Letters to the Editor, Winter 2003/4
Dear Editor
Kent Churches
I do not wish to prolong the debate on church surveys but I must again comment on a statement by Alan Ward, in his letter in the last issue. He talks of white-washing over a wall painting as ‘destruction’. I think he now concedes that his claim was based solely on hearsay evidence of an event of about twenty years ago; but even if correct, the act of covering, far from destroying the painting, actually safeguards it for the future. This has to be done when paintings are uncovered and if money is not available, either to investigate further, or to embark on a possibly large-scale and expensive programme of conservation. The Canterbury Diocesan Advisory Committee on the Care of Churches (DAC) has recently recommended just such a procedure. There is an obvious parallel in ‘dirt’ archaeology; sites that cannot be fully excavated are recorded and protected, to await further study.
Leslie A Smith
Vice Chairman
Canterbury DAC
Dear Editor
Barfreston Church
I have sometimes been asked, and indeed often wondered myself, how it was that the Romanesque carving on the south portal at Barfreston survived the iconoclasm of the Cromwellian period when so much else in the area was desecrated.
There are a number of pre-restoration engravings showing the chancel at the east end, but I have not yet seen any showing the portal. Hussey’s account of his restoration in Archaeologia Cantiana 16 reports relatively minor restoration of the south portal.
It had been suggested to me that, since the carving on the portal is low relief, it may have been covered in plaster to hide the sculpture from the Puritans. In 1778 Hasted mentions ‘a modern porch’ and does not describe the sculpture. However, I recently came across the Kent volume of ‘Picturesque Beauties of Great Britain’ with drawings by Shepherd and others. Although not dated, the work seems to have been completed in the first quarter of the 19th century. It includes Shepherd’s drawing of the Barfreston chancel from the south dated 1823. The Shepherd drawings are familiar in Kent but I had not seen the text before. A sentence on page 82 reads, ‘The south, or principal entrance opening into the nave, is most richly ornamented with figures: but a great portion of it is now obscured from view by a brick porch, so injudiciously constructed as to abut immediately against the sculptures’.
The porch was not mentioned by Glynne, who visited the church before 1810 and most likely about 1830. My tentative conclusion is, therefore, that a porch might have been built to obscure the sculpture on the south portal in order to prevent its destruction. The porch was either removed between 1823 and 1840 (when Hussey visited the church), or may have fallen victim to the subsidence that necessitated Hussey’s thorough restoration. In any event, the sculpture is in unusually good condition and this may be due to the presence of a porch.
Can any reader shed light on the mystery of why the sculpture on the Barfreston door is in such good condition?
Mary Berg
Canterbury