Repton's Saxon crypt

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The main building material of the Anglo-Saxons was wood, mud and turf. Consequently few of their buildings have survived. However, important buildings, particularly those associated with the church, were built in stone. These often copied, in a debased, rather crude way, the Byzantine influenced buildings of Southern Europe, sometimes with details that echoed in stone the decorative forms that they incorporated in their timber structures. Whole Anglo-Saxon churches are rare in Britain but churches with parts that date from this period are relatively easy to find. Often its a tower that survives, or perhaps a doorway or window, sometimes it is part of a lower wall. Sculpture and crosses are not uncommon.

We recently visited the church of St Wystan at Repton in Derbyshire. Here the chancel, part of a transept and some walling around the crossing survive from the Anglo-Saxon period. However, the most remarkable and interesting survival is the crypt. Repton is today a small settlement but in the eighth and ninth centuries it had a double monastery and was sufficiently important to be the burial place of three Mercian kings.There is some argument over the age of the crypt but it may well date from that period i.e.the 700s or 800s AD.

The four columns and pilasters that support the domical vaulting show crude bases and capitals with spiral and other decoration copied from classical and Byzantine precedents. The builders may have seen continental European examples or travelled in the Mediterranean region. On the other hand they may have based their work on drawings they had seen. Interestingly, for centuries the crypt was unknown. It was rediscovered in 1779 when a workman who was digging a hole for a grave in the chancel floor broke through into the space below! Today it is open to the public and to descend the stairs into the columned space makes for an evocative experience.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 12mm (24mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/15 sec
ISO:6400
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Saxon architecture

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There are 238 churches in England with traces or substantial parts that are of Anglo-Saxon, that is to say pre-Conquest, origin. The Saxons were fine sculptors and illustrators who gave primacy to the line above all else. They were a people who built mainly in wood and for this reason none of their houses have survived. Many of their churches were made of wood too, and of these only one example remains, at Greensted, near Ongar, in Essex. However, they did build churches in stone. Some, such as that at Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire, is as it was first built. Most of the others have been enlarged during the Norman or the Gothic periods.

The church at Barton upon Humber, Lincolnshire, was originally a small Saxon building of the late 900s. It consisted of three parts: a western porticus/baptistery, a 22 feet by 22feet (exterior measurements) tower that served as a nave, and a chancel 15 feet long. This was extended in the mid-eleventh century and the twelfth century, but this later work was taken down when a larger extension was built in the thirteenth, mid-fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. What is surprising, but not unique, is the fact that the original Saxon work was allowed to remain. Perhaps it was because the tower continued to serve its purpose and the cost and difficulty of replacing it couldn't be countenanced.

A visitor to the church today is struck by the bright, airy space of the Gothic nave, aisles and chancel compared with the diminutive, badly lit spaces of the Saxon structure. The quality of workmanship and the contrast between the amount and style of decoration is also marked: the Saxon looks positively crude next to the Gothic. And yet, this crudity has an elemental sturdiness that is quite appealing. Capitals are not elaborately carved and decorated with faces and leaves as in the Gothic nave, rather they are simple, heavy blocks. The arches - above we see the one linking the tower with the porticus/baptistery - are narrow due to the semi-circular head and the understandable caution the Saxon builders exercised when spanning spaces in this way. But decoration of a sort there is. Those outer strips that frame the arch using alternating long and short strips of stone (often called, appropriately enough, "long and short work") are decorative with no structural purpose. It has been conjectured that these strips (they are visible on the outside of the tower too) hark back to the Saxons' wooden constructions.

This building is now in the care of English Heritage and it is their lighting that drew me into taking the photograph. Its brightness is necessary to allow visitors to safely negotiate the dimly lit spaces. However, it is sufficiently subdued that it both gives something of the effect there must have been when the Saxon church was lit by candles or tallow lamps, and also offers the photographer an attractive, contrasty, atmospheric composition.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 12.5mm (34mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/30
ISO: 800
Exposure Compensation:  0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Greensted Church, a wooden survivor

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Architectural historians the length and breadth of Britain know of Greensted church in Essex. I've been familiar with it through books for thirty odd years, but only got to visit it a few days ago. What makes this church so famous (if any parish church can be said to be so)? Well, it is the only surviving example in Britain of a type that in Saxon times was widespread - the log church.

The nave walls of Greensted church are made of 51 oak logs cut lengthwise. Grooves in the sides of the logs took long tongues of wood that sealed any gaps. The logs had tenons at the base to slot into a wooden sill (now replaced with a brick wall due to rot). At the corner of the wall, where it turns towards the timber spire, a log with a quarter section removed was used. Only one of these remains today. Dendrochronology shows that these wooden walls were erected between 1063 and 1100. This makes them Saxo-Norman in architectural terms. Inside the church the flat sides of the logs form the wall surface. In fact, like many Essex churches (an area of little good building stone) much of this building is made of timber and like almost all old parish churches it has been altered several times down the centuries. The brick chancel is early sixteenth century, the weatherboarded west tower is probably eighteenth century, and the nave roof and south porch are Victorian.

Greensted church is a remarkable survivor, not only the sole remaining representative of the log churches, but also the oldest standing timber building in the country (and Europe according to the church guide). I broke off my recent journey to London to take in Greensted, and was fortunate to arrive when the late afternoon sun was showing through the cloud. At that time of day a church with a west tower is best photographed from the south west to avoid glare and too much shadow on the building. For the first shot I placed myself as far back as the churchyard boundary and trees would allow. The second shot, showing the north side, was much easier to get.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Photo 1 (Photo 2)
Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 11mm (22mm/35mm equiv.) (17mm (34mm/35mm equiv.))
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/500 (1/250)
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 (-0.3) EV
Image Stabilisation: On