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ARCHITECTURAL NOTES ON KINGSDOWN
CHURCH NEAR SEVENOAKS (S. EDMUND).
BY P. C. ELLISTON ERWOOD.
THE most remarkable feature of this Church is to be found
in the fact that its ground-plan of to-day is almost exactly
that- of the first building erected on the site of which we
have any architectural evidence. Although the evidence
of enlargement is obvious, these additions have now all disappeared;
and by removing in imagination all buttresses,
and, in place of late windows and doors, inserting twelfthcentury
features, we can get an excellent idea of the
twelfth-century Church.
This structure was a plain, aisleless nave, 37 ft. 5 ins.
long and 17 ft. 5 ins. wide, with a chancel 17 ft. 11 ins. long
and 13 ft. 2 ins. wide, dimensions which agree fairly well
with those of similar early buildings. None of the angles
are exactly square, and the chancel has a slight inclination
to the north. At the junction of the nave and chancel on
the south side is a tower, small and irregular on plan but
otherwise striking, approximately 5 ft. 7 ins. from north to
south and 4 ft. 11 ins. from east to west (interior measurements),
11 ft. 0 ins. from east to west with 9 ft. 6 ins.
projection from the nave south wall (exterior measurements).
The walls vary considerably in thickness, the south being
nearly 4 ft. at the window level. Again, none of the angles
are square.
There must have been on the east face of the tower a
small apse similar to that now existing at Godmersham,
and to that, now destroyed, which stood in an analogous
position on the east face of the tower at Bapehild. No
trace of the apse appears at Kingsdown, but on the east face
of the tower is a recess, of early masonry, 5 ft. 10 ins. wide,
11 ft. 8 ins. high, with a circular head of roughly voussoir110
ARCHITECTURAL NOTES ON
shaped flints. This is now blocked to within 6 ins. of the
face of the wall, but the blocking is obviously later, and the
arch is undoubtedly that which formed the so-called arch of
triumph in front of the little apse.
The masonry of the building is noticeable for the
small amount of early ashlar. Only two of the original
windows survive, and the worked stone is of a very
rough character, as is well shewn in the opening in the
tower. Neither window originally had provision for glass.
The rest of the fabric is of the flint rubble common in the
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more isolated parts of Elent, built in fairly regular courses,
and very similar in character to the work in the ruined
church at Maplescombe, now included in the same parish.
I t is to be regretted that the "pointing" of this wall
at the recent restoration has rather over-emphasized this
coursing, destroying much of its early character. Most of
the original quoins of the church are destroyed, but judging
from the character of the tower and the analogy of Maplescombe,
they were also of large flint blocks roughly squared.
The tower, above the buttresses, shews the construction
remarkably, and gives to it an air of even more antiquity
KINGSDOWN CHURCH NEAR SEVENOAKS. Ill
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iU'.-nitiw that at least two arches had been cut through this wall, the
easternmost of which had in its construction damaged the
lower part of the western splay of the aforementioned window.
But as these arches are themselves Norman work, it
is evident that an enlargement of the original church took
place quite early. As to the nature of this enlargement one
account speaks of " three Chapels," but it seems rather
obvious that the addition took the form of a narrow aisle
about 7 ft. wide, and that the vestiges of two arches that
can now be seen on this south wall are the remnants of the
arcade that gave access to the aisle.
KINGSDOWN CHURCH NEAR SEVENOAKS. 113
The aisle itself extended the whole length of the nave up
to the west wall of the tower, on the face of which is the
much decayed weather-mold giving the line of the aisle roof.
I t carries on, more or less, the line of the existing roof,
which is practically of the same pitch as the original. Thus
we have all the features of an early aisle, narrow and under
the same roof as the nave, with a south wall about 7 ft.
high. The weather-mold extends the whole width of the
tower, shewing that the aisle wall and the south face of
the tower were practically in the same line. Of the aisle,
however, no remains of walls exist, the evidence being solely
that of the two arches and the weather-mold.
I t is quite possible that a third arch existed east of the
two already mentioned, but it must have been of smaller
span. Those that are indicated on the plan are about
7 ft. 6 ins. span. There is only room for a third one of
5 or 6 feet span. There are no signs of the west wall of the
tower having been pierced.
Somewhat later, but still before the thirteenth century,
a further enlargement was made by constructing a chapel
on the south side of the chancel, the eastward addition to the
tower being removed. The pointed arch of transitional form,
which led into this chapel, is still visible, blocked up on the
south wall of the chancel. The voussoirs forming it (of
Eeigate stone) are badly deeayed, but the remains which
survive are sufficient to indicate a respond in the wall, flush
with the east face of the tower, and an arch of about 11 ft.
6 ins. span.
Thus by the dawn of the thirteenth century the church
had grown into a nave with a south aisle and a chancel with
a south chapel, and the tower which originally stood free on
three sides was now only free on one—the south.
What occurred next is a matter of conjecture, but the
following points may be noted, viz.:—
1. There is no chancel arch inside the church.
2. The tower has been internally strengthened by
thickening its northern face; filling up the
114 ARCHITECTURAL NOTES ON
south-eastern angle
of the nave
by a mass of masonry
from 1 ft.
6 ins. to 2 ft.
thick.
3. Both east
and west exterior
faces of the tower
shew indications
of a very serious
crack, extending
from the top of
the tower down
(on the east
side) within 13
or 14 feet of the
base. This crack
has been repaired
by inserting very
large flat Sarsen
stones to act as
ties to hold the
north and south
sides of the tower
together.* KINQSDOWN CHURCH—TOWEK EEOM THE S.E.
Shewing: (1) Praeture and method of repair;
I n addition (2) Blooke d aroh of tower-apse, and (3) Trace of
,, . . . ., arcade on south side of chancel,
there is inserted
into the wall a
thirteenth-century doorway, which originally was the porch
(old drawings shew a timber porchway where now is
the modern brick vestry), but which now serves as the vestry
door.
These facts, with the absence of features that have been
* It was the presence of similar flat stones in the west face of the tower,
resembling "long and short work," that gave rise to the suggestion at the
Annual Meeting of a Saxon date for the tower.
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KINGSDOWN CHURCH NEAR SEVENOAKS. 115
proved to have existed at the beginning of the thirteenthcentury,
point then to some serious catastrophe which befel
the building. What it was can only be surmised, but it was
sufficient to rend the tower from top to bottom, to destroy
the aisle and presumably the chapel also. Could it have
been that fearful storm of 1223, which raged from Holy
Rood day to Candlemas (Sept. 14 till Feb. 2), wherein—
" On S* Andrew's Day [Nov. 30] a great Thunder overthrew
Churches, Castles and Houses, so that scarcely anybody
escaped free from harm by the tempest."*
In any case it is a remarkable coincidence that, when the
plaster and cement was being stripped from the east wall of
the tower, a portion of the filling of the blocked arch fell
out, and embedded in the fragments was a silver penny,
temp. King John, described as being in mint condition.
Architectural evidence will certainly lend colour to this
theory. The tower was struck and riven, the recent additions
ruined, and a hasty filling up of the nave arcade, the
chancel chapel arch, and the old " arch of triumph," together
with the building of a new porch, made the church fit for
use again, and incidentally restored the old plan. Tt is on
these deductions that the accompanying plan has been
founded.
In all probability the buttresses on the south side of the
church, especially those at the corner of the tower, are of
thirteenth century date also, but they have been refaced,
and nothing about them is unmistakably ancient.
The remainder of the history of the fabric is exceedingly
brief. It consists of but little more than the insertion of
windows or doorways, and the gradual decay and neglect of
the building until its recent restoration. This could be passed
over except that in the two windows of the fourteenth century
on the north side we have two quatrefoils of beautiful
contemporary stained-glass, which, with the fragments dis-
* Stow Chronicles, ed. 1631, p. 1793 sub anno 1223. It has been suggested
to me that it may have been the great storm of 1287, which among other things
praoticallr destroyed Winohelsea, but this was more in the nature of a series of
inundations.
116 ARCHITECTURAL NOTES ON KlNG'SDOWN CHURCH.
persed throughout the church, bring home the incalculable
loss we have suffered through the wilful destruction or culpable
negligence of the past times. Of these things Kingsdown
has an unfortunate record. Its windows were destroyed,
i ts rood has gone, the ancient font of cylinder type (possibly
contemporary with the church) was cast out, and the registers
were burnt, while even so recently as thirty years ago
a fourteenth-century piscina was ignorantly defaced and
removed.
NOTE T.—The painting of the murder of Abel on the splay of
the little Norman window is interesting, as Cain is depicted slaying
his brother with a jaw-bone, a legend referred to in Hamlet, Act v,
Sc. i, lines 84-5-6 :•—
Samlet ...... how the knave jowls it to the ground, as
if it were Cain's jaw-bone, that did the first
murder.
The costume is that of peasants of the time of the Conquest or
a little later.
The two quatrefoils of painted glass, of the Blessed Virgin Mary
and the Infant Christ, and of Christ displaying His Sacred
"Wounds, are, according to Winston, among the finest pieces of
fourteenth-century glass extant. There is a brief account of this
painted glass in Jour. Brit. Arch. Ass., vol. xiiii., pp. 98,99; while
the mural paintings are dealt with in Arch. Jour., vol. lxvii., p. 89.
NOTE II.—In the plan of Kingsdown Church on p. I l l fourteenth-
century work is indicated by vertical hatching ||||||||, and
fifteenth-century insertions by oblique hatching ///////. These have
been inadvertently omitted from the key.
