The Northumbrian church project: Anglo-Saxon churches

St Andrew's Church*, Bywell

We have recently begun a project to visit old churches in Northumbria; starting by getting suggestions from a little book by the legend that was Stan Beckesall ; backed-up by a copy of "Pevsner" for Northumberland; plus whatever booklets or leaflets we find in the churches we visit.  

Several of these churches, I have visited before; but they are well worth seeing again! This time we are spending about an hour per church on locating - and trying to understand - the architectural features. 

We began with several churches that contain Anglo-Saxon features; and Bywell St Andrew's (illustrated above) has an exceptionally well preserved tower from that era. 

I am, for the first time, beginning to learn and recognize the distinctions - and gradations - between Anglo-Saxon, Norman (c1066 to middle-late 1100s) and Early English (late 1100s to late 1200s). 

Naturally, there is a technological trajectory; with older churches being simpler in construction, visibly cruder in shaping and selection of the stones, and later churches having innovations such as buttresses to stop the walls bulging/ collapsing, multi-stone round arches instead of single stone lintels over doors; then (with Early English) pointed arches (enabling greater height for the same width of supports). 

The evil Normans must be acknowledged as great builders; and their rapid impact on architecture is very evident. I now recognize at a glance the typical EE "lancet" windows - tall and narrow, often paired, usually deep set on the inside.

However, there is always a special excitement of finding Anglo-Saxon features, maybe a font for baptisms - chiselled from a single block, a lintel shaped into a slight arch, or even just a few irregular stones at the corners ("long and short" quoins):

* My new knowledge of church architecture would lead me to recognize that the lowest window in the tower - the long thin, "lancet" with a pointed top - was inserted later. This is because such windows were not done in A-S times, and are usually a feature of the Early English style; also the disturbance to the horizontal lines of the stonework can be seen. However, the window is not genuine Early English, but a later pastiche.

+++

Today we visited St Mary's, Corbridge which is mostly Early English, filled (it seems) with aisles of pointed arches; 

...and with an actual Roman (not Roman-esque) arch, later inserted into the A-S tower; having been scavenged by the medieval masons from the nearby Roman town of Corstopitum/ Coria.