The Ancient fabric of the Church of St Mary the Virgin, Dover

( 119 ) THE ANCIENT EABRIO OE THE CHURCH OE ST. MAEY THE VIRGIN, DOVER. BY THE REV. CANON PUCKLE. HAVING, during the first year after my Institution to this ancient Vicarage, cleared away all parochial opposition to any work of Ohurch Restoration, I found myself free, in the middle of 1843, to seek Architect's advice. Such advice I obtained from Mr. John Chessell Buckler, sometime Consulting Architect to the President and College of St. Mary Magdalene, Oxford. We agreed that our first step, with a view to Restoration, must be to examine and record every mark in the condition of the Eabric ; every sign by which evidence might tell its own story. And now, in response to the Secretary's request, for the information of our Archseological Society's Meeting, I do not know that I can do better than condense a few of my memoranda into connected form, from which an intelligent inquirer may draw his own conclusion. " If I give you the facts," says the Bishop of Manchester, "there is no need to give you the inferences; you are as capable of drawing inferences as I am." We saw, at once, that the infirmities and dangers of the fabric lay more below, than above, the ground line. We found the floor honey-combed, almost from end to end, and from side to side. In many places the foundations had not been spared. Graves had been excavated, not only up to the bases, but 120 THE ANCIENT FABRIC OF THE CHURCH sometimes intruded under the substones, of the columns themselves. So reckless had been this treatment, and so little care was taken to conceal it, that we found pews in which there was nothing left, but the floorboards, between their living occupants, and the remains in some neglected grave below. Marks of failure and subsidence were most visible at the west end of the church; warning us that no trustworthy rebuilding could be ventured upon there. An additional cause for this soon became apparent. On laying open the foundations of the three western bays of the nave, and going down to an equable level of 4 to 5 feet on all sides, we found ourselves on a fine open space of Roman concrete, the bottom of a system of baths; which, entering at the south-west, crossed the nave and both aisles, and passed out at the north side into the churchyard. After crossing Canon Street, and the corner of the Market Square, traces of these Roman Baths reappeared at exactly the same level. They were uncovered in preparing for the foundations of the Carlton Club, on the west side of Market Square. The traces of Roman work discovered there were many and curious; large portions of side retaining walls, in beautifully laid courses of boulder flints; chambers and hypocausts ; and everywhere the same concrete floor as at St. Mary's. One relic of the luxury of the bath-loving Romans was a truncated statue of a Water-nymph, beautifully sculptured in coarse Oolite stone. This is preserved in one of the ante-rooms of the Dover Museum, and two views of it are given in Archceologia Cantiana, XVIII., 202. Stone of the Oolite formation occurs continually in connection with Roman work, even in these parts of Kent, far *m & s D - i o - II UJ R -J g z ! Z 5 * 8 §1 £ 5 i ^ s 2 f 5 x 9 X ft :l O gj l i si '-.- - " i %' ;: >'•• .,'"' •'/•: •':.. '"'. '„.. .^.U*-^4^' I • S? ' """• 'Vf-"^-* tfg RUINS OF THE OLD CHURCH OF ST MARTIN LE GRAND,DOVER^ LOOKING WEST) AMGLE OF CENTRAL TOWER. ANO ORIGINAL LOW NORTH TRANSEPT, IN IBBI. AFTER THE DEMOLITION.' i •*&;&, ; to t: 4 f*? RUINS OF THE OLD CHURCH OF ST MARTIN LE GRAND,DOVER ( NORTH AISLE OF CHOIR BEFORE THE DEMOLITION IN 1881. LOOKING EASTViARO INTO THE »MWET SQUARE.) OF ST. MARY THE VIRGIN, DOVER, 12 1 from the nearest known Oolite beds. It is found among the massive remains, on the west side of Dover Market-square, of buildings erected over the Roman Baths, which are believed to have formed part of the Collegiate Church of the Secular Canons of St. Martin, after their removal from the Romano-British Church in the Castle.* The fine spanned arch, opened out on the north side of this ruin of Old St. Martin's Church, proves to be built of such curious varieties of the Oolite formation, as to suggest that this mass of building may originally have formed part of the great group of Roman Baths themselves. Having, then, at St. Mary's, the floor of the Baths, and the ruins of flues and heating chambers before us, and having determined, at whatever cost of opposition or labour, to retain "the simple Church our Saxon fathers raised," we had next to solve the difficulty of accomplishing this. There was only one way. "We took out the bent and maimed tower arch; threw a bearing arch over the gap; secured eight timberbalks, for wooden legs, under i t ; took down in like manner the six western nave columns and their arches; numbered and stored carefully each stone; so that, in due time, we had only to replace them in the order in which they were taken down. And thus the cement ia the joints is literally the only thing in which the restored work is other than that which our Saxon fathers built. It was in examining the tower walls with a view to their safety, and that of the bell-chambers above, that the Architects ascertained a very remarkable feature; viz., that St. Mary's Tower is strictly not one fabric, but two. Dividing the face of it roughly into * Archceologia Cantiana, IV., 22-25. 122 THE ANOIENT FABRIC OE THE CHURCH five stages, viz., the basement, the triple low arcade, and three slender shafted arcades above, ending with the bell chamber; we find the string-course between the two lower and the three upper stages forms a division between two wholly different buildings. There is no continuity between the work below and that above this string-course. There is no identity of material, or of workmanship; no bonding, no means of holding together what had clearly been the walls of two periods. At what interval we cannot judge, but at some considerable interval certainly, the upper portion of the work has been superadded to the lower, for the difference of character and structure of course points to a corresponding difference in order of time. And we have to consider what must have been the approximate date of that member of a church tower, upon which three stages of an ornate but early Norman workmanship have been superimposed. One peculiarity in the tower arch at once attracted the wary eye of Mr. Buckler, viz., the very abnormal line of its curve; he was thinking how he might so take it to pieces, as to be sure of being able to put it together again. This peculiarity is still visible. Not from any one centre, nor from any orderly set of centres, could this curve have been struck. It is no segment of a semicircle; has no relation to the ordinary Norman type. It has more of the Byzantine feeling and form; that taste in structure and detail which gave its character to Eastern, and East-European, Architecture from the sixth to the tenth century; and has affected so many of our Saxon and Pre-Norman Churches. It affords also a delicate example of the Oriental horse-shoe form, in which the soffit is made to contract at, and below, the impost on each side. -..—*•;. TOWER OF THE CHURCH OF ST MARY THE VIRGIN.AT DOVER. THE THREE UPPER COURSES ARE NOT SO ANCIENT AS THE TWO BENEATH THEM OE ST. MART THE VIRGIN, DOVER. 12 3 The same thing is traceable in the three Western arches north and south of the Nave; with the further peculiarity of the northern tier of arches being set at a foot and a half lower level than those on the south, for no discoverable purpose or reason. These same walls originally terminated with two massive piers, which at first formed the end of the Eabric eastward; they still remain, but are now made use of as columns. Adjoining their foundations the traces of a wall-return indicated where the primitive little fabric had probably ended with a small Eastern apse. These members, together with a low and shallow leanto on each side, forming. North and South Aisles, we take, in all fair probability, to have been the original little Parish Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Dover, about the century of Alfred the Great. I cannot but think that the care, and finish, and goodness of the work, rightly interpreted, support the likelihood of Alfred's period, rather than of a more rude and barbarous age. Such has been taken, by other competent judges, to be rather a note of those days. " It is a striking thought," says the late Bishop of Durham, in his Leaders of the Northern Ohurch, " that God's signal mercy—in the hour of England's sorest need, when invaded by foreign foes, and when darkness, spiritual, intellectual, and social, was gathering thick upon it—raised up this great deliverer, pious and devout as he was great; the noblest type of Englishman! Who can say what England owes to the great and wise Alfred,—Poet, Scholar, Soldier, Legislator, ruling over this land; the Pounder of our English Literature, the Unifier of our English Territory, the chief author of our English Greatness !" The next stage, in the history of the building, was 124 THE ANCIENT FABRIC OF THE CHTJRCH its enlargement as far eastward as the present place of the pulpit, by adding four Norman bays to the length of the church. Of these only two remain, one on each side, next to the piers terminating the original Nave. The other six arches were swept away about the end of the last century, pursuant to an order in Vestry that their removal was necessary for the sight and hearing of the parishioners in church. The three arches of the north side were first pulled down, as an experiment; the three corresponding ones were ordered to follow (so it is recorded) for the sake of symmetry and uniformity. About this time, it would seem probable that the three upper stages of the Tower were built, on the walls of what had served as a Narthex to the earlier church. This western addition corresponded in extent and dignity to the eastward Norman addition, which had the character of a Nave or of a very extended chancel, whichever it might be more proper to call it. The Purbeck marble Pont was probably a gift to the church about this time. I found this beautiful relic split in two fragments, coated with the paint of ages, and built deep into the western wall of the south lean-to, at the base of the Tower. One of our workmen, from the Temple Church in London, told me that he had not there seen so fine a piece of marble. Perhaps the most graceful and serviceable enlargement of the original fabric was that which followed (so the Architects concluded), about the reign of King John; once more carrying eastward the limit of the Chancel, up to the present Sanctuary steps. It is marked by two fine four-centred arches which still remain, opening into the east end of the North Aisle. Opposite to them, high up on the south side, OF ST. MART THE VIRGIN, DOVER. 125 is a transition Early English window, of a not very common type. It will remind a practised observer of forms and detail found in Prench Transitional work, as we see it on a great scale in the Choir and Transepts of Canterbury Cathedral. This window was a source of no small dispute and trouble. It had been among the works specified to be carefully taken to pieces, and restored in original place and condition, but it tried the skill and patience of our very intelligent masons. The foreman urged every kind of substitute instead of it, even a new chancel window of any design or cost we chose. But both Architects and Vicar insisted on receiving "the pound of flesh in the bond," as the only just and right thing. So the window was saved—much as the Purbeck Pont had been—and it now remains as interesting an example, of its peculiar date and tone, as may be readily found in any part of the country. The arches opened into the North Aisle from the Early English Chancel, naturally caused the removal of the lean-to aisle, and the building of a new North Aisle. This new Aisle was made equal in length to the rest of the Church, from the West wall of the Tower to the East gable of the Chancel; and its roof was carried up to the same pitch as the rest of the Church, the Aisle being made equal in width to the Nave. The capacity of the old Ohurch was thus doubled; but at a sacrifice of all symmetry of plan. The limits of the Chancel were also obscured by this erection, and were not recovered until the rebuilding, and the addition of the present Apsidal Sanctuary, in 1844. We searched in vain, from time to time, for any trace of the several side-chapels, or chantries, which have been mentioned in connection with St. Mary's; 126 THE ANCIENT FABRIC OF THE CHTJRCH equally in vain did we seek for any sign of a Transept. There was left no foundation or site of such fabrics, which must (one would think), if ever there, have left traces behind. We were obliged to uncover and relay, often to a depth of 15 feet of solid concrete, the foundations of this old church ; we believe therefore that any evidence of bygone work could hardly have escaped us. We need not extend this short elementary Paper, which is rather concerned with the growth of the fabric, than with the many curious historic episodes in the story of our ancient Parish Church. The building of the north aisle was the last point, we know of, to be noted in connection with it. Henceforward it followed the too common routine of change and deterioration experienced by so many of our large town churches. Perhaps St. Mary's underwent more than an average share of indignities and sacrilege. After the suppression of the Religious Houses by Henry VIIL, the parishioners undertook the suppression of their Parish Church, by the confiscation of everything of saleable value,—the closing of the doors for Divine Service,—the leaving the last three recorded Rectors without means of subsistence; so that for all the years from their time to the middle of the last century we have no record of any regular or responsible parish priest for this ancient and important Cure! The material condition of the Church, as might well be supposed, fared no better ; even if the results were less disastrous. It passed through a succession of neglects, decays, and disfigurements, till it reached the condition from which it was rescued, and rebuilt from the foundations, in 1843-44. By that time, every OF ST. MART THE VIRGIN, DOVER. 12 7 vestige of the Ancient Church had become destroyed, or hidden. The opening of the Tower Arch was filled in with solid white-washed timber. The three Western bays were turned into massive walls by choking the openings with brickwork, to carry mural monuments of every form, size, and material, including the rarity of a mural slab of cartridge paper, framed and glazed. And the whole was compacted (as it were) by a prodigious west gallery and organ-loft, with an immense non-speaking Prench organ in it. Underneath all which, the original Church had been practically an "unknown quantity," whether to stranger or inhabitant, within any memory or tradition !