A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



mission sent by Archbishop Abbot, 4 November, 

 1629, also dealing with the palace.' 



The detailed description of the buildings may fit- 

 tingly begin with the Saxon church, the lower parts 

 of the walls of which are yet to be seen under the 

 floor of the south transept, built of roughly squared 

 Barnacle stone, and meant to be plastered inside and 

 out, a good deal of the internal plaster still remaining. 

 The plan shows a presbytery 23 ft. wide by 22 ft. 

 with transepts 34 ft. east to west by 31 ft. north to 

 south, the responds at the west end of the presbytery 

 being destroyed. At the east end are the foundations 

 of the east arcade of the 1 2th-centur)' transept, and no 

 remains of an apsidal end to the Saxon church have 

 been found, though such may have existed.* 



Of the nave nothing certain is known, though a 

 small piece of wall found under the east walk of the 

 cloister may have been part of it. Traces of two 

 walls were found running southwards from the south 

 transept, which must have belonged to the eastern 

 range of the Saxon cloister. The plan, as far as it 

 is allowable to base an argument on what remains, 

 seems to point rather to an early Saxon date than a 

 late one, as it is not suitable for a central tower, which, 

 on the analogy of other large churches of the loth 

 and nth centuries, should have been found here, if 

 the existing remains were part of a new building of 

 970 or thereabout. If the transepts had eastern aisles 

 a case might be made out for the later date, as the 

 pl.in would adapt itself to a central tower ; but there 

 are no traces of such aisles, and what historical evidence 

 we possess goes to show that the tower, which cer- 

 tainly existed, was at the west end of the church. It 

 seems to have been an addition of the llth 

 century and cannot have formed part of the first 

 church.' The dimensions of the nave and its aisles, if 

 it had any, are unknown, and Mr. Micklethwaite's 

 excavations in the cloister in 1894 revealed nothing 

 decisive.* 



Along the east wall of the north transept runs a 

 low plastered stone bench, and in the south transept 

 is a short length of what may be a similar bench — so 

 short, however, that it has been taken for the base of an 

 altar. Towards the east end of the presbytery are 

 traces of the foundations of two steps. 



Two floors were found in the building, the lower 

 of plaster, the upper of clay, and it is to be noted that 

 the stone seat of an abbot's chair ' was found in the 

 presbytery embedded in the upper floor, and resting 

 on the lower.* It is tempting to connect these two 

 floors with the first and second churches, but proof of 

 this is not obtainable. 



The great 12th-century church, as first designed, 

 had an eastern arm of four bays with north and south 

 aisles, the main span ending at the east in an apse, 

 while the aisles were apsidal inside and square outside ; 

 north and south transepts with eastern aisles, central 

 tower, and nave of nine bays with north and south 

 aisles, and western towers over the last bays of the 

 aisles. The existing west side of the cloister was 



built before the present church was begun, and its 

 position would no doubt to some extent influence the 

 setting out of the building. 



Apart from the documentary records there are 

 many evidences in the building itself that its growth was 

 both slow and intermittent. It was necessary not to 

 encroach at first on the site of the old church, as the 

 daily services had still to be carried on there, and the 

 position of the new church was influenced by this, 

 while at the same time its plan had to be made to suit 

 the cloister buildings which were then nearly new. 

 This work was begun in 1 1 17 or 1 1 18, under Abbot 

 John de Seez. On his death in 1 125 the monastery 

 remained in the king's hands till 1 128, when Henry 

 de Angeli was elected, and of him it is recorded that 

 he did nothing for the building. Consequently a 

 break in the work probably took place after it had 

 been in progress for seven or eight years, and it may 

 have been of some length, as Abbot Henry was in 

 office till 1 133. 



Martin de Bee, 1 133-55, '°°'' '^P '^^ W'ork again, 

 and by 1 140 or 1 143 the eastern arm was far enough 

 advanced to be used. So that, taking the least num- 

 ber of years, the history of the beginning of the church 

 falls into three periods of seven years each, during the 

 second of which nothing was done. It must be 

 remembered, however, that the end of the third period 

 only marks a stage in the building, and not a pause in 

 the work, which went on for another fifteen years 

 without interruption. After 1 140 (or 1143), when 

 the new church was fit for services, there would 

 be no reason to keep the remains of the old church 

 standing any longer ; and as the cloister was on the 

 south side of the church, this side would naturally 

 be undertaken before the north, to avoid the incon- 

 venience of having the cloister in an unfinished state 

 any longer than necessary. 



Turning to the church itself, it is clear that the 

 general design, as set out in 11 17 by John de Sdez, 

 was carried out as far as the second bay of the nave, 

 the only variations from it being in matters of detail. 



The eastern arm or presbytery is of four bays, with 

 a slightly stilted apse at the east. The main arcades 

 have semicircular arches of two orders with rolls at the 

 angles and a torus on the soffit of the inner order, and 

 labels with the billet moulding. The three piers on 

 each side are sixteen-sided, circular, and octagonal 

 respectively. Each has an attached half-shaft on the 

 inner face, i.e. towards the main span, and the 

 capitals, which are simple cushions, or in a few cases 

 scalloped, are subdivided to take the two orders of the 

 arches, the shaft on the inner face, and the transverse and 

 diagonal ribs of the aisle vaults. Above the main 

 arcade runs a string with a double row of zigzag. 

 The shaft on the inner face starts anew from a base 

 resting on the abacus of the capital of the main arcade, 

 and is carried up to the roof. 



The logical use of these shafts is to take the trans- 

 verse arches of a vault over the main span, but they 

 occur here, as elsewhere in England, in a building 



^ Cott. Vesp. A, xxiv contains ac- 

 counts with incidental references to 

 the monastic buildings, and would be well 

 worth careful transcribing. The accounts 

 run from 1448 to 1465. 



' Graves said to be of Saxon date were 

 found by Mr. Irvine just east of the 

 arcade, but their date seems open to doubt, 

 and they cannot be taken as decisive evi- 

 dence against an apsidal end. 



» A.S. Chron. D. (Tib. B, iv), 1059. In 

 this year was the steeple hallowed at 

 Burh on 16 K.al. Nov. 



■* For a conjectural restoration of the 

 plan of the nave of this church, see a 

 paper by Mr. Miclclethwaite in Arch, 

 yourn, liii, 303. An excavation in the 

 south aisle of the present nave would 

 most likely reveal the Saxon north 

 wall. 



47-t 



' So identified by Mr. Micklethwaite. 



* There are a few pieces of archi- 

 tectural detail belonging to the Saxon 

 church in the south triforium of the pres- 

 bytery and in the New Building, among 

 them pieces of door or window heads 

 with a rib worked on them, and a capi- 

 tal, apparently belonging to a midwall 

 shaft. 



