ARCHAEOLOGICAL MONITORING REPORT
ARCHAEOLOGICAL MONITORING REPORT SCCAS REPORT No. 2013/124
Parish: Mettingham Planning Application No.: N/A
All Saints Church Mettingham Repairs to the south porch
OASIS No. HER Event No.:
Address:
Grid Reference: Number of Site visits: 1 Date of visits: 11 June 2013
Project Background The gable wall of the porch over the south door of Mettingham Church has been the subject of an emergency repair. The wall had become partly detached and was being pulled away from the rest of the structure by an electricity cable, which was fixed to the apex, being weighed down by the branches of a large, overhanging tree. Wide cracks had appeared at the internal comers of the south end of the porch and the interior plaster had been removed from this end of the building, exposing the main fabric of the wall. The church was inspected by Bob Carr (archaeological advisor to the DAC) and David Gill (SCCAS) in the company of Arthur Paxton, the diocese’s appointed architect responsible for the church’s upkeep. The porch has two distinct phases of build: the original flint with stone dressing that dates to the late medieval period and a more recent brick-built gable that owes its origins to an extensive renovation of the building at the end of the 19th century. The porch feels lofty with an unusual long and narrow appearance; today it is used as the vestry and its proportions and look seem more suited to this function than to that of a porch. The remedial work to repair the structure provided an opportunity to record and analyse this element of the church whilst the interior was partially stripped of plaster. At the time of the visit much of the repair work had already been completed and included extensive excavations to reduce the ground level around the east side of the porch and north side of the aisle.
Historical background A Faculty Licence was granted in 1898 for wholesale repairs to the church. The Faculty
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described the building as being in “a bad state of repair and the seating accommodation is old and inconvenient” the work prescribed included amongst many things the repairing the walls, gables and buttresses, demolishing the vestry at the east end of the north aisle, relaying the roof and the floors and relocating the font. Of the porch the licence granted permission to: …”dig out and form a trench on the South and East of the Church and to lower the pathway and slope off the ground on the West side so as to get one step up into the Porch…………..To relay the floor of the Porch with tiles………and open up the windows in the Tower and the Porch…………..To provide and fix a door in the opening of the South Porch and the execute such other works which may be necessary to carry out the thorough restoration of the Church………….. Plans and specifications which were approved at a Vestry meeting held for the said Parish on the twenty first day of May”.
(Lowestoft Record Office ref 136/E2/) Porch Description The porch extends 4.75m from the south aisle and is 2.1m wide (internally) and 3.15m high to the eaves. It encloses a plain two centre arch door which is quite narrow (0.98m) and appears to be secondary to the larger and ornate Romanesque-style door, which is the main entry, on the north side. The approach from the village, and the only way into the churchyard, is also from the north so that the porch is in effect hidden at the rear; overlooking open countryside and only accessible by walking around the building. Although the gable end was almost completely re-built at the end of the 19th century the porch retained its original footprint and the unusual elongated shape is a re-creation of the former medieval structure. This is demonstrated externally by the survival of one stone quoin at the base each of the southern corners and is confirmed on the inside by the extent of the original medieval roof structure which was maintained during the repairs. Looking at the exterior of the west wall it is immediately obvious that the top right quarter of the wall has been completely rebuilt, largely in brick, as part of the replacement of the gable wall. The repaired section is interspersed with flint and square blocks of limestone which were probably salvaged from the south corners of the porch when the gable wall was knocked down as the stone is a soft fine-grained Caen-type similar to the remaining in-situ quoins at the base of the wall. The repair included the re-setting of the stones on the right side of the window into which fresh and non-original stones oddments were incorporated so that the arch is no longer symmetrical and the point off-centre. There is no evidence of tracery and the faculty indicates that windows were ‘opened up’ as part of
2
the work. The windows are in the same stone as the quoins. The original part of the wall is made from predominately mixed, un-coursed, flint. Large black flints have been used for the lower half the walls with smaller mixed flints and brown sandstone pebbles above. The wall was rendered, first in lime and then cement, which still obscures much of the west wall. The east wall seems to have been spared the cement and most of the lime render no longer survives. The occasional ‘hand-made’ brick has been included in the make up, the bricks are buff-green or red-purple and measure 8¾″x 2¼″ and consistent with late 15th-16th century examples; similar bricks were also incorporated into the south aisle wall. An infilled vertical crack on the east face about 1m away from the junction with the aisle give the false appearance the porch was once shorter. The porch seems to have been built as an addition to the south aisle and was simply butted against it; the projecting plinth at the base of the aisle wall passes behind the jointing faces and is continuous inside the porch At the base of the east wall there is a projecting stepped footing; this should be at or just below ground level but has been exposed by recent excavations to remove soil away from the building, but gives an indication of what the late medieval ground surface once was . On the west side a similar stepped footing was hacked from the face of the wall leaving a scar, this was presumably done at the end of the end of the 19th century when a large are of the graveyard was lowered to create a footpath and the step up to the newly formed porch entrance, as specified in the Faculty. Inside, beneath the 19th century slate and pine boards, the porch retains most of the principal timbers of its medieval roof. Some parts of the roof structure have been renewed but generally it shows no evidence of having been lengthened or altered to fit the porch’s slightly awkward proportions. The roof is a simple arched brace type in three bays, the timber is painted over but thought to be oak, the butt purlins and the trusses are jointed suggesting a medieval date. The trusses are supported on wall posts which terminate with carved stops in the form of doleful-looking heads in a medieval style. There are six heads in three opposing pairs, the ones mid-wall stare straight out at right-angles to the wall whilst the ones at the south end are angled inward befitting their corner place. The south end of the roof structure must have been left suspended in place when the gable wall was built and the heads, particularly the one on the south western corner, are now partly enveloped in the later brickwork. There are no wall posts where the roof joins the outer face of the aisle but jointing in the trusses show that the bay nearest the church
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is part of the original roof design even though all of timbers themselves have been replaced. The internal plaster is painted with a pale blue lime wash; this extends over the brickwork above the door at the gable end and is a 19th century paint scheme. Where the plaster has been stripped away it can be seen that several large pieces of limestone have been built into the later brickwork. These are re-used dressing that once framed openings some are long sectioned suggesting that they might have been part of the original door and some have are linear indentations cut into their surfaces. The indentation are not a decorative moulding but functional, either keying or locating the bars to which the glazing panels were attached.
Analysis The south porch at Mettingham is not typical which raises still unanswered suspicions about what it was originally intended for. The south aisle can be dated internally by the arcade posts that separate it from the nave and the Decorated-style window, immediately east of the porch, to the early 14th century. Subsequent (replacement?) windows were inserted when the aisle was largely re-fenestrated over the course of the 15th century (the original windows being recycled into belfry openings in the tower). The porch seems to have been built as an addition to the south aisle and was simply butted against it rather than integral to its build. This is probably just a technicality of the construction and the porch and aisle are probably contemporary as the south door, built without hood mouldings and un-weathered, seems to have always to have been enclosed. The south door is unlike a main entrance to a church being completely plain and is too narrow (at 98cms) to allow any procession that might require its members to walk twoabreast. It resembles a priest door which enforces the idea that this was one some form of ante-room, but the arrangement of the door, along with the fact it could only be locked from the porch side would indicate that it always was an external door. The door itself is however is not medieval; the thumb-latch lifter is original to the door and would suggest the actual door has a date no earlier than the 17th century. The loss of the medieval gable means that it is impossible to determine if the porch was an adaptation of some other form of cell. The faculty licence refers to the south porch and the fixing of a door into an existing opening so it was already a porch prior to then. The Romanesque door on the north side dates to around the turn of the 12th century and is contemporary with the nave and tower, the earliest parts of the church. The right column and its base are however replacements and the arch voussoirs have been re-set suggesting the door may have been moved. But this is by no means conclusive as the
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door’s setting is very neat and, if it has been let into the wall, it is impossible to see in the surrounding flint work The addition of the aisle in the 14th century would have been at the expense of the nave’s south wall and its door. South doors are normally the main entrance to the nave and therefore more decorated than the northern ones, was this once the south door and does the apparent reversal of the priority of the north and south doors reflect a change in the layout of the village?
Recorded by: David Gill
Date: 20th June 2013
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1) General view of Mettingham Church porch from the south showing the 19th century brick-built gable on the end of the medieval porch.
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2) Excavations through the graveyard around the west and south side of the church to create a hollow path around to the porch door. Permission for this was granted as part of the faculty of 1898.
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3) Carved stone coffin lids dating to12th-13th century attached to the west end of the aisle. These were possibly discovered during the major repairs of 1898 when substantial ground reduction was undertaken in the church yard (above) and inside of the nave to lay a new floor.
4) West wall showing extent of the repair. The stones that once made up the corner quoins are now interspersed amongst the brickwork. The one surviving in-situ stone quoin can be seen at the base of the brickwork on the right.
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5) Surviving medieval quoin and flint work at the base of the gable. The ground has been reduced exposing the footings.
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6) Gravestone alongside the SE corner of the porch showing the depth of soil removed from against the south of the church (also see Pl.7). The grave dates from the 18th century and predates the revision to the gable wall.
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7) General view of the east side of the porch and the excavations on the north side of the church. There appears to be a join in the fabric about 1m to the left of the scale which gives the impression that the porch has been extended; this is misleading and it is simply a repaired crack.
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8) View of the south side of the church. The window immediately to the right of the porch dates the addition of the south aisle to first half of 14th century. The other window is late 14th-15th century and similar to the inserted window at the bottom of the tower; the window in the aisle end walls are later still (late C15-16th) and attest to how much it has been revised. The south aisle has been rendered to the east of porch obscuring any details.
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9 and 10) Interior views of the porch showing the south gable (8) and the door to the south aisle (9). Both doors are slightly off-centre to the porch and the plain gothic ‘main’ door to the church is quite modest. The light blue lime-wash decoration post-dates the 1898 building work.
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11) The stripped plaster shows the extent of the wall rebuilt in brick which includes the reconstruction of the west window reveal. Included within the build (near the eaves) are long pieces of dressed stone with a plain chamfer; these would have once framed an opening, possibly the original porch door.
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12) Remains of the original roof structure in dark wood (painted oak) beneath 19th century rafters and boards in pitch pine. The roof structure is a simple arch braced type without collars and butt purlins tentatively dated to the 15th century.
13) Gallery of head stops that form the terminals of the roof wall posts. The carving has a homespun naivety about it so opposing heads are not identical, but notionally paired. The head in the south west corner (bottom right) was partially enveloped during the 19th century re-build.
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14) The Romanesque door on the north side dates to around the turn of the 12th century and is contemporary the earliest parts of the church. Intriguingly the stone carving is fresh and unweathered suggesting that it has not been exposed to the elements for 900 years. There is an enigmatic vertical, brick-filled scar alongside the window, above and to the left of the door but there are no indications of there ever being a porch over this door; the buttress which impinges on the door dates to the 15th century.
15) The right column of the door and its base are replacements and the arch voussoirs have been re-set suggesting the door may have been moved.
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Parish: Mettingham Planning Application No.: N/A
All Saints Church Mettingham Repairs to the south porch
OASIS No. HER Event No.:
Address:
Grid Reference: Number of Site visits: 1 Date of visits: 11 June 2013
Project Background The gable wall of the porch over the south door of Mettingham Church has been the subject of an emergency repair. The wall had become partly detached and was being pulled away from the rest of the structure by an electricity cable, which was fixed to the apex, being weighed down by the branches of a large, overhanging tree. Wide cracks had appeared at the internal comers of the south end of the porch and the interior plaster had been removed from this end of the building, exposing the main fabric of the wall. The church was inspected by Bob Carr (archaeological advisor to the DAC) and David Gill (SCCAS) in the company of Arthur Paxton, the diocese’s appointed architect responsible for the church’s upkeep. The porch has two distinct phases of build: the original flint with stone dressing that dates to the late medieval period and a more recent brick-built gable that owes its origins to an extensive renovation of the building at the end of the 19th century. The porch feels lofty with an unusual long and narrow appearance; today it is used as the vestry and its proportions and look seem more suited to this function than to that of a porch. The remedial work to repair the structure provided an opportunity to record and analyse this element of the church whilst the interior was partially stripped of plaster. At the time of the visit much of the repair work had already been completed and included extensive excavations to reduce the ground level around the east side of the porch and north side of the aisle.
Historical background A Faculty Licence was granted in 1898 for wholesale repairs to the church. The Faculty
1
described the building as being in “a bad state of repair and the seating accommodation is old and inconvenient” the work prescribed included amongst many things the repairing the walls, gables and buttresses, demolishing the vestry at the east end of the north aisle, relaying the roof and the floors and relocating the font. Of the porch the licence granted permission to: …”dig out and form a trench on the South and East of the Church and to lower the pathway and slope off the ground on the West side so as to get one step up into the Porch…………..To relay the floor of the Porch with tiles………and open up the windows in the Tower and the Porch…………..To provide and fix a door in the opening of the South Porch and the execute such other works which may be necessary to carry out the thorough restoration of the Church………….. Plans and specifications which were approved at a Vestry meeting held for the said Parish on the twenty first day of May”.
(Lowestoft Record Office ref 136/E2/) Porch Description The porch extends 4.75m from the south aisle and is 2.1m wide (internally) and 3.15m high to the eaves. It encloses a plain two centre arch door which is quite narrow (0.98m) and appears to be secondary to the larger and ornate Romanesque-style door, which is the main entry, on the north side. The approach from the village, and the only way into the churchyard, is also from the north so that the porch is in effect hidden at the rear; overlooking open countryside and only accessible by walking around the building. Although the gable end was almost completely re-built at the end of the 19th century the porch retained its original footprint and the unusual elongated shape is a re-creation of the former medieval structure. This is demonstrated externally by the survival of one stone quoin at the base each of the southern corners and is confirmed on the inside by the extent of the original medieval roof structure which was maintained during the repairs. Looking at the exterior of the west wall it is immediately obvious that the top right quarter of the wall has been completely rebuilt, largely in brick, as part of the replacement of the gable wall. The repaired section is interspersed with flint and square blocks of limestone which were probably salvaged from the south corners of the porch when the gable wall was knocked down as the stone is a soft fine-grained Caen-type similar to the remaining in-situ quoins at the base of the wall. The repair included the re-setting of the stones on the right side of the window into which fresh and non-original stones oddments were incorporated so that the arch is no longer symmetrical and the point off-centre. There is no evidence of tracery and the faculty indicates that windows were ‘opened up’ as part of
2
the work. The windows are in the same stone as the quoins. The original part of the wall is made from predominately mixed, un-coursed, flint. Large black flints have been used for the lower half the walls with smaller mixed flints and brown sandstone pebbles above. The wall was rendered, first in lime and then cement, which still obscures much of the west wall. The east wall seems to have been spared the cement and most of the lime render no longer survives. The occasional ‘hand-made’ brick has been included in the make up, the bricks are buff-green or red-purple and measure 8¾″x 2¼″ and consistent with late 15th-16th century examples; similar bricks were also incorporated into the south aisle wall. An infilled vertical crack on the east face about 1m away from the junction with the aisle give the false appearance the porch was once shorter. The porch seems to have been built as an addition to the south aisle and was simply butted against it; the projecting plinth at the base of the aisle wall passes behind the jointing faces and is continuous inside the porch At the base of the east wall there is a projecting stepped footing; this should be at or just below ground level but has been exposed by recent excavations to remove soil away from the building, but gives an indication of what the late medieval ground surface once was . On the west side a similar stepped footing was hacked from the face of the wall leaving a scar, this was presumably done at the end of the end of the 19th century when a large are of the graveyard was lowered to create a footpath and the step up to the newly formed porch entrance, as specified in the Faculty. Inside, beneath the 19th century slate and pine boards, the porch retains most of the principal timbers of its medieval roof. Some parts of the roof structure have been renewed but generally it shows no evidence of having been lengthened or altered to fit the porch’s slightly awkward proportions. The roof is a simple arched brace type in three bays, the timber is painted over but thought to be oak, the butt purlins and the trusses are jointed suggesting a medieval date. The trusses are supported on wall posts which terminate with carved stops in the form of doleful-looking heads in a medieval style. There are six heads in three opposing pairs, the ones mid-wall stare straight out at right-angles to the wall whilst the ones at the south end are angled inward befitting their corner place. The south end of the roof structure must have been left suspended in place when the gable wall was built and the heads, particularly the one on the south western corner, are now partly enveloped in the later brickwork. There are no wall posts where the roof joins the outer face of the aisle but jointing in the trusses show that the bay nearest the church
3
is part of the original roof design even though all of timbers themselves have been replaced. The internal plaster is painted with a pale blue lime wash; this extends over the brickwork above the door at the gable end and is a 19th century paint scheme. Where the plaster has been stripped away it can be seen that several large pieces of limestone have been built into the later brickwork. These are re-used dressing that once framed openings some are long sectioned suggesting that they might have been part of the original door and some have are linear indentations cut into their surfaces. The indentation are not a decorative moulding but functional, either keying or locating the bars to which the glazing panels were attached.
Analysis The south porch at Mettingham is not typical which raises still unanswered suspicions about what it was originally intended for. The south aisle can be dated internally by the arcade posts that separate it from the nave and the Decorated-style window, immediately east of the porch, to the early 14th century. Subsequent (replacement?) windows were inserted when the aisle was largely re-fenestrated over the course of the 15th century (the original windows being recycled into belfry openings in the tower). The porch seems to have been built as an addition to the south aisle and was simply butted against it rather than integral to its build. This is probably just a technicality of the construction and the porch and aisle are probably contemporary as the south door, built without hood mouldings and un-weathered, seems to have always to have been enclosed. The south door is unlike a main entrance to a church being completely plain and is too narrow (at 98cms) to allow any procession that might require its members to walk twoabreast. It resembles a priest door which enforces the idea that this was one some form of ante-room, but the arrangement of the door, along with the fact it could only be locked from the porch side would indicate that it always was an external door. The door itself is however is not medieval; the thumb-latch lifter is original to the door and would suggest the actual door has a date no earlier than the 17th century. The loss of the medieval gable means that it is impossible to determine if the porch was an adaptation of some other form of cell. The faculty licence refers to the south porch and the fixing of a door into an existing opening so it was already a porch prior to then. The Romanesque door on the north side dates to around the turn of the 12th century and is contemporary with the nave and tower, the earliest parts of the church. The right column and its base are however replacements and the arch voussoirs have been re-set suggesting the door may have been moved. But this is by no means conclusive as the
4
door’s setting is very neat and, if it has been let into the wall, it is impossible to see in the surrounding flint work The addition of the aisle in the 14th century would have been at the expense of the nave’s south wall and its door. South doors are normally the main entrance to the nave and therefore more decorated than the northern ones, was this once the south door and does the apparent reversal of the priority of the north and south doors reflect a change in the layout of the village?
Recorded by: David Gill
Date: 20th June 2013
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1) General view of Mettingham Church porch from the south showing the 19th century brick-built gable on the end of the medieval porch.
1
2) Excavations through the graveyard around the west and south side of the church to create a hollow path around to the porch door. Permission for this was granted as part of the faculty of 1898.
3 2
3) Carved stone coffin lids dating to12th-13th century attached to the west end of the aisle. These were possibly discovered during the major repairs of 1898 when substantial ground reduction was undertaken in the church yard (above) and inside of the nave to lay a new floor.
4) West wall showing extent of the repair. The stones that once made up the corner quoins are now interspersed amongst the brickwork. The one surviving in-situ stone quoin can be seen at the base of the brickwork on the right.
4
5) Surviving medieval quoin and flint work at the base of the gable. The ground has been reduced exposing the footings.
5
6) Gravestone alongside the SE corner of the porch showing the depth of soil removed from against the south of the church (also see Pl.7). The grave dates from the 18th century and predates the revision to the gable wall.
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7) General view of the east side of the porch and the excavations on the north side of the church. There appears to be a join in the fabric about 1m to the left of the scale which gives the impression that the porch has been extended; this is misleading and it is simply a repaired crack.
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8) View of the south side of the church. The window immediately to the right of the porch dates the addition of the south aisle to first half of 14th century. The other window is late 14th-15th century and similar to the inserted window at the bottom of the tower; the window in the aisle end walls are later still (late C15-16th) and attest to how much it has been revised. The south aisle has been rendered to the east of porch obscuring any details.
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9 and 10) Interior views of the porch showing the south gable (8) and the door to the south aisle (9). Both doors are slightly off-centre to the porch and the plain gothic ‘main’ door to the church is quite modest. The light blue lime-wash decoration post-dates the 1898 building work.
11
11) The stripped plaster shows the extent of the wall rebuilt in brick which includes the reconstruction of the west window reveal. Included within the build (near the eaves) are long pieces of dressed stone with a plain chamfer; these would have once framed an opening, possibly the original porch door.
12
12) Remains of the original roof structure in dark wood (painted oak) beneath 19th century rafters and boards in pitch pine. The roof structure is a simple arch braced type without collars and butt purlins tentatively dated to the 15th century.
13) Gallery of head stops that form the terminals of the roof wall posts. The carving has a homespun naivety about it so opposing heads are not identical, but notionally paired. The head in the south west corner (bottom right) was partially enveloped during the 19th century re-build.
13
14) The Romanesque door on the north side dates to around the turn of the 12th century and is contemporary the earliest parts of the church. Intriguingly the stone carving is fresh and unweathered suggesting that it has not been exposed to the elements for 900 years. There is an enigmatic vertical, brick-filled scar alongside the window, above and to the left of the door but there are no indications of there ever being a porch over this door; the buttress which impinges on the door dates to the 15th century.
15) The right column of the door and its base are replacements and the arch voussoirs have been re-set suggesting the door may have been moved.
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