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The Wooden Church of St. Andrew at Greensted, Essex

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2011

Håkon Christie ,
Olaf Olsen  and
H. M. Taylor
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Summary

The surviving wooden fabric of the nave at Greensted has no direct analogues in standing buildings either in England or on the Continent; but excavations have shown evidence for the former existence in both places of buildings with walls of upright logs, some set on sills and some fixed directly in the ground without any sill. Excavation at Greensted in 1960 indicated that the original chancel (and therefore probably also the nave) was of the earth-fast type, for which analogues have been found by excavation in Scandinavia.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 59 , Issue 1 , March 1979 , pp. 92 - 112
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1979

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References

Notes

1 Møller, Elna and Olsen, Olaf, ‘Danske traekirker’, Nationalmuseets Arbejdsmark (1961), pp. 35–58Google Scholar; Christie, Håkon, ‘Urnes stavkirkes forl’, Årbok for Foreningen til Norske Fortidsminnesmerkers bevaring (1958), 49–74.Google Scholar

2 Lethieul lier's drawings and extracts from his letter were published by the Society of Antiquaries (Vetusta Monumenta, II (London, 1789), pl. 7).Google Scholar The drawings were republished in V.C.H. Essex, IV (London, 1956), pp. 60–2.Google Scholar The text of the letter was published in greater detail, but without the drawings, in The Builder, LXXXVII (8 October 1904), 351.Google Scholar The letter is preserved in the British Museum (Stowe MS. 754, fo. 42). The earliest authority for the returning of St. Edmund's body in 1013 from London to Norfolk was written about the end of the eleventh century. It does not record that the body rested in a wooden chapel near Ongar: Hermann ‘De miraculis Sancti Edmundi’ in Memorials of St. Edmund's Abbey, ed. Arnold, T. (Rolls Series, 96, I) (London, 1890), pp. 40–5.Google Scholar

3 British Museum, Add. MSS. 36,362, fos. 49 and 50; 36,434, fo. 173.

4 Weale's Quarterly Papers, III (1845), 4–7.Google Scholar

5 Barlow, J., The Builder, VII (1849), 45 and 115.Google Scholar

6 Ray, P. W., The History of Greensted Church (Ongar, 1869).Google Scholar For a copy of Ray's drawing see M., H. and Taylor, Joan, Anglo-Saxon Architecture (Cambridge, 1965), p. 263.Google Scholar

7 In some places the space between the planks is large enough to allow us to see the base of the groove (for example in plank 23 of the north wall). Here shallow holes, about 10–15 cm. apart, have been observed. The holes were drilled with a bit about 2 cm. in diameter. The sides of the groove are fairly rough-hewn, with traces of an adze having been used. Thus when the grooves were made, a number of holes were first drilled into the side of the plank, then the wood between the holes was cut away, and the sides were tooled with an adze. The grooves in the planks of Norwegian stave churches were made in the same way.

8 Five of the planks of the south wall have also been cut down somewhat at the head, so that only the lower part of the splay remains. All the other original planks of the side walls retain the splay uncurtailed. A similar treatment of wall planks occurs in Scandinavian stave churches, see Ekhoff, Emil, Svenska Stavkyrkor (Stockholm, 1914–1916), and pl. xxxb, which shows the planks of Hemse church on Gotland.Google Scholar

9 Some of the wall planks have a slight external bevel at the foot. This might be interpreted as representing a splay also at the foot, most of which disappeared when the planks were cut and set on their present sills. However, the quality of the hewing of the bevelled surfaces shows them to be secondary. Moreover a couple of planks have holes from an attack by insects, and it is clear that the bevelled edge was cut after the insect attack.

10 A similar slight bevel of the interior wall face, immediately below the wall plate, may also be observed in Norwegian stave churches.

11 Large holes have been drilled right through this plank, about 40 cm. apart, along its entire length. Broken or cut wooden pegs remain in these holes. They may have been driven in from the west, to serve as a foothold for those who climbed up into the tower; in that case, they must have been installed after the plank had been placed in its present position as part of the wall, but before the present tower stairs were built.

12 Dietrichson, L., De Norske Stavkirker (Kristiania, 1892), pp. 155 ff.Google Scholar

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14 Ekhoff, E., Svenska Stavkyrkor (Stockholm, 1914–1916), pp. 66–70.Google Scholar

15 The name ‘stave’ church is apt to lead to confusion because of the different meanings of the word stav in the otherwise closely related Scandinavian languages. In Norway the stav is the solid corner post (Danish stolpe) while the Danish and Swedish stav is one of the upright planks of the walls (Norwegian planke). The German Stab follows the Danish and Swedish meaning. As the wooden churches from medieval Norway contain both features, all Scandinavians will agree that they are stave churches; but some south Scandinavian wooden churches have no special corner posts (e.g. the churches in Lund mentioned below), and in Norwegian terminology those build ings are ‘palisade churches’.

16 See contributions by Håkon Christie and Hans-Emil Lidén in Årbok for Foreningen til Norske Fortidsminnesmerkers bevaring (1958) for Urnes, (1961) for Kinsarvik, (1968) for Kaupanger; in Med. Arch, x (1967) for St. Maria Oslo; and in Norwegian Archaeological Review, ii (1969) for Maere.

17 Emil Ekhoff, op. cit., pp. 148–78.

18 Blomquist, Ragnar and Martensson, A. W. ‘Thulegrävningen 1961’, Archaeologica Lundensia, II (1963), 16–42.Google Scholar

19 Elna Møller and Olaf Olsen, op. cit., pp. 48. The basilican layout of the Lund churches as suggested by Roar Hauglid in several works (most recently Acta Archaeologica, XLIII (1972), 43) is improbable, because the internal posts do not stand in straight lines.Google Scholar

20 For example, Snoldelev; see Møller and Olsen, op. cit., p. 44.

21 Clemmensen, Mogens, Bulhuse: Studier over gammel dansk Traebygningskunst, I (Copenhagen, 1937), p. 260.Google Scholar

22 Emil Ekhoff, op. cit., pp. 71–128.

23 Mogens Clemmensen, op. cit., p. 262.

24 Lagerlöf, Erland, ‘Var den medeltida träkyrkan fran Eke en stavkyrka?’, Gotländsk Arkiv (1973), pp. 29–42.Google Scholar

25 Emil Ekhoff, op. cit., pp. 215–34.

26 Binding, Günther, ‘Niederrheinische Holzkirchen auf Schwellbalken’, Bonner Jahrbücher, CLXX (1970), 277–88 (with a good bibliography).Google Scholar

27 Fehring, Günther P., ‘Die Stellung des frühmittelalterlichen Holzkirchenbaues in der Architekturgeschichte’, Jahrbuch des Römisch-Germanischen Zentralmuseums, Mainz (1967), 179–97.Google Scholar

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29 A survey of the continental ‘stave’ planks is given by Müller-Wille, M., ‘Eine Niederungsburg bei Haus Meer’, Rheinische Ausgrabungen, I (Kïln-Graz, 1968), 38 ff.Google Scholar

30 Asses's Life of King Alfred, ed. Stevenson, W. H. (London, 1904)Google Scholar, para. 92; and William of Malmesbury, Gesta Pontificum, ed. Hamilton, N. E. S. A. (Rolls Series, 52) (London, 1870), p. 199.Google Scholar

31 Memorials of St. Edmund's Abbey, ed. Arnold, T. (Rolls Series, 96) (London, 1890–1896), p. 19.Google Scholar

32 Whitelock, D., ed., English Historical Documents, I (London, 1955), p. 545.Google Scholar

33 Vita Ædwardi Regis, attributed to a monk of St Bertin, ed. and tr. Barker, F. (London, 1962), p. 46. On p. xxvii the editor gives reasons for believing that the text relevant to Wilton was completed by 1065–6.Google Scholar

34 Willmart, A., ‘Le légende de St. Edith par le moine Gocelin’, Analecta Bollandia, LVI (1938), 86–7.Google Scholar

35 Davey, N., ‘A pre-Conquest church and baptistery at Potterne’, Wilts. Archaeol. Magazine, LIX (1964), 116–23.Google Scholar

36 The excavations by Davison, B. K. and Mackay, R. are reported in ‘Medieval Britain in 1970’, Med. Arch, xv (1971), 130–1.Google Scholar

37 Rigold, S. E., ‘The Anglian Cathedral of North Elmham’, Med. Arch., VI–VII (1962–1963), 67–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38 Hurst, J. H., ‘Wharram Percy, St. Martin's church’, in The Archaeological Study of Churches, eds. Addyman, P. V. and Morris, R. K. (London, 1976), pp. 36–9.Google Scholar

39 M., H. and Taylor, Joan, Anglo-Saxon Arckilecture (Cambridge, 1965), p. 263.Google Scholar