Whitfield alias Beuesfeld

( 141 WHITFIELD ALIAS BEUESFELD. BY GREVILE M. LIVETT, F.S.A. (Hon. Canon of Rochester.) 1. A SAXON THREE-COMPARTMENT CHURCH. THE Saxon Church of Beuesfeld, known since the sixteenth century as Whitfield, appears on examination to have been an example of the so-called three-compartment type, consisting of nave, chancel, and apsidal sanctuary. In this type there is an aisleless rectangular nave, usually rather long in proportion to its breadth, and having an arch known as the chancel-arch in its east wall. Upon that wall with its gable abuts the chancel, narrower and less lofty, forming a space square or slightly oblong, and having in its end-wall an arch that may be called the apse-arch. Upon this second and lower gable-wall there abuts in like manner the sanctuary or altar-house, known as the apse : this sanctuary, narrower and less lofty, has usually the form of an elongated apse, its side-walls and ridge-roof running parallel from the endwall of the chancel for a distance that may be only a few inches, or may be a few feet, and then dying into its semicircular or apsidal end. This detailed description of a three-compartment church would perhaps be superfluous were it not necessary for the reader to realise it accurately in imagination in order to be able to follow the changes by which Whitfield Church was evolved out of Beuesfeld. Its distinguishing feature is the structural division between chancel and sanctuary, emphasised inside by the apse-arch and outside by the quoins of the gable-end of the chancel.1 1 It is this feature which distinguishes the three-compartment from the two-compartment type, in which the side-walls of the chancel are rounded off-into a semi-circular apse. Apart from the seventh century churches, e.g., Rochester and Lyminge, no example of this type has yet been discovered in Kent. Surrey supplies an example at Caterham. Probably some fifty existing elsewhere might be listed. Good photographs of Heokingham, Norfolk, and Bengeo, Hertford, may be seen in Bond, Engl. Ch. Arch., p. 180. It is merely a variant of the common two-compartment square-ended type of early church (see plans of Paddlesworth and Dode, Arch., Cant., xxi., 260) from which most of our parish churches have grown. 142 WHITFIELD ALIAS BEUESFELD. 2. OTHER EXAMPLES OE THE TYPE. Churches of the three-compartment type are rare. Rumour says that Bishopstone Church, the foundations of which are now being excavated by the Office of Works, supplies a second Saxon example. I know of no other of that period. Professor Baldwin Brown mentions none.1 A few examples of Norman date have come under my notice. A separate Paper in a later volume will be devoted to the Chapel of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, Rochester, formerly a leper hospital. The existence of a Saxon example at Beuesfeld probably accounts for the adoption of the type at Sutton-by-Dover, which is only two miles distant, described in an Appendix to this Paper. Mr. Walter Godfrey has reported further Norman examples of the type : one at Dunwich (Suffolk),2 another at Maldon (Essex), in each case the chapel of a leper-house, and a third in the old parish church of East Ham (Essex), a brief description of which appears in the Appendix. I should be grateful for information of other examples. In the accompanying plate I have incorporated diminutive plans of Beuesfeld, Sutton and East Ham on the same scale for purposes of comparison. 3. THE CHURCH BEFORE RESTORATION IN 1894. The Church of Whitfield was "restored" by Ewan Christian in 1894. Fortunately his plan is still extant, showing the alterations he proposedto make, and indicating, in part at least, what he found before those alterations were effected. Further information may be gathered from a Paper written by E. P. Loftus Brock, F.S.A., and read on the occasion of the Society's visit to the Church in 1892. 1 The well-known seventh century church of Brixworth, Northants, in its existing state conforms to the type ; but originally it had aisles and a burial passage round the apse, as well as other distinguishing features. The small under-church or crypt of St. Germain, Amiens, an interesting building attributed to the fourth century, shows a three-compartment plan in which the nave and chancel, both supplied with benches along the walls, are of the same width, with a level floor; the floor of the apse is eighteen inches higher; entrance in the centre of the west wall. s See plan of the Church of the Hospital of St. James, Dunwich, in Archmologia, Vol. XE, (1796), plate XXXVTT. WHITFIELD ALIAS BEUESFELD. 143 That Paper1 describes the church as consisting of " a nave; a small chancel hardly longer than its width ; a low [north] aisle, which formerly extended along the whole length of nave and chancel, terminating flush at the east and west ends respectively. The aisle to the nave disappeared in the seventeenth century, when a large brick addition through [nearly] the whole length of the nave was carried out northwards, ending with a north gable. It is now separated from the nave by a huge elliptical arch . . ." Ewan Christian's plan indicates this Jacobean widening of the western half of the said low aisle, and I have reproduced its lines, with its massive angle-buttresses, in broken lines on my plan. The eastern portion of the old aisle was left unaltered by the Jacobean builders ; it was covered by a sharply-sloping roof which ran down continuously from the ridge of the roof that still runs level from west to east over nave and chancel. The Jacobean addition, which had a transeptal roof with north gable and may possibly have been built to afford space for a children's gallery, Ewan Christian demolished. He pulled down also the remaining portion of the old aisle-wall and its sloping roof ; extended northwards its east and west walls, and built a new aisle 5£ feet wider than the old, covering it with a ridge roof. The huge elliptical arch he replaced by the existing twoarched arcade. The width of the old aisle, which is plotted in my plan in double-dot and double-dash lines, is clearly marked in the end-walls of the new aisle by the straight joints of the original quoins (j, k) built with roughly-squared slab-flints. The period is fixed by an original Early English lancet that remains in the east end-wall: it may be dated c.1220. It must here be borne in mind that the present second chancel is a modern building erected by Ewan Christian : it did not exist when Loftus Brock wrote. The latter speaks of the end-walls of the aisle as terminating flush with the east and west ends of the chancel and nave respectively. As regards the east end this cannot have been quite accurate, 1 Printed in Arch. Oant., Vol. xxi. 144 WHITFIELD ALIAS BEUESFELD. for, as my plan shows, the plane of the outer face of the aisle end-wall is several inches east of that of the gable of the chancel. The junction (e), as he saw it, must have been awkward, and it is strange that he did not remark upon it and connect it with a destroyed " second chancel beyond the existing one " of which he saw " indications " in "an acutely-pointed arch marked in the east wall [of the chancel] now filled iii with a modern window." There can be little doubt that Loftus Brock thought that the Saxon chancel was square-ended and that a second chancel had been added and subsequently destroyed, its pointed arch being then blocked and a modern window built in the blocking. He seems to have failed to hit upon the idea which this Paper is designed to prove, namely, that the second chancel with its pointed arch replaced an apse which was entered through a narrower arch and formed the sanctuary of a three-compartment Saxon church. Ewan Christian's report, dated 4th March, 1894, likewise reveals no suspicion of such an original Saxon apse; but as we shall see later he was undoubtedly correct, not only in assuming like Loftus Brock the former existence of a second chancel, square-ended, but also in attributing it to the Early English period. In that style he proposed to rebuild it. The extraordinary form which he gave to his restoration, making his new second chancel wider than the chancel proper, was based upon features which he examined more closely and interpreted with greater definition than Loftus Brock had attempted. We have to try to imagine what he saw. Inside he saw in the east wall sufficient to suggest the former existence of such a second chancel: there was the modern east window of debased character, framed by a pointed arch which springing from the side-walls spanned the whole width of the chancel. Doubtless the wall was plastered, but the plaster-surface would show signs of the wrought-stone voussoirs of the arch under it. Perhaps also indications of the imposts, projecting from the side-walls into the blocking masonry flush with its face were apparent. Outside, where the plaster may have fallen away, or would WHITFIELD ALIAS BEUESFELD. 145 be removed for the purpose of examination, the architect saw not only the same features as on the inside but also one other and more significant feature which did not exist on the inside—he saw on either side a wrought-stone quoin supporting the end of the impost and making a straight vertical joint on the face of the wall (g, h). Now it must have occurred to him that there would have been no need for such quoins if the side-walls of the extension, the second chancel, had been a mere prolongation of the side-walls of the old chancel : he concluded that the extension must have been wider than the chancel, and he planned his new extension accordingly, doing so in spite of the fact that his side-walls would abut upon the ends of the chancel-walls (eg, fh) in such a way as to overlap them outwards. The correctness of the architect's deduction, and the coincidence of the lines he planned with those of the destroyed building, was strikingly confirmed when the ground was being prepared for his new building. The following passage occurs in a letter written under date 11th May, 1894, by Mr. Walter Hamilton, rector of Waldershare and vicar of Whitfield, in reference to a visit which he had recently paid to the church in company with the architect:— " We also found the foundations of what must have been a square-headed chancel to the east of the existing one, occupying within an inch or two the exact space which the new one is designed to fill.'' It will not be unreasonable, then, that in our discussion of the problem involved, we assume that the modern building accurately represents, in plan at least, the Early English addition to the Saxon chancel. On that assumption the recovery of a Saxon apse mainly depends. That foundations of an apse were not discovered at the same time may easily be explained : they lay, and possibly still lie, wholly within the space ; and, as they were not thought of, they were not looked for. 4. AFTER RESTORATION. Professor Baldwin Brown, in his Anglo-Saxon Architecture (Vol. I I of The Arts in Early England : 2nd ed., 1925, p. 485) describes this church as " an excellent example of a small 146 WHITFIELD ALIAS BEUESFELD. Saxon nave-and-chancel church of the Third Period " [the latter part of the tenth and early eleventh century] " where the chancel has been extended and aisles were added without destroying the nave walls, which are about 2 ft. thick and more than 15 ft. high. In the south wall there is preserved a double-splayed window. The altered chancel arch admits us to a space originally about 9 ft. 6 in. square, but this has now been extended eastwards. The chancel walls were only 1 ft. 9 in. thick. A good deal of the old plastering survives." The Professor attaches to his note a small rectangular plan which I have ventured to copy and reproduce on a still smaller scale. He has no concern with the remarkable irregularity of the lines of the church. He is only concerned to show " a small Saxon nave-and-chancel church," and he represents its lines in full black, disregarding all later insertions and additions. But he makes one significant exception : the east wall of the chancel he leaves open. I am thankful for this intimation that the Professor has some doubt in his mind ! He has not had leisure to make full investigation of the east end, and the idea of a Saxon apse has therefore not occurred to him. 5. SAXON REMAINS. The West front is the only part of the Saxon church that shows its walling of irregular flint-rubble. Not a single original quoin remains : all have been removed or covered except the SW. quoin of the nave (a), and that has been rebuilt with stones gathered from various sources. I do not think any Caen-stone was used in the Saxon building : I doubt if that stone was imported in Saxon times. The arch of an original west doorway, now blocked, was turned in cut slab-flints ; its jambs, which are not distinctly visible, may have been merely plastered flint-rubble. The same may be surmised of the chancel-arch, which Ewan Christian in his report described as " a rough chancel-arch of tall proportions." In the restoration it was faced with WHITFIELD ALIAS BEUESFELD. 147 brick and plastered. A double-splayed loop (m) above the south door seems to have been formed in flint-rubble : Ewan Christian found it blocked internally but visible above the porch externally (see photo.) : its internal splays are unequal: it was originally fitted, apparently, with a mid-wall panel pierced for light. The quoins (j, k) of the long Early English aisle are built in cut slab-flints: these may have come from the corresponding quoins of the nave-wall (b, c). The little window in the west gable (see photo.) is formed of sandstone, probably from the Hythe beds : the round head is cut out of a single stone ; its two sloping sides, also out of single stones. The opening measures 16 in. from sill to springing, 16 in. wide at the bottom, 13£ in. at the top. It is rebated externally for a shutter, which by reason of inaccessibility must have been fixed and pierced. I examined the masonry by means of a ladder and found that one of the jamb-stones retained the marks of coarse axe-tooling. The same coarse tooling may be seen on two large pillar-like stones worked into the jambs of the rear-arch of the south door, and there is a similar pillar-stone in the SW. quoin of the nave : probably they are Saxon stones re-used. The little double-splayed window above the south door is irregular in shape, built of flint rubble, now plastered inside and rough-cast outside. Near the end of the N. wall of the nave of the church at Stourmouth there is a little window, blocked externally, which if opened out would be seen to be exactly like the double-splayed window at Whitfield. The internal splays, which are visible, are similarly unequal, so that the midwall opening was not vertically in the centre of the rear opening. The foregoing notes suggest that the builders' resources and their tectonic ability were slight; they included in their number no skilled bankerman; the blocks of sandstone they may have quarried from the ruins of Roman Napchester; the rest of their stone they gathered from the surface of the Downs. 10 148 WHITFIELD ALIAS BEUESFELD. 6. NORMAN ENLARGEMENT. The first enlargement of the church was the work of skilled masons in the Norman style in the second or third decade of the twelfth century. It consisted of a south aisle stretching from the west end of the nave to the east end of the chancel. It was destroyed about a century later. The central column and two half-column responds of the two-arched arcade that separated the aisle from the nave, with their scallop-capitals and typical mid-Norman bases, are visible, embedded in the Saxon nave-wall. The material is Caen-stone. A single arch of the same building, inserted in the south wall of the chancel, was opened out in 1894, when Ewan Christian built a vestry on the site of the eastern end of the destroyed aisle. In my plan I have indicated the aisle by dot and double-dash lines, giving it a width of 6 feet, as that is the width of a long south-aisle of the same character, with a very similar arcade, added about the same time in the neighbouring church of East Langdon. A peculiar feature of the work in both churches is seen in the rounding off of the eastern quoin of the nave, the purpose of which must be left to the reader's imagination. At Whitfield this rounded angle is now visible only above the roof of the modern vestry. That the rounding off was continued upwards to the eaves of the nave roof seems to be sufficient evidencethatit was by the mid-Normanbuilders of the aisle that the height of the side-walls and gable-end of the chancel was raised some 18 in. or 2 ft. to carry a prolongation of the nave roof eastwards over the chancel. This enabled them to cover the whole length of their aisle without break by a sharply-sloping roof running down from the ridge to the eaves of their low aisle-wall. 7. EARLY ENGLISH ALTERATIONS. The Norman aisle was destroyed early in the thirteenth century. It is important to realise that the Early English builders preserved the wrought-stone of its quoins and arches for use in the alterations and additions which they took in WHITFIELD ALIAS BEUESFELD. 149 hand. These works included : (1) the blocking of the Saxon west door ; (2) the insertion of a lancet-light above it, and, possibly, of another lancet in place of a Saxon double-splayed loop in the south wall (at n) like its fellow (m) which they blocked; (3) the erection of a south porch and door; (4) a north aisle ; and (5) a new sanctuary east of the chancel. (1, 2.) The Saxon west entrance consisted probably of a straight-through round-arched opening with a wooden door. In blocking it the Early English builders left a shallow internal recess, the quoins of which they renewed in Norman wroughtstone, some of it refaced with the chisel. Above it they inserted a lancet light, the sloping sill of which cut through the head of the old door-arch, which they replaced by a depressed arch now represented by modern stone-work. Later, probably in the seventeenth century, the E.E. lancet was replaced by a round-headed window framed in wood, for which Ewan Christian substituted the existing window. (3.) The south doorway has a sharply-pointed arch without impost mouldings, built mainly of Norman stones. At the springing there is on each side a piece of Roman brick. The springer on each side is much longer (12 in.) than the other voussoirs, which are all Norman-faced stones : the one on the west side is superficially divided into two by an incised line, to match the size of the other voussoirs : it is faced with the E.E. chisel, part of it vertically, the other part horizontally. The chamfer of the outer edge is stopped near the ground on either side with a broach. This doorway is 2 ft. 6 in. through, 6 in. more than the thickness of the wall. This suggests that a porch was built at the same time, and in the plan I have tinted the existing modern porch as restored E.E. I failed to examine its junctions with the wall, and feel a doubt. In any case, the porch has been rebuilt more than once. (4.) The E.E. north aisle has already been described. A note may be added of the singular way in which the NE. quoin of the nave was cut back, and the plain and rude character of the pointed opening cut through the adjoining wall of the chancel. When they 150 WHITFIELD ALIAS BEUESFELD. came to the addition of this aisle the E.E. builders must have exhausted the supply of Caen-stone they had got from their demolition of the Norman south aisle.1 8. THE SAXON APSE AND THE EARLY ENGLISH SANCTUARY. We are now prepared to deal further with the question of a Saxon apse and with its replacement by an Early English second chancel, remembering that the latter is well represented by the modern east-end. Remains of such an apse are either absent or invisible, and the evidence in favour of it is purely circumstantial, but still weighty enough to bring conviction. Had there been no apse the E.E. builders would surely have fulfilled a desire to extend a square-ended chancel in the way that was usually adopted. They would have completed the new walls as far as possible outside the then existing chancel and without disturbing it, ranging their side-walls exactly in line with its side-walls. Then they would have pulled down the old east wall ; made good the junction of the new with the old side-walls ; and, lastly, they would have prolonged the old roof to cover the addition. In a word, the old east wall and its gable would have disappeared, and the breadth and height of the old chancel and its extension would have been the same from end to end. The method and the result would have been the same if the original church to be extended had been a two-compartment apsidal building, i.e., if the chancel side-walls instead of ending square had turned to form a semi-circle without apse-arch. 1 The little Church of Caterham, Surrey, affords a striking parallel to Whitfield in the stages of its growth. The original nucleus was a twocompartment building of early-Norman date. The chancel terminated in an apse which on plan sprang directly from its side-walls. A long uninterrupted south aisle, planned like that at Whitfield, finishing eastwards in line with the chord of the apse, was added in later Norman times. As at Whitfield, that aisle was destroyed in the Early English period, its arches were blocked, a doorway was built in the blocking of the western arch, a new aisle of the same uncommon kind was built on the north side of nave and chancel, and a square-ended addition was made to the chancel and the apse demolished. (The foundations of the apse and two or three feet of its curving wall on the south side were recently discovered by Mr. P. M. Johnston, F.S.A., who has kindly sent me particulars thereof.) As at Whitfield, again, when the aisle and extended chancel were built the N.E. quoin of the nave was splayed off. WHITFIELD ALIAS BEUESFELD. 151 The remains at Whitfield are not consistent with either of these suppositions : the extension here was made in an unique addition and calls for a corresponding explanation, but it was made on the same principle of leaving the old ending untouched and the services held therein undisturbed as long as possible. Let us imagine such an apse and apsearch as I have delineated in dot-and-dash lines in my plan. Its " all-over " breadth would be slightly less than that of the chancel, leaving the external quoins (e, / ) free ; and its interior width likewise would be slightly less. It would also be lower in height than the chancel, against the east wall of which it would be built. To receive its abutment it would be necessary that the chancel should have an east wall and gable, and that again would require an arch of communication and support, viz., an apse-arch, slightly narrower in span than the width of the apse. The side-walls of an Early English extension built round such an apse would necessarily stand exactly where the walls of the existing modern sanctuary stand : their position would be determined almost to an inch by these conditions. I maintain that such an apse and apse-arch formed the sanctuary of the Saxon church and that the E.E. sanctuary closely represented by the modern sanctuary, was built up round it in the way described. Moreover there seems to be no other possible explanation of certain other features which may now be noticed. The Early English builders preserved the gable-end of the Saxon chancel, which, as we have seen, had been raised in height in the Norman period. The old apse-arch which it contained they took out, increasing the width and height of the opening to receive their pointed arch.1 The span of their arch they made of the full width of the chancel at its east end. It springs from a rude string-impost of their own construction, inserted into the side-walls of the chancel after they had demolished the responds of the original 1 The contrivance by which they supported the wall above while they did this remains a mystery. In hundreds of churches old walls were pierced for the insertion of an arch or an arcade in mediaeval times : what was the process employed ? 152 WHITFIELD ALIAS BEUESFELD. narrower arch, cutting back to the plane of the side-walls and making good the rough face thus left. In the process they had to deal with a ragged quoin on either side (at g and h) : this they made good by building up a quoin of wrought-stones obtained from the quoins of the Norman aisle which they had destroyed: the material is Norman, and its axe-tooled facing is well preserved, but the building is E.E. The same may be said of the edge-stones of the plain pointed arch, which were not cut for the position they now fill: they were obtained from the arches of the Norman aisle-arcade which the E.E. builders blocked ; they are axetooled and the larger ones plainly show that the curve of their soffit is more pronounced than that of the arch in which they now appear. The only stones in this arch that were cut by the E.E. builders are those of which the imposts are formed. They are rudely shaped and may easily be mistaken for poor Norman work. Similar imposts of rude Normanesque character occur in the E.E. chancel-arch of Westcliffe. In plotting their churches on the ground early mediaeval builders, while they often failed to get the angles right, usually contrived to get the sides fairly parallel. The divergence of the side-walls of the short chancel of Beuesfeld is remarkable : it is quite 8 in. wider at the east end than at the west. Possibly this divergence was intentional—to allow a little extra space in front of the altar. The Saxon apsearch must have been plain, like the chancel-arch, but less lofty and probably a little wider. In concluding this Paper I wish to express my gratitude to the Vicar, the Rev. Edward Thompson, who has shewn me hospitality and has been at pains from time to time to answer requests for information about the church, in which he takes a well-informed interest; and also to the Rev. Arthur Collins, of Staple, who has made journeys both to Whitfield and to Sutton to take photographs which have greatly assisted me in the writing of the Paper. K. f* WHITFIELD ALIAS BEUESFELD. 153 APPENDIX. The Plate of Plans. Whitfield was drawn to a quarter-inch scale, i.e., four feet to the inch ; being reduced to one-third linear it appears on the plate as twelve feet to the inch. The diminutive plan of Saxon " Beuesfeld " (drawn sixteen feet to the inch and appearing as forty-eight feet) is inserted to show Whitfield plainly in its original state. For comparison with Beuesfeld the three-compartment churches of East Ham and Sutton have been specially measured and are shown on the same small scale, in which of course great accuracy of detail is impossible. Brief descriptions of these churches are appended. In the Plate of photographs, kindly taken by the Rev. A. H. Collins, two capitals of the chancel-arch at East Langdon are included for comparison with Sutton. It is hoped that a brief description of E. Langdon will appear in a later volume. East Ham. The west wall of the nave is so much encumbered by the supports of a west tower that accurate measurement is difficult; it was about four feet thick ; the side-walls, three feet. The chancel-arch has been removed. Walls of chancel and apse-arch, two feet nine inches. Wall of apse, onefoot nine inches, increased by pilaster-strips inside and outside to two feet nine inches. Height of nave, twenty feet; of chancel, eighteen feet; of apse, about sixteen feet. Originally there were three windows on each side of nave ; one on each side of chancel; three in the semi-circle of a stilted apse ; those marked with a X are either blocked or enlarged. West and south doors. Exterior wall-face, alternate thick and thin courses of Kentish rag ; the thick courses mostly of large blocks with some smaller stones set aslant. Quoins of Caen-stone and Kentish rag or sandstone mixed. Wrought-stone of windows and doorways, Caen-stone. The south doorway has a pair of angle-shafts with cushion caps and hollow-chamfered abaci from which springs a bold round. The two cushions of the capital are separated by three arrises that rise from the necldng wedge-shaped to a point. (Cf. the lance-head that separates the cushions of the capitals in the crypt of St.-Mary-le-Bow, c.1090.) The west doorway has three orders ; the innermost, a broad half-round on which the doors close ; the outermost, an angle-shaft in the jamb with a corresponding round in the arch ; the middle order, an angleshaft and above the cushion cap a molded splay consisting of 154 WHITFIELD ALIAS BEUESFELD. Saxon BHI destroyed JNorman ' dj2_str_oyed Early Engl. H i t re built '94 HH destroyed Modern 94 acvrv'.v-i te*te*M §MMSM^M BCUtSrLLO Bf^iiS; Ki$xmmW/,%%\ I?'.^^ I I I I I 10 15 EO £5 30 I I M I I I I 1 I I I I I I I I I I I 1 I AFTER PROF. B.B HITFDILO i^t^1 .9* SUTTON DOVER EAST HAD ESSE* WHITFIELD ALIAS BEUESFELD. 155. two edge-rounds separated by an arris, in section like an early- Norman vaulting rib. The sides of the chancel are enriched with slightly recessed wall-arcading, seven pointed arches on each side,, formed by the intersection of round-headed continuous arches enriched with a simple zig-zag of early character.1 All these features point to an early date—not later, I think, than the last decade of the 11th century. In the plan I have -r-ri Ci ^^ -pcc u^-u I i^J m / \ \ / \ / Y\ \ \ s \ Vcv ^o } \ 7 W V ft L: a B East- Ham \ T M-i »• /y/'/y/-/y/y»/; ^ Z| -x-Zr*-? :s: < G.M.C ventured to restore the chancel-arch which with its gable-wall has been wholly removed. Perhaps the most remarkable feature is the quarter-round that fills the angle of the junction of the east wall of the chancel with each of the side-walls. The disposition of the arcading suggests that there were similar quarter-shafts in the western angles of the chancel. The same 1 See the accompanying sketch and compare the chevron molding of thewest door of St. Nicholas, Harbledown, dated c. 1084. 156 WHITFIELD ALIAS BEUESFELD. feature is seen in the late-Saxon cathedral church of North Elmham, Norfolk, but in that case they occur in the external angles of the buildings—see a paper in Antiq. Journ., Oct., 1926, by A. W. Clapham, F.S.A., and W. H. Godfrey, F.S.A. Sutton. The adoption of the three-compartment plan by the builders of the church of St. Peter and St. Paul, Sutton-by- Dover, a chapelry of Little Mongeham, was due, doubtless, to the existence of a church of that rare type in the neighbouring parish of Whitfield. Hasted says this church was partly destroyed by an earthquake in 1688. Glynne, who visited the church in 1870, wrote that it had recently undergone restoration and partial rebuilding and that its original form and features had been generally maintained. The apse and its arch are modern. If the features of the apse were copied from those of its predecessor as Glynne implies, they can be only a poor imitation ; but in view of the arcading that runs round the ruined apse of the threecompartment church of St. James at Dunwich1 there is no reason to doubt that a similar arcading in the modern apse at Sutton represents the original arrangement. Though the apse-arch also is modern, the quoins outside are ancient, and I think that the outer surface of the apse-wall for a foot or two near the southern quoin is likewise original. The windows marked in the plan with a cross are replacements of the original windows. The chancelarch has a plain soffit and rises from imposts enriched with panels of narrow round-tipped leaves (twenty in the panel on the front face) and, underneath, a kind of billet ornament worked on a round. The south wall of the nave is covered with roughcast, which returns round the SW. quoin. The rest of the west end and all along the north side the original walling of coursed flints remains, with the original quoins of Caen-stone. The round heads of tall windows are constructed with three voussoirs on which, as may be seen on the north side, there is cut a superficial ornament of interlacing strap-work studded with small pearls. It is much weather-worn, and in part undecipherable. (See the photograph). The accompanying sketch is a rough 1 The side-walls also of the chancel at Dunwich, like those at East Ham, have arcading of intersecting round arches, though the details are different, the arches being supported by shafts and oushion oaps. Miss Clay tells us the leper-house at Dunwich was founded in 1199 j photographs of the ruin, lent to me by the Vicar, the Rev. A. Scott Thompson, suggest an earlier date. The church was slightly larger than East Ham. See plan in Archaeologia, vol. xii. WHITFIELD ALIAS BEUESFELD. 157 attempt to show the complete design. A similar ornament is cut on the impost of the south respond of the chancel-arch of East Langdon (see photograph). There are rude examples of the kind of interlacing strapwork seen on the Norman (sic) font in St. Martin's, Canterbury, on the lintel of the little Norman tower-door at Sandwich, and elsewhere. The north respond at East Langdon has a key-ornament of the same. There are north and south doorways opposite to one another. The south doorway bears no signs of a door, but is a straightthrough arch of early character, without imposts, edged with V_ v . ^w 4* Z-^t ^ s j i ^ /^ , f%\ N II X ; \ X yC O r i \ ^N. —v> \ / V v-^ X \ > N X / \ ' "^ NV \ x X ^ -^ \ i:mm * SUTTON, NEAR DOVER. Caen-stone cleanly-faced and clearly of Norman workmanship. I t now leads into a small vestry with thin walls and a mock- Norman window. I failed to examine this building carefully, but my impression is that it represents a Norman porticus. That it formed part of the plan of the Norman church is evident from the arrangement of the nave windows inrelationtoit. The porch on the opposite side tallies with it in size and position. The north doorway is highly enriched and the carving is so well preserved as to suggest that from the first a porch protected it. Angle-shafts with ornamented cushion caps support an order slightly recessed from the wall-face and consisting of an edge-roll around which runs a ring of lozenge. Around it, on the wallface and in place of a label, is a superficial molding of three rings 158 WHITFIELD ALIAS BEUESFELD. of another form of lozenge. Within it the tympanum is supported by a wooden lintel (not an uncommon feature in Norman work in Kent), and is constructed in three courses slightly carved, each with three rows of small squares or oblongs enclosing pearled stars. The abaci of the capitals are faced with the T'S^&r. ^I^D< same kind of star, with a billet o r n a m e n t underneath. The caps are scalloped and the faces incised with inturning s p i r a l s, while the cushions of the western cap are formed into bundles of reeds, and those of the eastern cap are ornamented with interlacing strapwork like the h e a d s of the windows. Such description may seem meticulously detailed, but the subject which now needs attention more perhaps than any other in Anglo - Norman architecture is the development of ornament as an aid to the chronology of the style. I think that Sutton may be dated provisionally not later than the third decade of the 12th century. G.M.L. 7- SUTTON, NEAR DOVER.