374 



t^fje cSavoii Cljurcfj nt §vaMort=oii^§^bon.' 



By Rev. H. J. Dukinfield Astley, M.A., Litt. D., F.R. Hist. S., F.R.S.L. 



The town of Brad ford -on -Avon is one of those of which numerous 

 examples are to be found in our country, which, flourishing in the 

 past, only retains to-day the shadow of its former importance. In 

 the Middle Ages it was the centre of a great sheep-farming district, 

 and, in consequence of the abundance of water (which was then a 

 chief source of power, as it is likely again to become through the 

 modern developments of electricity), and of tlie special suitability 

 of that water for dyeing pui'poses, it was, like its neighbour 

 Trowbridge, the seat of the woollen manufactory, and from its 

 looms came those " broadcloths " which made England famous 

 throughout the world. 



For us, however, it has other interests that take us back to the 

 days of the old West Saxon Kingdom, and the first establishment 

 of Christianity in the realm of Cerdic. This arises from the dis- 

 covery, some fifty years ago, of the almost perfect remains of the 

 Saxon Church within whose walls we are now standing. The story 

 reads almost like a romance, and was well told by Prebendary 

 Jones, when the British Archreological Association last visited 

 Bradford, on the occasion of the Bristol Congress in 1874." At 

 its first discovery the Church was taken to be the very ecdesiola 

 which William of Malmesbury tells us was founded by Aldhelm, 



* This paper is a reprint of the greater portion of a paper published in the 

 Journal of the British Archcvological Association for December, 1905, 

 pp. 211 — 230. It is there illustrated by five views of the Church : — " From 

 the South-East, " "From the South- West," East Wall of Nave," " Inner 

 Door, North Porch," and "North Porch." For the kind loan of three of 

 these blocks, and for permission to reprint the paper, we are indebted to the 

 Council of the Britisli Archceological Association. 



^ Journal of the British Archaeological Association, vol. xxxi., pp. 143 — 152, 

 and p. 326, where the visit on that occasion is described. 



