindow. But Mr. Livett, though believing it notimpossible that the Sedile and lancet window werebuilt at the same time, and the sill of the window

at*'


altered afterwards, thinks it more probable tbat theSedile and the brickwork in which it is placed werebuilt late in the twelfth century, and the lancetwindow inserted subsequently, perhaps in the four-teenth century. The position of the Sedile wouldseem to point out that the Altar stood, in EarlyEnglish times, immediately east of the step whereonthe present Altar-rails are placed.

Little or nothing fresh has been discovered on the1ST. side of the Chancel. The so-called " QueenBertha's tomb," which is now surmounted by a pseudo-Norman arch, is probably the tomb of the Restorerof the Church at the end of the twelfth century, andis coeval with the later brick wall. Below ground,in the North-West angle of the Chancel, were foundtwo or three projecting Homan tiles, apparently thebeginning of a cross wall which was destroyed whenthe present Chancel Arch was erected. Some slightsigns of the cross wall have also been detected abovethe stalls in this angle.

It now only remains to mention the discoveriesthat have been made outside the S. Wall of theChancel. Near the square-headed doorway describedabove there have been found underground the remainsof two walls, running at right angles to the Chancel,and forming two sides of an Adjunct or side-chapel,the southern side of which has been destroyed in theprocess of digging graves. These walls are 4ft. 9 in.apart, and are each of them 26 ins. wide, built entirelyof Roman tiles. The Western Wall runs 8 ins. "beneaththe Eastern angle-wall of the Nave. Between thewalls there is still existing part of a flooring ofopus signinuni. There can be no doubt that thisadjunct is of the same workmanship, and the same


date, as the early brick wall of the Chancel. Thefoundations of both are precisely similar, and areconstructively bonded together. The walls rest upona footing-course of one brick, which forms the top ofa shallow foundation of flints and stones. The brick-footing is continued along the Chancel Wall underthe sill of the square-headed doorway, and is irregularin its projection.*

A careful examination of the existing face of theChancel Wall above the remains, which was made byMr. Livett, shews that the Eastern Wall of the adjunctabove ground, now destroyed, was originally bondedinto the Chancel Wall. Every alternate course shewsa broken brick, and every other course the clean edgeof a brick (see Sketch opposite p. 4).

This bonding cannot be traced above a line on alevel with the lower edge of the lintel of the square-headed doorway.

What was the purpose of this adjunct we cannotpositively say. It was suggested by the late Archbishopof Canterbury (who took the warmest interest in theChurch, and also keenly watched the progress of theexcavations) that it was used for baking the HolyBread employed at the Celebration of the Mass. Butit may have been only a small side-chapel, with itsAltar.

Supposing there to have been an Eastern Apse tothe original Church, it must have started inwards alittle beyond the pilaster buttress still to be seen inthe middle of the S. Chancel Wall. But this pointopens out a wide field for discussion, and fuller

* Of. Photograph, reproduced by the courtesy of the Society ofAntiquaries.

T H E S E D I L E .


investigation may be necessary before it is finallydetermined.

Very little more need be said about the factsascertained in the excavations. It is now generallyconceded that the blocked doorway at the S. E. cornerof the Nave, which is 6 ft. high and splayed externally(being 2 ft. 8 in. wide inside and 3 ft. wide outside theChurch), is a later opening cut in the wall, and was notin the original building. When at the beginning of theexplorations it was believed by some antiquarians thatthere was a Western Apse similar to that in theChristian Church at Silchester, and that the Arch(described in the account of the Western Wall of theNave) opened into this Apse, the North-Easterndoorway was supposed to have been one of the en-trances either to the Church or the Narthex. Thistheory seems to be now generally abandoned, but itis quite possible that further excavations beneath theTower may give it a fresh lease of life.

The remarkable nearly circular panel outside theSouth Wall of the Nave, immediately behind theNorman piscina, has always been a puzzle. Thedimensions of it, as now seen, are roughly 4 ft. by3 ft. 8 in. It is sunk 6 ins. into the wall, is unevenlysplayed, and in parts plastered. In Stukeley's engrav-ing of the Church (1722 A.U.) it is represented as around-headed doorway—but there are no voussoirs orarch-stones. The result of excavations beneath thesurface are doubtful. Generally speaking, there arecourses of two Roman tiles running along this part ofthe Nave Wall, below which are Kentish ragstonesand a foundation of concrete. Singularly enough thetop row of Roman tiles (just below the opening) hasbeen interrupted for a space of 8 ft. 8 in., and it looks


at first sight as if the lower row were the sill of adoorway, from •which a slight suspicion of a roughvertical joint goes upwards for a little distance. Butthe one tile course does not extend the whole width ofthe panel.

It would exhaust too much space if I were toenter into additional details, such as the question ofthe date of the buttresses in the S. Wall of the Nave.Certain archaeologists have concluded that they areNorman, or, at any rate, of later date than the wall;hut the discussion of this point is highly complicated,and requires much further consideration than it hasyet received, and so it shall he left to another occasion,for there seems no chance of the whole controversyrespecting the Architecture of the Church beingclosed for many years to come.

So far we have been simply placing on recordcertain facts which remain true whatever inferencemay be drawn from them, but before concluding thisArticle it seems necessary to say a few words on thecontroversy that has been carried on for some monthswith regard to the probable date of the building. Upto the year 1880 the opinion universally prevailingwas the one stated by Mr. M. Bloxam, and repeatedby Dean Stanley, that St. Martin's contained indeedRoman materials, but that they were not in situ,and had been merely used up again at the re-buildingof the Church during the latter part of the twelfthor the beginning of the thirteenth century. Thepresent writer well remembers the somewhat mildastonishment that was expressed when it was suggested

FOUNDATIONS OF ADJJUNCT WALLS.

AT RIGHT AHGIZ5 TO THE S-* **U. Of THE CHANCCL.

ST. MAIMDIN'S CHURCH, CANTERBURY. 15

(in a Paper read before the British ArchseologicalSociety in 1881) that there was at any rate a Saxondoorway, and perhaps a few other Saxon remains inthe Church. Subsequent examination, conductedwith much labour and exhaustive research so far aswas then possible, induced a firm belief that a con-siderable portion of the existing Church was actuallyof Roman workmanship; and, after a lengthy corre-spondence with antiquaries in different parts of England,this belief was boldly expressed, and attempted to bejustified, in the History of St. Martin's Church, pub-lished in the year 1891.

The reasonableness, and more than probability, ofthis theory was then generally accepted (perhapsper incuriam), the only note of disagreement thatwas occasionally heard coming from those who hadnever seen a Roman Church in Britain, and wereconsequently somewhat incredulous.

The revelation, however, of fresh features of interestin the Church by the recent explorations attractedwider attention, and once more revived the discussion.The whole subject was debated in the spring of thisyear at a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries inLondon, after an able Paper read by their Secretary,Mr. W. H. St. John Hope. Since then, from time totime, the Church has been visited by a number of dis-tinguished experts, and the question as to the date ofthe original building was brought prominently for-ward at the Canterbury Meeting of the RoyalArchseological Institute in July 1896. "What thenewspapers called " the Battle of St. Martin's " ragedwith unabated vigour during the week, the controversybeing introduced in a well-considered lecture given,with numerous illustrations, by Mr. Livett. Various


opinions were on that occasion (as often previously)expressed with that positiveness which is said to markthe true antiquarian !—a positiveness, in some in-stances, that had little foundation in real knowledgeor personal enquiry, but rested chiefly on a prioriarguments or purely negative criticism. In additionto the names mentioned above it is but necessary forme to allude to those of Mr. J. T. Micklethwaite,Mr. G-. Pox, and others, to shew that no pains havebeen spared, and no professional attainments or specialknowledge wanting, to determine the issue on ascientific basis. It may be true to the experience ofhuman nature, but yet it seems a feeble conclusion,if we confess that, after all this apparently exhaustivediscussion, the controversy on the main point is asmuch alive as ever.

Premising that by " the Chancel" is meant theoriginal Chancel extending 20 feet eastward fromthe Nave, I may state the following four as the onlytheories that now hold the field :—

(1) A Roman date for the Chancel, and a laterRoman date for the Nave ; or (2) vice versa—thoughthis theory, formerly much in vogue, is at present outof fashion.

(3) A Roman date for the Chancel, and a Saxondate for the Nave.

(4) An early Saxon date for the Chancel, and alater Saxon date for the Nave.

It is indeed some consolation to friends and loversof St. Martin's to know that even the anti-Romandisputants ascribe portions of it to such respectableantiquity as the time of St. Augustine (1800 yearsago), and therefore, whatever ultimate conclusion maybe arrived at, it is still the earliest existing Churchin the island of Great Britain.

.ST. MARTIN'S CHURCH, CANTERBURY. 17

Many of the architectural details bearing on thesubject are so minute, and so highly technical, thatthey are not suitable to the character of this Paper,so that I purpose to confine myself rather to broadgeneral features, and to narrow the controversy (atany rate in the first place) to the question whetherthere still exists in the Church any Homan workman-ship, or whether even the most ancient part of itmust be assigned to the Saoson period. It is difficultto avoid tedious recapitulation of many points thatare thoroughly familiar to those who have studied thesubject, and some of which have appeared over andover again in print—but it seems advisable to recordthem in the pages of Archaeologia Cantiana, as theremust be many of its readers to whom the details ofthe dispute are still only partially known.

The principal arguments in favour of the Romandate of portions of the Church are these :—

(1) History.—It is distinctly mentioned by Bedethat there was (at the coming of St. Augustine in597 A.D.) "on the East side of the city a Churchdedicated in honour of St. Martin, built of old whilethe Romans still occupied Britain." Now this isdirect testimony to which the greatest weight mustbe allowed, when we consider the character andauthority of the writer. He was born in the year673 A.D., i.e. only seventy-six years after the missionof St. Augustine and sixty-nine years after his death,and wrote his Ecclesiastical History in the first partof the eighth century (sometime before 735 A.D., whenhe died), taking the greatest possible pains to makeit worthy of its subject. His information with regardto the history of Christianity in Kent was derivedfrom Albinus, Abbot of St. Augustine's, who was

VOL. JJU.1. C


himself a pupil of Theodore (Archbishop of Canter-bury in 668 A.D.) the great consolidator of the Eng-lish Church. We are told that Albinus referred tothe records in his keeping, and sent Nothelm, a priestof London, to search the archives at Rome, wherewere preserved some valuable letters of Gregory theGreat and other subsequent Popes. Considering thenthe extreme carefulness of Bede, and the sourcesfrom whence he derived his materials, we cannotimagine any evidence (short of first-hand) more trust-worthy and valuable—and it seems to me that theHoman origin of St. Martin's Church might almostbe accepted as proved if it depended upon the testi-mony of Bede alone.

That he should 'have written as he did, making apositive statement that the Church was built duringthe Roman occupancy of Britain, while all the timeit owed its foundation to Queen Bertha or St.Augustine, is perfectly incredible. Were the lattertheory true (as is maintained by some antiquariansnow), would it not, in Bede's time, have been aneasily ascertained fact, capable perhaps of docu-mentary proof, especially among those who wereinmates of St. Augustine's own monastery, and wouldhave claimed St. Martin's Church as a specially pre-cious inheritance—the legacy of their founder ?

The only way that can be found out of thisdilemma is to throw doubt on the genuineness ortruthfulness of Bede's narrative, but no one has yetventured in sober earnest to impugn his accuracy asa historian. The weight of historical evidence of thiskind with regard to architectural facts cannot be toostrongly insisted upon, for it is infinitely more valu-able than any conventional ideas as to the supposed

ST. MARTIN'S CHURCH, 'CANTERBURY. 19

character of a building, which confessedly varies tosome extent with the materials ready to hand, theskill and capacity of the workmen, and whether itwas erected in the zenith or decadence of the styleadopted.

A priori then we may assume that there was aRoman Church in existence on St. Martin's Hillwhen St. Augustine came to Canterbury. Can wefind any evidence in the present building which wouldstrengthen the conclusion that portions of this Churchare still standing ?

(2) I have already alluded to the pinJe plaster,patches of which are found here and there throughoutthe Nave, and though well aware (as previouslystated) that plaster of a somewhat similar kind hasbeen met with in many Churches of a subsequentdate, yet I must again lay stress on the point thatthis particular plaster has been pronounced by thegreatest experts (including Mr. J. T. Irvine), aftercareful analysis, to be Romcm, and to be distinguish-able from later imitations by its hardness and texture,and the smaller admixture of sand. No perceptibledifference can be detected between a piece of pinkplaster stripped off the South Wall of the Nave andone taken directly from the undoubted B/oman Villaat Wingham.

(3) The windows lately discovered in the WestWall of the Nave are by every one allowed to bebuilt more Romano. The variation of the mortarused in their construction, from white mortar in thejambs to pink mortar in the voussoirs of the arch, isa very noticeable feature, and can be exactly paralleledin the B/oman Pharos at Dover. It is certainly primdfacie a strong evidence of Roman workmanship.

o 2

20 ST. MARTIN'S. CHURCH,. CANTERBURY.

The objection that " Roman windows were neversplayed " may be met (a) by the general statementthat the introduction of light by means of a splay isso natural that the idea could not have escaped aRoman builder, especially in countries where therewas less light than in Italy. Isidore of Seville, acontemporary of Gregory the Great, living in themidst of Roman work, must be describing what wasthe distinctive features of windows around him whenhe says (1. xv. cvii.) : " Penestrae sunt quibus parsexterior angusta et interior diffusa est, quales inhorreis viclemus;" and (6) Mr. Roach Smith, in hisCollectanea Antiqua, gives several illustrations ofRoman splayed windows at Aries, Vienne, etc. (seevol. v., p. 42; vol. vi., p. 241, etc.); and I am in-formed (though I have not verified the fact) that thereis one at South Shields mentioned by Mr. RobertBlair, F.S.A.

(4) An ecclesiastical architect describes walls ofRoman masonry in this country as " chiefly constructedof stone or flint, according to the part of the countryin which one or the other material prevailed, embeddedin mortar, and bonded at certain intervals throughoutwith regular courses or layers of large flat bricks ortiles which from the inequality of thickness and sizedo not appear to have been shaped in any regularmould." This account almost exactly describes thecharacter of the walls in the Nave of St. Martin'sChurch up to a certain height,-and especially wherethese walls have been practically undisturbed behindthe present woodwork. Here, in many cases, thebonding courses are 9 inches apart. Roman tiles varyin length from 2ft. to 15 in., and in thickness from3 ins. to 4 in. • • - - .

ST. MAHTIN'S CHTTRCH, CANTERBURY. 21

So far I have confined myself to what appear tome evidences of E/oman workmanship in the Nave,because in my judgment that part of the Church hasstrong claims to Roman origin, whatever be thedecision as to the Ohancel. Mr. Livett, however,without expressing any definite opinion on this point,claims that he has distinctly proved by structuralanalysis that, whatever be the date of the Nave, thebrickwork of the original Chancel is certainly earlier.In a letter written on August 8th, 1896, to theKentish Gazette, he observes that " the oldest portionof the existing building comprises (1) the side-wallsof the Chancel, extending from the Chancel-arch to apoint 20 ft. east of the arch ; (2) the foundations of adestroyed Adjunct that once stood on the south sideof the Chancel; (3) a portion of the East Wall of theNave on either side of the Chancel-arch; and (4) cer-tain foundations under the floor of the Nave. Theseare all regarded as belonging to a building earlier indate than the existing Nave." He claims that onthese points a general agreement has been reached.It may be doubted whether in this latter respect hehas not been too sanguine, and whether he has notaccepted as " established facts " matters that are stillopen to discussion, and that may be upset (as so manyother theories have been before) by fresh excavations,which, it is fair to add, Mr. Livett himself deemsnecessary in order to determine finally the relativedates of the Nave and Chancel. Assuming, however(for the sake of argument), that the Chancel is theearlier—then if we can establish a reasonable pro-bability of a Roman date for the Nave, for those whomI may call without discourtesy " the pro-Saxon con-troversialists," cadit qucestio. On the other hand,


even though it be shewn that the Nave is of a post-Roman period, yet still the Chancel may be Roman,as being in their opinion of avowedly greater anti-quity ; so that in either case we may be able to justifythe general accuracy of Bede's historical narrative,for no one seriously believes that every stone andevery feature of the present Church is of Romanworkmanship.

We have spoken already of the Nave. Is thereanything in the Ohcmcel to militate against its Romanorigin ? The style of this portion of the Church isthat of Roman tiles laid evenly upon one another.If we require a parallel for this opus lateritiwn inEngland, we may refer to remains found at the RomanVillas at Wingham and Darenth, at the StudfallRoman castrum at Lympne, the blocked sluice-gate inthe Silchester city wall, and elsewhere. In fact, thisis one of the ordinary styles of Roman building as dis-tinguished from quadrangular or polygonal masonry,opus reticulatum, concrete, and what is called mixture,i.e. stones bonded together by courses of tiles atregular or sometimes irregular intervals.

There is one other point which, though, of anegative character, may yet have some weight.Within the past year very careful examination hasbeen made by Mr. Micklethwaite into Saxon work andremains in England—and I believe he has satisfiedhimself that many buildings, some of them popularlysupposed to be Roman, must be assigned to a Saxonperiod. Amongst these he mentions the Churches atBrixworth, Reculver, Lyminge, Rochester, DoverCastle, and several others. Of all these he has drawncareful plans, which were explained by him in a verycomprehensive Paper that was read at the Summer

ST. MAETIN'S CHURCH, CANTERBURY. 23

Meeting of the Royal Archgeological Institute atCanterbury, and will (I believe) be published in theJanuary number of the Arch&ological Journal. It isa remarkable fact (so far as my recollection of hisPaper goes) that .the plan of St. Martin's Church—either with or without its reputed Eastern Apse—doesnot agree, in many essential details, with a single oneof those above-mentioned. And yet if we accept thedate of St. Martin's as post-Roman it must have beenbuilt within the same century, or even within a com-paratively few years of some of them. Mr. Mickle-thwaite lays special stress on the apparent identity ofcharacter between the work at St. Pancras (Canter-bury) and in the Chancel of St. Martin's; and saysthat " the date of one must be very near to that ofthe other "—and as he does not believe that St. Pan-eras can be Roman, therefore in his opinion theSt. Martin's Chancel is not Roman.

Now in answer to this I will first say that thepost-Roman date of St. Pancras is only an assumption,which has not yet attained the dignity of an " esta-blished fact." There is very much to be argued on theother side, and some competent authorities believe thatin the remains at St. Pancras we can trace evidencesof both an earlier and a later Roman building—thoughit is outside my purpose in the present Paper to followout at any length this interesting controversy.

But—granting, for the moment, that the Churchof St. Pancras was built or restored by St. Augustine(and this is the latest date assigned to it)—the identityin plan and character of the two Churches is moreapparent than real. It must not be forgotten thatthe plan of St. Martin's is the combined result ofbuildings of two dates, so that, if any comparison bemade, it points to the conclusion that St. Pancras is


a later copy of St. Martin's, or that the original St.Martin's was in part rebuilt, so that its plan con-formed to that of St. Pancras. If we compare St.Pancras with either of the two early parts of St.Martin's, the identity breaks down. In the Nave ofSt. Martin's the side-chapels of St. Pancras are want-ing, and no sign of a "Western porch has been dis-covered—while there is nothing in the Chancel ofSt. Pancras to correspond with the Adjunct inSt. Martin's, nor with Mr. Livett's conjecturalprolongation of the Chancel "Walls westwards. "Withregard to the character of the masonry, there is nosimilarity between that of St. Pancras and that of theNave of St. Martin's. There is more similarity inconstruction between St. Pancras and the Chancel ofSt. Martin's, but here too are points of differencethat were pointed out to me by Mr. Livett. Thewalls of St. Pancras are only 1 ft. 10 in. in thick-ness : they are constructed almost entirely of brokenbricks, roughly cut to a triangular shape and fittedtogether in the core, the interstices filled up withsmall bits of brick. The walls of St. Martin's are2ft. 2 in. thick, and contain a much larger proportionof whole bricks, about 12 ins. wide, laid side by sidein each course, the interval between them being filledup with mortar and small stones. The walls of St.Pancras were coated in many parts with a pink plaster(thinner than that adhering to the Nave-walls ofSt. Martin's), but in the Chancel of St. Martin's nota single particle of pink wall plaster has ever beendiscovered.* It is fair, however, to mention that

* We may mention also the difference in the treatment of thedivision between Nave and Chancel. In St. Pancras there was atriple Chancel-arch—in St. Martin's the space is too narrow toadmit of any such arrangement.

ST. MABTIN'S CHURCH, CANTEKBTJRY. 25

small portions of a flooring of opus signinum werefound in the Adjunct of St. Martin's, resembling thatexisting in some parts of the Nave of St. Pancras.

I pass over as unworthy of serious discussion theargument that has sometimes been brought forward,viz., that St. Martin's cannot be a Roman Churchbecause no Roman Churches have yet been discoveredin this country, and it is not therefore likely that theyexist 1—an argument that was used at no remoteperiod to prove, similarly, that there was no remainingSaxon work—also the contention that it is not Romanbecause its ground-plan does not tally with theground-plan of the Roman Church at Silchester. Inthe first place, we do not yet know what the originalground-plan of St. Martin's was, and the question asto whether it possessed an Eastern or Western Apse,or even side-aisles in the Nave, has not been definitelysettled. And, secondly, to contend that it cannot beRoman because it is unlike the Church at Silchesterwould be to limit the capabilities of Roman buildersto one monotonous design, perpetually and exactlyreproduced for a century or more, which would becontrary both to reason a.nd experience.

There is, however, one objection remaining whichmust be faced, and which derives weight from the factthat it is put forward with all the scientific knowledgeof a skilful architect. The Nave of the Church isdescribed as "being built of old stuff used anywayjust as it came to hand, and tells of a time when therewere ruins near at which the builders were free tohelp themselves—a state of things unlikely in RomanKent, but likely enough after the wars which accom-panied the English occupation." This seems a forcibleargument, but it is not in my opinion altogether


borne out by facts. That a great part of St. Martin'sNave is patchy and rudely built no one can deny—but let us consider what destructiveness and neglectit would have passed through, supposing it to havebeen built in Roman times. Durovernium (Canter-bury) was undoubtedly abandoned by the Britonsflying before the Jutish invasion, and was at first leftunoccupied by the conquerors themselves. Its sitelay for many a year uninhabited and desolate: its veryname was forgotten, and the Church would naturallyhave fallen into a state of partial ruin. Restored atthe coming of Queen Bertha, probably ravaged by theDanes, repaired and enlarged to a great extent in theEarly English period, gradually falling once more intodecay till even at the beginning of the present centuryit is spoken of as a " humble Church "

" Yet humbled moreBy lapse of years, by lack of reverent care,"

in what condition should we expect its walls to be ?Even within the last twenty years an early brickbuttress, coeval with the original Chancel, has beenimproved (?) into a tame modern-looking projection !When we consider all this, are we surprised if portionsof the Nave look like " old stuff used anyway " ? Butit may also be maintained that this is not a correctdescription of the lower portion of the walls, especiallywhere (as I have stated before) they have been com-paratively preserved behind the existing wooden pews.We can find there strong evidences of a more or lesssymmetrical design with Kentish ragstone bonded bycourses of Roman tiles—and parts of the wall mightsatisfy even the most critical architect. But even ifthe description "old stuff," etc., be applicable to the


original parts of the Nave walling, the same descrip-tion would equally apply to the undoubted Romanwork of the Pharos at Dover.

Is there not, too, such a thing as a period ofdecadence in any style ? Just as there is good andbad Saxon work, good and bad Norman work, goodand had Gothic work, so must there have been goodand bad Roman work. "We are told in an account ofthe Roman excavations at Silchester that " examina-tion shewed that the rubble masonry above the con-crete foundations of the whole western range (of thebasilica) was of a very poor character" " The stones(in a part of the Roman Wall of London) form a mereskin, between the tile bonding courses, to the thickirregular rubble core." In the same wall, above thebonding course of three rows of tiles at the ancientground-levelj " the body of the wall is composedthroughout its height of masses of ragstone with nowand then a fragment of chalk, bedded very roughlyin mortar which has been pitched in, not run in,sometimes with so little care as to leave occasionalempty spaces amongst the stones." It seems uselessto multiply quotations for the purpose of establishingan obvious fact, viz., that granting a general idea andmethod pervading a building' (as I believe there isclearly in the Nave of St. Martin's) it is quite possiblethat, at a time of decadence and in the hands ofinferior (perhaps British) workmen, this idea shouldbe somewhat roughly carried out. The period towhich I would attribute the erection of the Nave issomewhere towards the close of the fourth century—not so very long before the Roman evacuation ofBritain.

The last objection to the Roman date is the dedi-


cation of the Church to St. Martin, who did not dietill the last decade of the fourth century. But thisobjection has been fully dealt with in the History ofSt. Martin's Church, and presents little or no difficulty.

It has been impossible for me in a brief Article toenter more minutely into the details of this interestingcontroversy. In stating the salient points I haveendeavoured to make some small contribution to itsultimate solution. Every one connected with theChurch, either on personal, sentimental, or merelyantiquarian grounds, has assuredly but one desire—that the truth should prevail. An intimate acquaint-ance with every detail of the building, and every steptaken in the late (as well as in former) excavations,may have some weight even against the superiorauthority of professional experts, who are obliged oftento accept their facts from hearsay, or may have somepreconceived theory to establish. "We owe indeed tothem a debt of gratitude for the interest they have soabundantly shewn, and have derived much assistancefrom their light and guidance. Whether it be settledin the future that St. Martin's Church be the productof Human or Saxon workmanship, it must ever beregarded as a grand historical monument, dear bothfrom its ecclesiastical associations and its remoteantiquity. It is wonderful enough that Christianworship should have been continuously carried onwithin these walls for 1300 years since the coming ofSt. Augustine—more wonderful still if it can beestablished (as in all humility we think it can) that itowes its origin to a band of Roman soldiers quarteredin Canterbury—with (perhaps) the indirect assistanceof the Emperor Maximus, and the goodwill of hisintimate friend, the saintly Bishop of Tours.

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