GREAT CHART
CHURCH.
GROUND PLAN&SECTIONS
MEASURED &• DRAWN BY
GM. LIVETT.
1902-3.
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SOUTH-EAST VIEW OF GREAT CHART CHURCH.
G. M. L., 1903.
GREAT CHART CHURCH. 113
side of the chancel, it must be borne in mind that they were
practically hidden from view by the broad roof-loft beneath them.
The two remaining arches on either side were built with newly-cut
voussoirs of larger size, and with hollow chamfers, according to the
prevailing fashion of the time.
I t has been previously noticed that the nave-clerestory was
extended eastwards over the rood-loft, and that a part of the
chancel-roof was removed to make way for the new roof. A massive
tie-beam, resting on the ends of the clerestory walls, carries
the gable of the Perpendicular roof. The triangular spaces under
the beam and within the ends of the clerestory walls on either side
of the chancel-roof are filled with nine-inch walling composed
almost entirely of Boman bricks. All this may be seen by anyone
who will take the trouble to go on to the roof of the chancel.
In making good the end of the chancel-roof the fifteenth-century
architect inserted the tie-beam seen within the Church. To it
probably are framed the ends of the plates which secure the feet of
the rafters. The timbers are hidden by a modern ceiling of wood.
The clerestory windows above the rood-loft, one on each side,
are three-light square-headed windows of ordinary pattern. In the
nave the clerestory has three similar two-light windows on either
side above the arcade-arches.*
The nave-roof is a plain collar-beam roof with vertical struts
and small collar-braces. It also has five tie-beams: one at each end,
one directly over the chancel-arch, and two in the nave. They are
so disposed that in four cases the feet of a pair of common rafters,
as well as the adjoining vertical struts, could be (and doubtless are)
framed into the beam. In one case, however, the beam lies between
the rafters: doubtless the wall-plates are framed into it.
At the west end of the south chapel there is an alteration in
the roof which is worth notice. The pointed roof stops short of
the west end by 4_ feet, and that space is covered hy a flat roof
of the same pitch and design as the adjoining aisle-roof, but (of
course) not of the same date. In the side-wall within the same
space there is a two-light window (d)* of the same pattern as the
clerestory windows, but slightly smaller. Possibly this window
was related in some way to the rood-loft. Eor a reason that is not
quite clear the fifteenth-century architect removed the west gable
of the chapel and about 6_ feet of the roof, and extended the flat
* See the photograph of the exterior of the Church.
VOL. xxvi, I
114 GREAT CHART CHURCH.
roof of the aisle to that amount, heightening the side-wall to
carry it. That this bit of roof is not of the same date as the aisleroof
is proved by slight differences in the pattern and scantling of
the wall-plates and rafters. The external wall-plate has a joint
at the required point, and the added portion is quite different from
that to the west. This can only be seen at close quarters by means
of a ladder.
The interesting question of the exact line of separation between
rector and people in this Church still remains. There can be no
doubt, I think, that the great cross-arch marks the eastern limit of
the nave in mediseval times. If there was no central tower, it
stands on the line of the original chancel-arch; if there was a tower,
then that arch stands on the site of its west wall. But the position
of the arch does not settle the question. The people's seats run
beyond the original limit of the nave, and the westward limit of
the choir seats and Godington pew runs across the Church at a
distance of 7 feet 9 inches from the eastern face of the chancelarch;
while a slight rise of floor-level and a difference in the
character of the paving occurs at 7£ inches further east, and the
nave-roof extends nearly 11 feet beyond its original limit.
Perhaps the solution of the question will be found in the
acceptance of the central-tower theory. Eor the purpose of worship
the tower-space would be no man's land; and on the removal
of the tower the right to occupy that space might very well have
been decided by division and the erection of a rood-screen about
8 feet east of the new cross-arch. A new rood-loft built at the
end of the fifteenth century would naturally be placed on the same
line. This seems to be a natural and feasible explanation, both of
the anomalous position of the rood-loft to the east of the chancelarch,
and of the ill-defined line of separation between people and
parson in the Church. It would be interesting to learn who has
been charged from time to time with the repair of the eastward
extension of the nave-roof—rector or churchwardens ?
There is a similar case of uncertainty at East Malling Church,
where the rectorial pews extend under the chancel-arch westwards
to the middle of the easternmost severy of the nave. The entrances
to the rood-loft are seen in the piers on the west side of that
severy.
At St. Peter's, Thanet, there was formerly a rood-loft on the
east side of the chancel-arch. The entrance to the loft remains on
the north side of the chancel, above the first free column of the
GREAT CHART CHURCH. 115
arcade of a chancel-chapel. Canon Scott Bobertson believed that
there was once an early-English tower on the south side of the first
bay of tbe chancel.* It would be interesting to hear of other
examples.?
The Editors have kindly favoured me with au advance copy of a
Paper that is to appear in this Volume from the pen of the Eev.
Harry W. Eussell. It contains some confirmation of the dates
assumed in this Paper.
Mr. Eussell quotes from Weever the names of sixteen men of
whom portraitures formerly existed in a fifteenth-century window
in the north chapel, and who were accounted by tradition, " from
the father to the sonne," to have been the builders of the Church.
Mr. Eussell says the name of one of them, Thomas Wred, appears
as that of a witness in the Christ Church Eegisters in 1345, and
adds that the sixteen names probably represent benefactors who
lived in the second half of the fourteenth century.
In the north chapel stands a fine altar-tomb of William and
Alice Goldwell, who died in 1485. Their son was James Goldwell,
who became Vicar of Great Chart in 1458, holding at the same
time many valuable preferments. He became Bishop of Norwich
in 1472, when he obtained from the Pope " an indulgence in aid of
the restoration of Great Chart Church, which had been damaged
by fire." A broken inscription in a window, quoted by Weever,
suggests that he had commenced work at Great Chart before his
consecration to the bishopric. Thomas Twysden of Chelmington
in Great Chart, by his will dated 12 Oct. 1500,$ provided that if
his children should die without heirs his executors should sell his
lands and give " to the most nedefull workys of the said Churche
xx1." This was a large sum of money, and though the Church did
not benefit by it, the provision of the will proves that important
work was in progress as late as the year 1500. The conclusion to
* Archceologia Cantiana, Vol. XII., p. 379 et seq.
f Reader, please send " copy " to the Editors for " Notes and Queries " in the
next volume. PS.—The Rev. Walter Marshall, P.S.A., writes, under date 25 May
1903: " Many churches shew the entrance on to the rood-loft high up in the wall,
just east of the chancel-arch, but I do not know of any rood-lofts positively
placed east of the chancel-arch, except perhaps at Beckley (Sussex), where the
upper entrance to the rood-loft (not now existing) is halfway between the
ohancel-arch and the east wall of the church ! In some cases the upper entrance
does not prove the position of the rood-loft, because the entrance need not,
could not, always have been straight on to the loft itself."
% See copy of will in Arohceologia Cantiana, Vol. IIL, p. 202.
I 2
116 GREAT CHART CHURCH.
be drawn from all these notices is that the fifteenth-century alterations
were begun about 1460, and were still incomplete at the very
end of the century.
Before reading Mr. Eussell's Paper I had written the following
note upon the Goldwell altar-tomb:—
I t will be noticed that the plinth moulding has the form of the
bell and cushion seen in the bases of the late columns of the
chancel-arcade on the north side; and that both the ends and the
sides of the tomb are adorned with arcading which bears a strong
resemblance to the tracery of' the square-headed Perpendicular
windows of the Church.* We cannot be far wrong, therefore, in
assigning the windows, which are associated with the building of
the flat roofs over the nave-aisles, to the third quarter of the
fifteenth century, and the nave-roof and its contemporaneous works
to the end of the century.
ASHEOED CHTJECH.
The neighbouring Church at Ashford has a history which in
many respects is similar to that of Great Chart. In the quoins at
the junction of the aisle half-arch and the transept on both sides
there are several pieces of thirteenth-century stone, and one or two
bits of Caen-stone shewing the characteristic face-marks of the
hankerman's axe. There was a Norman Church at Ashford, as at
Chart. Probably it had a central tower, either with or without
transepts. In the thirteenth century there appears to have been
some alteration. The upper orders of the late fourteenth-century
arcades in the south transept are composed of small voussoirs of
fire-stone, possibly in situ, probably from arches in a similar
position.? This suggests that'Ashford Church in the thirteenth
* See PLATE II.
t In Selling Ohurch, near Paversham, the recent removal of plaster from the
stone-work of the nave-arcades has revealed a similar composite construction—
the upper orders of all the arches consist of thirteenth-century voussoirs of firestone,
which must have come from early-Pointed arcades of exactly the same
form and disposition as the present arcades. The remains of a plinth also of one
of the early bases has been uncovered. In the rebuilding or remodelling of the
arcades with Kentish rag, either the upper orders of the old arches were retained
in situ and underbuilt, or the new arches were raised on taller columns and the
old voussoirs re-used so far as they would serve, A somewhat similar device was
followed by the later-Norman builders at Roohester when they remodelled the
early-Norman arohes of the nave-arcades: thoy retained the inferior order and
rebuilt the superior order with new voussoirs.
G. M. I.., 190:!.
ASHFORD CHURCH:
LOOKING SOUTH-WEST. FROM THE NORTH-KAST BAY (IF THE CHANCEL.
GREAT CHART CHURCH. 117
century was cruciform. Then came a considerable remodelling in
the fourteenth century, of which there is abundant evidence in the
arcades of the chancel, south transept, and nave.* Then followed
the insertion of new windows throughout, and the rebuilding of the
central tower by Sir John Eogge circa 1475. The fourteenthcentury
columns of the chancel carry arches of a tall segmentalpointed
character, the whole wall on each side having apparently
been rebuilt at the same time as the tower. The western bay of
the nave is modern, and the aisles have been widened, I believe, in
recent times. The accompanying photograph was taken from the
north-east chapel.
LOCAL MOULDINGS. (PLATE III.)
Little need be added to what has already been said about some of the mouldings
shewn in this Plate. The majority of them illustrate the Papers on Great
Chart and High Halden. Others have been included as a contribution to the
study of local mouldings, whereby it is hoped some doubtful questions of date
may ere long be finally settled. Those examples to which a date in figures is
attached are approximately dated by documentary evidence; the dates suggested
for some of the others may require revision.
In writing upon Crayford Churoh in this Volume, I referred to the caps of
the nave-arcades of Dartford as shewing a scroll-and-roll moulding. I was
writing from memory, and the cymagram which has just been taken for mo by
one of the school-teaohers (Mr. P. Bell) shews that the description is somewhat
inaccurate. The aroades, however, are associated with work which undoubtedly
is late-Deoorated, and, if Canon Scott Robertson's date for them is even
approximately correot,f the capital is interesting as an example of the early
debasement of the true soroll-and-roll moulding and the early introduction of
the bevelled top in the abacus, and thus it would afford confirmation of the early
date (middle fourteenth-century) which in this Paper I have ventured to assign
to the arcades of Great Chart. The form of the capitals at Great Chart
(No. 13; see also PLATE II.), almost always associated with some form of bellbase,
is very common in Kentish churches, and very possibly it may eventually
prove to be a fact that caps of this form originated at works connected with
some Kentish-rag quarry, and that they were supplied with very little variation
in form to all parts of the county throughout a prolonged period.! The
question would be settled if we could organize a systematio collection of caref ully-
* See the mouldings in PLATE III.
t Canon Scott Robertson, in Archceologia Cantiana, Vol. XVIII., p. 384,
expressed an opinion that " the whole work seems to have been completed by the
year 1333."
X The example from Wateringbury (No. 9) shews a later variation.
118 GREAT CHART CHURCH.
measured sections, taken either with the oymagraph or with strips of lead in
the way suggested hy the late P. A. Paley in his Gothic Moldings.
The group from Ashford is interesting as shewing the evolution of the bell
and cushion base and allied forms, of which the early fourteenth-century base at
Horsmonden (No. 30) suggests the initial conception.
No. 6, from Maidstone, shews an early example of the fully-developed hell
and cushion base, of which Nos. 4 and 16 prove the use nearly a century later.
The Maidstone sections, Nos. 6 and 6A, which are worked in Caen-stone,
shew the contemporaneous use of the scroll-moulding and a debased form of
scroll in the same building, even in the same capital, e.g., in the abacus and the
necking in No. 6. Kentish rag is the material of most of the other examples.
Recurring to the subject of the working of stones in the quarry, reference
may be made to a fabric roll of Rochester Castle, dated 136g-$, and printed in
Archceologia Cantiana, Vol. II., p. I l l et seq. Mention is therein made of
free-stone from Beer, Caen, Stapleton, Reigate, and Pairlight; of rag from Maidstone
; and of a large quantity of wrought stone from Boughton Monchelsea.
It appears that this last-named stone was ready-wrought at the quarries before
being taken to Rochester. It was used for newels, coping-stones, drip-stones,
strings, cornices, base-courses, and other like purposes. The free-stone in this
case appears to have been worked at the Castle. But in our country churches in
some districts comparatively little free-stone was used in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries, and I doubt not that much of the stone for windows, doors,
and arches was worked at the quarries at Boughton Monchelsea, East Parleigh,
and other places near Maidstone. Perhaps a collection of masons' marks, as
well as of mouldings, would throw some light on the subjeot. But the investigation
suggested would not be confined to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries,
or to the use of Kentish rag only. I have myself noticed interesting relationship
of work and workmen in two instances. The Church of Horton Kirby was
undoubtedly built by the same masons as the choir of Roohester Cathedral,
using the same moulds and the same kind of stone, early in the thirteenth
century; and there are parts of the ohurches of High Halden, Goudhurst,
and Horsmonden which were all designed by one man, and erected with stone
from one quarry, early in the fourteenth century.
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