The Results
Excavated Area
Excavation revealed
that the first church was constructed in a pre-existing cemetery,
immediately outside, and to the west of, a large sub-circular
earthwork of probable middle Saxon date. That church, a small
turriform structure, was erected in the second half of the tenth
century, perhaps in the 970s. In or soon after the middle of the
eleventh century the chancel
was demolished and replaced by a whole new church to which the
existing tower (and annexe) became a western appendage. This
Saxo-Norman structure comprised a short rectangular nave, squarish chancel an apsidal sanctuary.
That church was in
turn replaced, in three stages, by a Norman aisled building which
was completed by c. 1200. The nave and aisles have been
fully excavated, but the eastern arm lies beneath the floor of the
present chancel where archaeological investigations have not taken
place. In its initial form, the Norman church was unaisled and of
uncertain length. The first addition took the form of a full-length
south aisle with a substantial
porch. Possibly contemporary with the south aisle was the addition
of a pair of small chambers at the north-east corner of the nave,
although their purpose remains enigmatic. These features were
subsequently incorporated in a new north aisle which extended for
the full length of the nave.
The aisles were never a matched pair and, typically for the
Norman period, were very narrow internally. In the second half of
the thirteenth century, the south aisle and its porch were
demolished, to be replaced by a new, wider aisle and larger porch.
These remain today. The chancel too was probably rebuilt in the
thirteenth century. In the mid-fourteenth century it was the turn
of the north aisle to be widened although, again, no attempt was
made to impose symmetry on the plan. A north porch was constructed
integrally with the new aisle. At about the same time, a vestry was added to the north-east
corner of the chancel. Next, in the fifteenth century, the nave clerestory was added, and the
chancel was again reconstructed, using the old foundations and
maintaining the same plan as its predecessor. The final structural
addition to the church was the organ chamber, in 1897.
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