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V.—Deerhurst Priory Church: including the result of the excavations conducted during 1926

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 July 2011

W.H. Knowles
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Extract

The priory church of Deerhurst is situated on the northern boundary of Gloucestershire, two miles south of Tewkesbury. It stands within 250 yds. of the river Severn, on low land still liable to flood. The village is part of a strip of country bounded on the west by the Severn and on the east by a road, both of which afford direct communication between the cities of Gloucester and Worcester. Nearer the river was an ancient trackway between these places, passing through Deerhurst and Tewkesbury. Malvern Chase extended from the right bank of the river to the hills beyond. Deerhurst lay in that division of the kingdom of Mercia known as the land of the Hwiccas, which included a considerable tract of country now forming part of the counties of Worcester, Gloucester, and Warwick.

Type
Research Article
Information
Archaeologia , Volume 77 , 1928 , pp. 141 - 164
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1928

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References

page 141 note 1 Dugdale, Mon. i, 591, no. xxiii.

page 141 note 2 Smaller conventual houses occur at Evesham, Pershore, Ripple, Tewkesbury, Gloucester, Winchcombe, and Bredon.

page 141 note 3 Bristol and Glouc. Trans., xviii, 125.

page 141 note 4 Ælfheah, , Dictionary Nat. Biography, i, 150.Google Scholar

page 141 note 5 Doublet, Histoire de l' Abbaye de Saint-Denis, 839.

page 142 note 1 Dom. Bk. (Rec. Com.), 166 [V. C. H.]. ‘Alone among the churches of Gloucestershire it [Deerhurst] had been powerful enough to collect all its estates into a single hundred, and to call that hundred by its own name.’ The share which the Confessor gave to Westminster equalled 59 hides: that of Deerhurst (St. Denys) 64½ hides, with a modern acreage of 16,015 and income £30. Bristol and Glouc. Trans., xxv, 232.

page 145 note 1 I removed the plaster at the point ‘C’ (fig. 1) to ascertain if the porch were first built of the oblong shape, or only of the size of the eastern section, but found no straight joint in the masonry.

page 146 note 1 Deerhurst: A parish of the Vale of Gloucester, by the Rev. Geo. Butterworth, ed. 1887, p. 42, who remarks: ‘This ornament [beasts' heads] I ought to observe, as one who sanctioned the present arrangement, is not in its original position.’

page 148 note 1 Mr. J. T. Micklethwaite, in his excellent paper on ‘Something about Saxon Church Building’ (Arch. Journ., liii, 293), suggests that doors in this position opened on to chambers built against the tower. At Monkwearmouth there is much to support this assumption; but at Barnack and Earls Barton openings occur on all sides and at several levels, and could not have been intended for communication with buildings. Moreover, the strangely ambitious effort at decoration covering the wall surfaces at these places is inconsistent with the idea that the achievement was so enclosed. At Deerhurst Mr. Micklethwaite indicates a baptistry at the west end, but I probed the area and did not find a single stone to warrant the suggestion. Furthermore, the character of the details on the west side of the tower are appropriate only to an external elevation. The upper door-opening might very fittingly be used for ventilation, the windows of the church being small and unopenable, and it would also be convenient for the admission of articles.

page 149 note 1 G. Butterworth, Deerhurst: A parish of the Vale of Gloucester, ed. 1887, op. cit., p. 51. He also mentions (p. 48) that ‘Apparent fragments of this arch were found (1861) in the high archway formed in the south wall of the quire, and also (I believe) in doorways then, but not now, entirely blocked up’.

page 149 note 2 The nave walls were pierced for the arcade of three bays in the early thirteenth century (figs, 1 and 10).

page 152 note 1 At ‘A’ (fig. 1) is a partial straight joint in the thicker and later walling. Mr. Butterworth further records foundations at ‘B’, both I think post-Conquest, but which may be mentioned in connexion with the series of chambers, not an aisle, discovered at Reculver.

page 153 note 1 The quire must have been dependent for its light on the presbytery windows, aided by that transmitted through the large openings over the side chapels.

page 153 note 2 Depicted within a gable in S. Lysons, Collection of Gloucestershire Antiquities, published 1803.

page 156 note 1 During the fifteenth century the nave was re-roofed and the clerestory and other windows added. Parallel to and at 16 ft. from the east gable there were slight foundations, and on either side of the square bay of the apse the marks of a lean-to roof over a two-storied building, the groove for the junction of the roof on the south side being cut across the angel panel. In the masonry, at 5 ft. above the floor-level, is a narrow loop with a wooden lintel, and thinly plastered splayed jambs to the apse, possibly of the date (early seventeenth century) of the quire seating of Puritan arrangement (fig. 1). Mr. M. H. Bloxham, Gothic Ecclesiastical Architecture, iii, 174, writing in 1882, says: ‘Many years ago I noted that the slab, or table properly so called, is loose, it is not placed north and south, but stands with the ends facing east and west, in the middle of the Chancel.’

page 156 note 2 Brown, G. Baldwin, The Arts in Early England, ii, 218–19 note, 1925 ed.Google Scholar

page 158 note 1 Sir Henry Dryden's plan of Brixworth in Assoc. Arch. Soc. Reports for 1890, p. 350.

page 158 note 2 R.C.H.M. Buckinghamshire (North), p. 332.

page 158 note 3 Lefèvre-Pontalis, E., L'église romane de Civaux (Vienne) et son abside Carolingienne’, in the Bulletin Monumental, lxxvii (1913), 379Google Scholar. A Carolingian polygonal apse was rare, but the elongated semicircular apse was common, as may be seen on the plans of Saint-Riquier, Saint-Martin Angers, and Saint-Philibert de Grandlieu referred to below.

page 158 note 4 Archaeol. Journal, xlix, 507–10.

page 159 note 1 At Brixworth, as at Deerhurst, the angle pilasters are ridged or angular, following the plan of the contiguous bays (fig. 16).

page 159 note 2 Mr.Peers, C. R. in Antiq. Journ., vi (1926), 211Google Scholar.

page 159 note 3 Lombardic Architecture (Eng. ed.), ii, 172.

page 160 note 1 Mr. Butterworth writing in 1887, says: ‘Beneath the surface it occupied [the north adjunct], a large number of human bones were discovered, when, fifty years ago, the place was disturbed in the interests of farm buildings.’ During the present excavations, human and bovine bones were found within the apse near the north wall: specimens were forwarded by Dr. R. W. Murray of Churchdown to Sir Arthur Keith, F.R.S., who kindly reported: ‘The part of a skull is that of the long-headed Saxon type, and the thigh bone that of a man about 5 ft. 8 in. in height. The human bones are probably of medieval date, but whether pre-Norman or post-Norman no definite opinion can be expressed owing to the scarcity of material.’ Outside the apse to the east of the northern adjunct, at about 2 ft. from the surface, a skull and several limb bones were found on which Sir Arthur remarks: ‘It belonged to a young man with a very narrow long head and very narrow long face. The wisdom tooth had not been cut. The shape of the face has a very modern appearance.’

page 161 note 1 Inserted in the mid-wall of the tower at the restoration of 1861. The arch of the east (nave gable) opening springs from an impost, the west (external) opening was altered to receive the fifteenth-century door.

page 162 note 1 Brown, G. Baldwin, The Arts in Early England, ii, 212Google Scholar, and Archaeol. Journ., lxxviii, pl. iii, p. 436.

page 162 note 2 Brown, G. Baldwin, The Arts in Early England, ii, 274.Google Scholar

page 164 note 1 Durand, Georges, ‘Saint-Riquier’, in La Picardie historique et monumentale, vol. iv (1911), pp. 133 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 164 note 2 de Lasteyrie, R., L'Architecture religieuse en France à l'époque romane (Paris, 1912), 147–9Google Scholar.

page 164 note 3 de Lasteyrie, R., ‘L'Église de Saint Philibert-de-Grandlieu’ in the Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, vol. xxxviii (1919)Google Scholar.