Artist’s reconstruction of Ewloe Castle. Source: Renn and Avent 2001
The ruins of the 13th century Ewloe Castle, one of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd’s more puzzling constructions, is located in the public Wepre Park, near Connah’s Quay and not far from Chester.
Visiting details are at the end of the post, including information about car parking, the visitor centre, an excellent downloadable guide to the routes through the park and its key features, as well as where to find out more information about the castle. ==
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Wepre Park
Wepre Park map in the Explore Wepre Park PDF by Denbigh County Council online. The Main Trail leads from the car park all the way to the foot of Eweloe Castle. The Boardwalk is also reached from the car park, and is shown at bottom left.
Wepre Park is a woodland valley, largely deciduous, that flanks the Wepre Brook, and is very popular with dog walkers, joggers, and families. According to the park’s literature, it is a remnant of the great hunting forest of Ewloe. More recently it was the site of Wepre Hall. On a sunny day in the autumn, with the light filtering through the trees, this should be a wonderful display of illuminated colour. The autumnal display was very fine, with the light filtering through the multi-coloured leaves and the woodland floors carpeted with bright yellows and oranges. The woodland contains a wide mixture of different trees, shrubs and vegetation and is home to varied wildlife, including aquatic species, insects, birds, bats, badgers and a lot of very busy squirrels. There is also a small wildlife meadow, although there is not much to see at this time of year. ==
The valley was owned in the 11th century by St Werburgh’s Abbey in Chester. In the mid 12th century it was the site of a major confrontation between Henry II and the forces of Owain ap Gruffydd, ruler of Gwynedd in west Wales, during Owain’s campaign to extend his territories to the east. In 1157 Henry II took an army into northeast Wales to subdue Owain, but was ambushed by Owain in the Ewloe valley. Although Henry escaped, and defeated Owain at Rhuddlan, Owain later regained much of the lost territory.
A house is recorded at the site from at least the late Middle Ages. During the Civil War a house at Wepre belonged to Royalist supporters who, in 1645, supposedly hid in the cellars a Royalist sympathiser who was a participant in the the Battle of Rowton Moor. It was rebuilt as a 2-storey Georgian house in 1788 by Edward Jones, the owner of a local lead mine, with outbuildings and later extensions. It was demolished in 1960. There is nothing remaining of Wepre Hall except for the cellars. The visitor centre sits on part of the Wepre Hall site, and the gardens here and nearby are designed to echo the formal gardens of the Hall.
There are a number of routes through the park. From the car park, the Main Trail is a wide metalled track that leads from the car park past the visitor centre nearly as far as the castle (after which there are wooden steps leading up to the castle). It follows the line of the brook, which drifts in and out of sight and is constantly audible. The most notable feature on the Main Trail, apart from the lovely woodland, are the outcrops of Hollin Rock, a 320 million year old red sandstone, popular as a building material. Towards the end of the trail is a small and attractive bridge, Pont Aber, that was once located further upstream but was moved here in 1800 to improve access to Wepre Hall. There is a delightful small waterfall on the other side, which used to be the location of the Castle Hill Brewery that used the water from a natural spring. ==
The second significant route is a boardwalk, which leads from the car park along the brook and connects to the Main Trail about half way way along. The main feature of the Boardwalk route is the waterfall, actually built as a weir to power a small hydroelectric plant, but it is a very attractive feature. The plant used to provide electricity to the Hall before mains electricity arrived in the area in 1925. There is a variety of aquatic vegetation flanking the boardwalk, and information boards indicate the different wildlife, including birds, that can be spotted on a walk. The boardwalk follows the brook closely until it slopes up slightly to meet the Main Trail, and the “bubbling brook” phrase never seemed more apt. This is a very audio-visual walk. ==
Some of the other footpaths are just well-worn tracks, very muddy at this time of year, but follow lovely winding routes through the woodland. I tried the track from the bridge to the Devil’s Basin, supposed to be a short set of very pretty falls, but after five minutes or so the deeply churned mud made it completely impassable in ordinary hiking boots. It would have required wellies.
Near the visitor centre there is a small lake called the Rosie Pool that was created in the late 19th century for fishing and is now managed by the local angling club. Immediately behind the visitor centre is a small but very attractive formal garden with a small pond, a nod to the former hall. Even at this time of year, fuchsia, hydrangea and sedum still have some flowers. There is a small pet cemetery located at its edge. For more about the park download the Explore Wepre Park guide (in Sources at the end of this post).
Ewloe Castle
Ewloe Castle from the air. RCHAMW 6463845. Source: RCHAMW
There is some discussion about who built the castle. It was certainly either built or rebuilt in c.1257 by Llywelyn ap Gruffudd (also known as Llywelyn the Last), but he may have been restoring a castle originally built by Llywelyn ap Iorwerth (Llywelyn the Great). The D-shaped keep has been seen as characteristic of Llywelyn the Great, and differences in the stonework of the upper and lower wards have been used to argue for a two-phase construction. If this was indeed the case, it is argued that the upper ward would have been contemporary with the keep built by Llywelyn the Great and the lower ward built by his grandson Llywelyn the Last. On the other hand, there is an early 14th century document that states that the entire was built by Llywelyn the Last. The question remains unresolved, but it is not doubted that whoever built the castle, Llywelyn the Last certainly carried out extensive building work here.
Plan of the castle. Source: Lloyd 1928
Although it is built to a fairly standard Welsh plan, it is something of an oddity in strategic terms, not being built high on a hill but on the edge of a small valley. Although the sides slope steeply away from the castle on three sides, it was actually overlooked from the south, so required quite extensive outer defences on that side, consisting of a ditch, the digging out of which would have provided a bank. ==
The keep sits within a small upper ward. A larger lower ward was added, possibly at a later date, with a tower at its furthest extent from the upper ward and both were provided with curtain walls, some of which remain. The D-shaped (or apsidal) keep has a small footprint with its semi-circular end overlooking the defences, whilst the tower in the lower keep overlooks both the southern aspect and the valley below. The lower ward would have been provided with timber buildings for domestic functions and storage.
On the former ground floor of the keep, to which the steps at the back of the upper ward lead, the former hearth is still visible, and there are windows set in the thick walls. Looking at the keep today, the lowest layer was a basement with no lighting. The keep had an outer stone staircase at its south, and this is still in use for accessing the inner staircase that leads up inside the walls of the keep to a viewing platform at the top of what remains of the keep’s walls.
Two entrances, one into the upper ward and one into the lower ward would have been approached by bridges over the defences. The lower ward’s tower was probably accessed from the curtain walls of the lower ward.
In 1257, when the castle was either built or rebuilt, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd was on the offensive, attempting to retake Perfeddwlad, otherwise known as the “Four Cantrefs,” which incorporated the cantrefs of Rhos, Rhufoniog, Dyffryn Clwyd and Tegeingl, a constant bone of contention between the Welsh princes and the English crown.
The problem of the poor strategic location could be explained by suggesting a different intention for the castle as more of a political statement than a fully functional military outpost. Its location on the edges of disputed territory, not far from older English castles and the site of Owain Gwynedd’s defeat of Henry II may simply have been a statement of a Welsh return to land that they claimed as their own, and a useful staging point for any future negotiations, given its proximity to the Anglo-Welsh border. This is supported by its probable use first in November 1259 and again in December 1260 when English ambassadors were sent to meet with Llywelyn at a place identified as Wepre, which must have been the castle. There is no record of the castle’s involvement in 1276 and 1277, when war between England and Wales reignited, which may give added weight to this castle being a political gesture rather than a strictly military base, but could also reflect the necessity of Welsh retreat to safer ground.
Edward I does not appear to have felt that Ewloe Castle was worthy of his interest. Although he restored other castles for his own use, this was probably too small, too badly sited and too difficult to defend. Instead, in 1277 Edward began to build at Flint (posted about on the blog here), Rhuddlan (posted about here) and Denbigh (posted about here). Owain Glyndwr’s rebellion in 1400 found no use for it either. ==
Visiting
Access to the castle, managed by Cadw, is free of charge and open all year round, as is the entire park, but you will need to be confident with stairs, as they are the only way in and out of the castle. There are new metal stair cases with handrails, and original stone ones, including a small flight in a stairwell in the keep leading up to a viewing platform at the top. None of the stone staircases have handrails.
Parking is straight forward for both castle and park. If you only want to see the castle there is a lay-by on the side of the B5125 that looks as though it will take about 8 cars, maybe a couple more. I didn’t try the route from there to the castle so have no idea what the footpath is like underfoot, but the What3Words address for the lay-by parking is ///follow.beauty.mistaking. The official car park is a large one near the visitor centre on Wepre Drive. Ewloe Castle is about a mile away from this car park along a very easy and attractive trail. The What3Words address is for the main car park is ///contrived.writing.mailers
A circular walk taking in the boardwalk and returning to the car park via the Main Trail would be suitable for unwilling legs, as would a walk along the boardwalk to the bridge and then back along the main route. The castle is not suitable for those who cannot manage steps and stairs, as this is the only way of getting into the castle, from whatever direction you approach.
The visitor centre is closed at this time of year (November) but its cafe was open on my visit. The public toilets are also open nearby. There’s a substantial play area on the edge of the car park. There are a small number of good information boards throughout the park, including one at the castle, but the Cadw official guide to Flint Castle also has a section on Ewloe Castle. Other sources are listed below, including castle information and an excellent guide to the park, together with a footpath map.
The magnificent Rhuddlan Castle, and its predecessor Twthill motte-and-bailey castle (the latter now just a mound), are located just over 3 miles south of the point on the North Wales coast where the river Clwyd, which Edward I diverted to pass the foot of Rhuddlan, empties into the sea at Rhyl. Like all of Edward I’s newly built English castles in Wales, this has some features in common with its brethren, but is at the same time a unique entity, each with a highly distinctive, unmistakable appearance in its own right, building on previous creativity to create even more innovative defensive measures.
I visited Rhuddlan last week for the first time, taking spur-of-the-moment advantage of a cold but gloriously sunny morning to make the most of Rhuddlan’s striking looks and lovely location. The castle is an impressive sight, particularly as it is bounded on its northeastern side by fairly dense village housing and one gets the sense of emerging abruptly from the bustling present into a peaceful and finely fossilized landscape of the past.
This is the third post in an occasional series about the history of Edward I’s earliest castles in northeast Wales. The background history to Edward’s sudden launch into castle building in Wales from 1277 is the first part, and can be found here. It looks at the disputes between Edward I’s father Henry III, king of England, and his subsequent and far more personally felt disputes with Llywelyn ap Gruffud, Llywelyn the Last of Wales. The second post in the series looked at Flint Castle, the first of Edward’s castles in Wales started in July 1277, with its accompanying new town. Rhuddlan Castle was started in September 1277, and is covered below. Denbigh built in 1282 is posted about here.
St Mary’s Rhuddlan
I combined Rhuddlan Castle with a look at the last surviving chunk of Edwardian defensive ditch that originally surrounded the town, and a wander around the exterior of the nearby St Mary’s Church (its opening times to visitors are limited to the summer months), which was built sometime after the granting of the town charter in 1278, both of which are mentioned below. I then skirted the castle and followed the track and footpath down to Twthill. The story of life at Rhuddlan before Edward I, both pre- and post-Norman, will be covered on another post, and will include the background to and history of Twthill.
St Asaph’s Cathedral
After Rhuddlan I drove the few miles south to visit St Asaph Cathedral, which has connections to both Rhuddlan Friary, originally located near the castle, and Valle Crucis Abbey, near Llangollen. Valle Crucis is the subject of an ongoing series of posts on this blog. Rhuddlan Friary has been discussed on the blog here, and St Asaph Cathedral will be discussed on a separate post at a later date.
To make it an official day-trip, the day not being warm enough for an ice cream, I stopped for a very self-indulgent glass in The Hare in Farndon on the way home, which was the cherry on top of a very good day!
Visitor information for Rhuddlan Castle is at the end of the post.
Rhuddlan during the reign of Henry III
Henry III (reigned 1216-1272), father of Edward I, had ongoing problems with self-styled Prince of Wales Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, also known as Llywelyn the Last, a grandson of Llywelyn ap Iorwerth (Llywelyn the Great). Llywelyn was based in Gwynedd, his home territory, but had managed to establish some degree of unity within his own family (particularly his brothers Dafydd and Owain) and throughout Wales, historically a fragmented and constantly shifting set of territories. The powerful Marcher lordships along the Welsh border formed an aggressive barrier between Wales and the rest of England, and trouble had rumbled continuously along the border during the reigns of previous kings, causing the official border between the two countries to move regularly. The crown held territories within modern Wales, and these came under attack by Llywelyn the Last. This is all covered in the post that describes the background to the disputes between Edward and Llywellyn, complete with a family tree of the relevant participants.
A Dominican priory, described on the blog here, was founded by Llywelyn ap Gruffudd in 1258 during the reign of Henry III, and is discussed. The building does not survive, but some of its materials were visibly incorporated into the farm that now sits on the original site of the priory. It is quite likely that during the 13th century played host to Llywelyn ap Grufudd, and later to both Henry III and Edward I during their visits. As with most monastic institutions, the Dominicans were obliged to show hospitality to guests, irrespective of their political allegiance, and it would have been in their interests to stay in the good graces of both Welsh and English leaders. Edward had probably taken advantage of hospitality at Basingwerk Abbey during the construction of Flint Castle.
Edward I’s Rhuddlan Castle
Expanding the the “Ring of Iron”
Map of Edward I’s campaigns in Wales. Source: History Matters at the University of Wales
Edward was granted the royal lands in Wales by Henry III on the occasion of his marriage to Eleanor of Castille, and took an active interest in the Welsh situation until his departure on crusade, during which his father died. Edward inherited the dispute with Llywelyn, but was already very familiar with the the Welsh prince and his ambitions, and was also familiar with the Welsh landscape. The expenses incurred during his crusade had left him with serious debts, and the terms of the agreement that Llywelyn had reached with Henry III involved a substantial annual payment by the Welsh prince to the Crown treasury, but there were problems. Llywelyn was already three years in arrears, and was now refusing to pay homage to the new king. Several treaties under Henry III had failed to achieve long term peace, and although the Treaty of Montgomery of 1267 had looked as though it might hold, Llywelyn ap Gruffud’s behaviour was intolerable to Edward who labelled Llywelyn an outlaw in 1276, and war was declared in 1277. A peace was brokered, but although Edward had every reason to believe that the treaty might secure peace between England and Wales, he began to build a series of castles in northeast Wales, eventually extending into northwest Wales, beginning at Flint in the July of 1277 and rolling out along the coastlines throughout the next two decades. This was followed almost immediately by the foundation of Rhuddlan in the same year.
Artist’s impression of the Twthill motte-and-bailey castle by Terry Ball. All that survives today is the motte. Source: Wikipedia
When Edward started building his castle at Rhuddlan in September 1277, Flint Castle and town were still under construction. Flint had been virgin territory, and consisted of both a stone castle and a new defended town, an “implanted bastide.” Although the site of Edward’s castle itself had not been occupied, Rhuddlan had been long-established, from the pre-Conquest period into the 13th century. The existing wooden Twthill motte-and-bailey castle, a short distance from Rhuddlan probably served as a useful base from which to manage building works and campaigns as the new stone castle was built and the new town laid out and provided with perimeter defences.
Llywelyn, realizing that his cause was lost, surrendered later in 1277 at Rhuddlan, several years before Edward’s castle was finished, and for a while it looked as though the resulting Treaty of Aberconwy would provide the basis for long-term peace. Llywelyn had been granted the entire region of what is now known as Gwynedd, permitted to retain the title Prince of Wales, and his difficult brother Dafyddd was allocated territories in mid-north Wales whilst Owain was given control of the Llŷn peninsula. Edward, however, was not taking any chances, and he continued with his castle building programme, unambiguously reinforcing his message that Wales was under English control, with Rhuddlan performing the role as the administrative headquarters for the region. Should any attempts at rebellion be attempted in the future, Edward and his supporters would be ready.
Why Rhuddlan?
What were the strategic advantages that made Edward I choose Rhuddlan as the location for his third castle, his new administrative headquarters for north Wales?
First, the castle is right on the edge of the River Clywd, a fairly narrow but very attractive ribbon of blue threading its way between the fields, all the more impressive when you know that the river actually ran along a slightly different course until Edward canalized it and had it dredged to provide a deep-water channel for connecting the castle to the coast and the Dee Estuary. The River Clywd become un-navigable not far south of Rhuddlan. The link to the estuary connected Rhuddlan both to Flint Castle and Chester to its east and then, later, to Edward’s castles at Conwy and Caernarvon in the west.
Photograph of Rhuddlan Castle in the context of the River Clwyd floodplain and the coast to the north. Rhuddlan Castle is at bottom left, near the rear foot of the RCAHMW dragon logo. Source: Coflein, archive number 6356180 / AP_2007_2032
The castle itself sits above a very wide, low floodplain, on an area of raised land. Standing on the battlements, reached by modern spiral staircases, the views over the surrounding landscape are remarkable, providing an excellent impression of how well the castle was positioned for sighting oncoming threats. Economically, the wide floodplain was ideal for the development of a new town, with potential for raising livestock and agriculture.
Until Conwy was built, Rhuddlan was conveniently located as a regional HQ just on the edge of Llywelyn’s territory, and it was his most important base in Wales. By the time Conwy Castle was up and running, Rhuddlan had become secondary in importance, but was still garrisoned and was very important in Edward’s chain of defences.
The Designers and the Design
The outer curtain wall, which only survives in very small sections, followed the perimeter of the revetted dry moat, and enabled archers in the battlements of the castle to fire over the heads of those protecting the outer defences.
Rhuddlan has a very distinctive look and feel to it, containing some innovative features that were carried through to other castles in the northeast. The first architect to work on Rhuddlan, who was probably responsible for its layout and some of its initial design elements, was king’s engineer Master Bertram, who had been employed by Henry III is Gascony, and who brought with him Gascon design principles. He was replaced after six months by Master James of St George, whose work Edward had seen in France at the castle of St Georges d’Esperanche, and who went on to build Edward’s great castles at Conwy, Caernarvon, Harlech and Beaumaris.
The most obvious novel feature of the design, when compared to Flint, was the use of both an inner and a very short outer curtain wall, shown in the photograph above, a concentric arrangement of defences that formed the template for Edward’s later castles, including nearby Denbigh, built in 1282. The lower outer curtain wall, which at Rhuddlan was installed along the inner perimeter of a revetted dry moat, itself impressively lined with stone, enabled archers on the battlements of the main castle to aim beyond those defending the outer curtain wall without endangering them, whilst providing two lines of defence for the castle and its defenders.
Nice to see part of the original gateway in this 19th century watercolour by David Cox. Source: Victoria and Albert Museum
Originally a formal gateway granted access across the moat and the short outer curtain wall into the riverside entrance between the first pair of distinctive twinned towers. Diagonally across the inner ward a second pair of twinned towers gave access via a secondary entrance. On the other two corners of the main castle were another two towers, each single. All the towers, including the river tower, were 4 storeys high, including a subterranean basement in each.
Building the castle
The first task was to build defensive ditches, which which would offer protection for the construction camp as the castle was built, and would later become the dry moat. At Flint Castle 1800 ditchers, known as fossatores, were employed for thus task, as well as the digging of the ditch and banks for the town defences, and it is probable that a similar number was employed at Rhuddlan, sourced from all over England, some of whom were forced labour. It is possible that a proportion of the fossatores who had been employed at Flint were now deployed at Rhuddlan.
As the castle began to take shape, skilled craftsmen were also imported, including carpenters and masons. Carpenters would have been vital for the build, as they were responsible for the scaffolding as well as various buildings in both inner and outer wards, and other architectural features. Masons used a mixture of stone types for the construction, all available locally, including yellow and red sandstones, the latter more vulnerable to erosion over the centuries than the yellow, and the grey limestone. Extensive robbing from the lower levels of the castle after it was slighted (damaged to prevent re-use) after the English Civil War in the 17th Century gives the impression of a serious attack of delamination, but as peculiar as it looks helpfully reveals the underlying construction, showing that the the more enduring limestone covered more vulnerable sandstones.
View of Rhuddlan from the west showing what it may have looked like by the beginning of the 14th century. Illustration by Terry Ball. Source: Taylor / Cadw 2004, p.3
In 1278 sufficient progress had been made for the king and queen to stay at the castle, and in 1280 the towers were roofed in lead and in 1281 the king’s hall was roofed with shingles. A well was sunk into the centre of the inner ward, 50ft deep.
Whilst work on the castle proceeded, one of the most impressive of the civil engineering feats at Rhuddlan was completed simultaneously. The river Clwyd was diverted from its natural course, and canalized for two miles (3.5km), the work of 968 workers who were imported to Rhuddlan for the task in 1277, providing the castle with deep channel access to the coast, suitable for sea-going vessels, avoiding the need for trans-shipping. This met Edward’s requirement for a fluid and seamless communications network.
There was space by the riverside tower, known today as Gillot’s Tower, for a single vessel to put in to dock at high tide, and a river gate alongside the tower, improving efficiencies for loading and unloading. As Rhuddlan always had a garrison, and was on a number of occasions the base from which forces departed towards Snowdonia, it was often provisioned from Ireland with livestock and grain. A military cemetery was established at the castle, a clear indication that Edward was expecting casualties in his dealings with Wales.
Work was suspended during renewed hostilities in 1282, when Llywelyn’s brother Dafydd instigated another rebellion against Edward I. Dafydd attacked Hawarden Castle on 21st March, Palm Sunday. His action encouraged other Welsh landholders to retaliate in kind, but it was not until June that Llywelyn took the decision to join his brother’s rebellion. Although the Welsh rebellion seemed to gain ground for a while, the English assembled a substantial force at Rhuddlan, consisting of around 9000 men, which advanced into Wales taking several Welsh castles as they proceeded. The castle was re-provisioned by ship from Ireland with livestock and cereals. This time there was no peace treaty, and Llywelyn was killed on the battle field in the same year, whilst Dafydd was eventually caught in June 1283 and held at Rhuddlan Castle before being put on trial in Shrewsbury for treason, after which he was tortured and executed. The cost was massive, some £120,000 (£83,288,423.43 in today’s money, according to the National Archives Currency Converter) with £50,000 having been raised by a tax on English residents. There was also a huge cost in terms of English life; the military cemetery established at Rhuddlan had run out of space by October 1282.
Work had resumed on Rhuddlan following the conflict and although there are no records of damage to the castle at that time, records of repairs do survive and these suggest that Rhuddlan had come under attack. A record survives for the payment of 64 shillings to “Adam the tailor” for red silk to make pennons and royal standards for Rhuddlan. As if the massive castle itself was not a sufficient statement of English power in the region, it was to be adorned with the rich and brightly coloured symbols of English monarchy.
The 50ft / 15m well in the inner ward
Today it is difficult to conceive of a royal court that was constantly on the move, but in the Medieval period, royal authority was reinforced by the movement of the monarch to properties around his kingdom, both his own and those of favoured aristocrats. After the execution of Dafydd, Edward took his court on a tour of various provincial areas, whilst work continued at Rhuddlan. He was back at Rhuddlan for Christmas. Between 1283 and 1286 further investment was made on the royal apartments and chapel, both of which would have been in the wooden buildings in the inner ward, together with the kitchens. Beam holes in the walls of the castle’s interior show where the roof beams were installed. A well was sunk in the centre of the inner ward. The outer ward would also have been filled with buildings, of a more utilitarian variety, including at least one granary, a forge, stables and storage facilities.
Arnold Taylor quotes a figure of £9613 2s 8 3/4d for the building of Rhuddlan between 1277 and 1282. According to the National Archives Currency Converter, this would be some £6,672,184.58 in today’s money (or 11,209 horses or 21,362 cows or 961,313 days of a skilled tradesman’s labour).
Edward’s new borough and town
Plan of Rhuddlan. Source: Arnold Taylor/Cadw 2004, p.9
As at Flint a new borough was created and provided with defences and English settlers were incentivized to live and work there. The new town, known as an “implanted bastide” after prototypes in Gascony, was built to the northwest of the the old town and was granted its charter in 1278. This new-town bastide concept and its management are discussed in more detail on the post about Flint Castle. Today’s town follows the original layout of the new town, its streets originally dividing the town into five sections leading down to a bridge across the river, with the High Street, Church Street, Castle Street, Parliament Street and Gwindy street being the key survivors.
The town was defended on three sides by a ditch with flanking banks, possibly topped with a timber palisade, a section of which survives off Gwindy Street, shown in the illustration and photograph below. In the 1960s the complete length of the ditch survived north of the town, but by 1970 only the Gwindy Street section remained. Excavation of part of the defences, known as Plot 0, was undertaken when the land was due to be sold for development, but due to the heavily eroded state of the banks was unable to confirm if there were timber defensive features. The fourth side of the defences was made up by a cliff running down to the river.
Source: Quinnell and Blockley 1994
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What remains of the double banks and ditch that surrounded the new town of Rhuddlan
Although it might have seemed like an unattractive proposition to be an immigrant English population living in a defended town in ostensibly hostile territory, there was a huge demand for land in England at that time, and the new towns in Wales represented great opportunity as well as risk, particularly as charters offered far more favourable conditions for the English than their Welsh neighbours. Marc Morris refers to them as “those enclaves of English privilege, where the Welsh were obliged to trade but could not live and where the legal discrimination between the two peoples was a fact of every day existence.” The risk for these settlers was very real, and it was the towns rather than the castles that were targeted by Dafydd in 1282, in Aberystwyth, Denbigh and Rhuddlan. ===
In 1284 Edward I formalized how Wales to was to be governed and ruled after the deaths of Llywelyn in 1282 and Dafydd in 1283 during Dafydd’s ill-conceived rebellion of 1282. The document that captured his requirements was the Statute of Rhuddlan or Statue of Wales, which was issued by Edward I from Rhuddlan whilst he was in residence. Although Edward had been sufficiently diplomatic to recognize different interests and hierarchical claims within Wales after 1277 for the sake of peace, in 1282 his aim was to bring the entire of Wales into a single administrative system controlled by England.
The Statue of Rhuddlan, part territorial administration and part legal treatise, handled Wales as a single homogenous unit, an extension of England and her criminal legal system. Wales was divided into new English-style shires: Flint, Merioneth, Caernarvon, Anglesey, Cardigan and Carmarthen, a structure that endured until 1536 when the Act of Union was passed. An English administrative hierarchy was put into place with officials and administrators answering to a new justiciar based in northwest Wales. Legally, the Statue was an interesting mixture of English law with some concessions to Welsh traditions. Criminal law was English, but the Statute allowed for Welsh traditions of civil law to be maintained for matters like contracts, inheritance, land deals and debt handling.
Edward’s castle building continued unabated even as the statute was being written up in Rhuddlan, announced and enforced. It is thought that it was at Rhuddlan that Edward declared that the title and role of prince of Wales would pass to his own son and to the future sons of English kings. Edward’s first child, who became Edward II, was born at Caernarfon in April 1284, in the month following the statute, and was officially granted the title of Prince of Wales in 1301. The title has been handed down from reigning monarch to eldest son ever since that date, most recently on the death of Queen Elizabeth II when, the former Prince of Wales, Charles, having acceded to the throne on 10th September 2022, the title passed to his eldest son, Prince William.
Rhuddlan Castle after Edward I
Rebellion of October 1294
Resentment in Wales continued to fester, and in October 1294 Madog ap Llywelyn, a relation of Llyweln the Great, and Morgan ap Maredudd, both important land owners in northwest Wales laid siege to Edward’s castles at Criccieth, Conwy and Harlech. This followed particularly harsh taxes imposed by Edward, that discriminated against the Welsh, and also Edward’s demand for men to fight in Gascony. Rhuddlan served as a jumping-off point for Edward’s response to this uprising in March 1295, but Conwy was by now at the heart of the action, and Edward’s new headquarters whilst Caernarfon Castle was still being built (and which was damaged during the attack). By June 1295 the uprising had been put down and order was restored.
Owain Glyn Dŵr, 1400-c.1410
In 1400, during the reign of Henry IV, Owain Glyn Dŵr, having been declared Prince of Wales by a group of his followers met at Glyndyfrdwy, lead a new rebellion in response to harsh conditions imposed by the English crown, and Rhuddlan was one of the castles and towns that came under attack. Rhuddlan Castle held out against the assault, but the town itself was brutalized, and there are indications such as the failure to properly repair town defences that the borough never recovered.
The English Civil War, c.1642-51
In the Civil War of 1642-48, the castle was held by the king’s forces but although it initially held out, it was surrendered to the parliamentarian commander-in-chief Major-General Thomas Mytton, and a decision was made in the House of Commons to slight the castle (render it unusable), which was actioned in May 1648. This was the fate of several medieval castles that were employed during the Civil War.
Rhuddlan Castle in 18th and 19th century art
John Boydell (1720-1804). “A North West View of Rhuddlan Castle in Flintshire,” in 1749. Source: People’s Collection Wales
In my posts about Flint and Denbigh I had a look at some of the art works that were produced in the 18th and 19th centuries when medieval buildings with their air of romance and mystery found an enthusiastic audience amongst painters of all skill levels. There are so many art works of Rhuddlan that it is almost impossible to pick and choose, so I have selected views that show different aspects of the castle, and have added a link at the end of Sources to some more examples.
John Boydell was a publisher, talented engraver and promoter of art, as well as doing a stint as Lord Mayor of London. His 1749 image above not only captures the castle but the attached village and the distinctive bridge and that captures something of village life, with men fishing, a barge pulled up at the river edge, and people approaching on horseback and foot. The strongly featured bridge is typical of his work – in 1747 he published The Bridge Book, featuring six landscapes all of which showcased distinctive bridges. He did a rather nice one of Denbigh Castle too.
From the 1781 edition of “A tour In Wales” by Thomas Pennant (1726-1798) Source: Wikipedia via the National Library of Wales
Thomas Pennant was born in Flintshire and is best known for his remarkable A Tour In Wales, which eventuallyran to eight illustrated volumes, capturing three journeys that he made in Wales between 1773 and 1776. The National Library of Wales says that one of his greates gifts was “his ability to foster friendships. His appreciation of people was very well-known and because of this he always received sensible and full answers to all his enquiries for information.” He was a great collector, but his interest was always in the subject matter and the details captured, rather than particular artistic merit. The painting of Rhuddlan below was in the 1781 edition, capturing something of the sense of the isolation of the castle in a wide landscape, a contrasting and more delicate approach to Boydell’s bright and lively image.
Rhuddlan Castle as captured by artist George Pickering (1794-1857) and engraved by George Hawkins the Younger (1819-1852). See the National Library of Wales catalogue for a bigger image in which details can be clearly seen.
A completely different approach was taken by lithographer George Pickering the Younger, who got up close and personal with the castle, sacrificing the general form of the castle in favour of picking out particular features. He artist looks out over the river and the floodplain beyond, the sun low in the sky, with village buildings shown in the background, including St Mary’s Church. The ivy clinging to the towers is also shown on Peter Ghent’s painting below. Cattle are shown grazing on the foreshore, a small sailing vessel is pulled up on the other side of the bridge, and there are other visitors inspecting the site.
Rhuddlan Castle c.1885 by Peter Ghent (1857–1911). Williamson Art Gallery and Museum. Source: ArtUK
The oil on canvas painting of Rhuddlan Castle by Peter Ghent, now at the Williamson Art Gallery and Museum in Birkenhead, is a rather more impressionistic view of the castle, showing the ivy and the surrounding trees, and cattle cooling themselves in the river. The riverside tower is not shown, although part of the river wall is shown. The russet and green palette is characteristic of Ghent’s work. Ghent was born in Birkenhead and attended Birkenhead School of Art. He moved to Conwy, which he used as a base for exploring Welsh landscapes in both oil and watercolour. ===
Rhuddlan Castle Today
The castle was given into state care in 1944 and conservation work began in 1947. It was transferred from the Department of the Environment to the newly created Cadw, the Welsh Government’s historic environment service, in 1984. It is beautifully cared for, without a single blade of grass out of place. The ivy that once ran riot over its walls has been completely eliminated which given how invasive ivy is was a considerable task. The castle continues to undergo conservation work as needed to prevent deterioration and to ensure that it remains safe.
The castle was deliberately slighted (i.e. partly demolished) at the end of the English Civil War in the 16th century so that it could not be reused in any future offensives, which accounts for its ruined state. This does not impede an understanding of the castle and its features, many of which remain. Some of the damage is more recent. The lower courses of stone have been extensively robbed since the 16th century for local construction projects, revealing the inner filling of the walls, and leaving it looking very denuded and rather peculiar at its ground floor level, but allowing the inner construction of the thick walls to be seen.
Although there are no floors left in the towers and inner walls, there are fireplaces and beam slots (the beams supporting the floors at each level) that show where each of the storeys was located. Some of the fireplaces, like the one on the left, retain black burn marks, a really evocative link to the past. Many of the fireplaces were quite huge and, given the diameter of the towers, must have provided substantial heat for the castle guardians and administrators who were based there even in the coldest Welsh winters, even if the space was a little cramped.
A number of modern excavations have been carried out at Rhuddlan, between 1973 and 1988 helping to clarify some details about the medieval history of Rhuddlan as well as information about earlier phases, particularly during the Norman and prehistoric periods (Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age, including some particularly fine lithics and decorated pebbles dating to the Mesolithic). These are summarized by Quinnell and Blockley in their 1994 publication, which can be downloaded from the Archaeology Data Service website.
Excavated Areas in Rhuddlan between 1969 to 1973. Click to expand. Source: Quinnell and Blockley 1994, p4
Excavated object from Rhuddlan. Source: Quinnell and Blockley 1994, p.184
St Mary’s Church, Rhuddlan
St Mary’s, only a five minute walk from the castle, was closed when I visited, so I am going to cover it on another post next summer when it re-opens to visitors, but it is certainly worth mentioning here, as it looks as though it is a splendid piece of later medieval heritage. An earlier Norman church was built to the east of the castle, but St Mary’s was first built in 1284 and was enlarged in the 15th century. It has undergone changes over the years, and perennial multi-tasker Sir George Gilbert Scott had a go at it during his restoration of St Asaph’s Cathedral in the 1900s, but by all accounts the restoration appears to have been quite sympathetic. The gilbertscott.org website reports that “Scott treated the old building gently, lowering the floor in the nave and raising it in the chancel, providing some new windows, seating, a vestry and rebuilding the south porch. He also provided a vestry screen, pulpit, an eagle lectern, altar rail and chancel seats.” However, Quinnell and Blockley say that the church contains much of the original 13th century architecture in the nave and chancel. They add that fragments from two different crosses, found during the demolition of a wall near the Vicarage in 1936, are now kept in the church. Both have inter-laced decoration and have been dated stylistically to the late 10th or early 11th centuries.
If you are there when it is open, it should be well worth visiting at the same time as a trip to the castle (unfortunately the St Mary’s website does not currently show the times when it is open to visitors, but there is an email address). Even though it was closed, I very much enjoyed a walk around the building and a poke around the churchyard. Gravestones and their symbolism are eternally fascinating and there are some very good examples of churchyard monuments.
Final Comments
Rhuddlan is visually stunning, and retains plenty of its newly innovated features to capture interest, demonstrating significant improvements in medieval castle design. The canalized river showcases both Edward’s obsession with good communication links and the civil engineering skills that were available to him. As a visitor attraction it is beautifully maintained by Cadw, which is particularly noticeable when comparing it with earlier images of the castle covered in ivy. Rhuddlan attracted a serious amount of artistic interest, providing views of how it looked in the 18th and 19th centuries and, at the same time, demonstrating the fascination that artists had for medieval ruins. This is a site that really rewards a visit, particularly on a bright sunny day, when the red and yellow sandstones absolutely glow against a blue sky.
Rhuddlan is operated by Cadw, and is subject to an entry fee. Details of opening times and entry charges are on the Cadw website. There is a free car park, which also has a map of the main features of the town and the route down to Twthill, just five minutes away from the castle. Beyond Twthill, the footpath passes the Abbey Farm and caravan park, the site of the former Rhuddlan Friary, which is on private land and cannot be visited.
As usual with Cadw venues, there is not much information about the history of Rhuddlan on the Cadw website, but there are plenty of online resources and there is an excellent short (9-page) Cadw guide book available from the ticket office, or from online book retailers, with a 3-D reconstruction and a site plan, as well as a history of the site and a numbered tour of the key features, each with a descriptive paragraph explaining what you’re looking at – well worth the £2.50 that it cost me in the Rhuddlan Castle gift shop. You are also given a site plan as part of the ticket price, with 7 features picked out and described briefly (bi-lingual English and Welsh).
My battered copy of the Cadw leaflet that is provided with your ticket, showing some of the key features of the castle. The reverse side shows the same details in Welsh.
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The approach to the castle is on the flat, as is the interior and the walk around the castle, so this is suitable for those with unwilling legs. As with Flint Castle, the towers are fitted with modern spiral staircases, which will probably not be suitable for unwilling legs, but there is plenty to see without scaling the heights, including excellent views over the floodplain.
The ticket office also has toilets and a small gift shop. There are no coffee facilities but there is a freezer with ice-creams and a fridge with cold drinks, and there are some tables and chairs outside for a sit down.
It’s a seriously attractive site, and well worth a visit.
Sources
Books and papers
Davis, Paul R. 2021. Towers of Defiance. The Castles of Fortifications of the Princes of Wales. Y Lolfa
Davies, John 2007 (3rd edition). A History of Wales. Penguin
Dean, Josh and Catherine Jones 2020. Archaeological Watching Brief report for Plas Llewelyn, Rhuddlan. Project code: A0209.1, report no. 0203. Aeon Archaeology https://coflein.gov.uk/en/site/92914
Morris, M. 2008. A Great and Terrible King. Edward I and the Forging of Britain. Penguin
I have been trying to find a publication of the excavations that took place when the profoundly ugly Chester HQ office development was built on the site of St Mary’s Nunnery and its cemetery. This lead me to the article by Professor Howard Williams below. Outside the Chester HQ buildings is a very odd permanent display area made of red sandstone displaying bits and pieces of random archaeology. I’ve thought it was peculiar for a very long time, one of these token gestures, neither fish nor fowl, that are usually funded by developers when they build over the top of heritage sites. It has no cohesive message, no coherent linkage between any of the objects, and is anyway missed by most passers-by. This excerpt from a very nicely written article by Professor Williams (University of Chester), posted in 2017, really gets to the nub of the matter.
I see the vision but I can’t really get my head around the reality in a sympathetic way. Rather than evoking a history of place, reporting on the contexts discovered and the rich and varied social, economic, political and religious history of the city and this site’s place within it, instead we get a transtemporal pastiche. This is little more than a banal and context-free open-air cabinet of curiosities that shamelessly aggrandises the corporate architecture of the 21st century and its construction facilitated by the rifling of past times.
He goes on to discuss the display of one particular object, a truly lovely medieval stone grave cover with a fabulous decorative theme that represented the Tree of Life. It would have been laid horizontally over the grave, covering the deceased, but here is displayed vertically. This is really well worth a read if you are interested in heritage management, respect towards funerary monuments and contexts, the activities of developers with respect to the heritage they impact and the role of object histories. Loving the phrase ” transtemporal pastiche,” which gets it in one. Professor Williams never disappoints.
Back on the subject of the archaeological excavations, it was also interesting to note that in a 2013 article Professor Williams notes the following:
Archaeologist Mike Morris of Cheshire West and Chester Council was forced to announce that the developer – Liberty Properties – was in breach of their agreement [Cheshire Live] by not funding post-excavation adequately following the excavations at the HQ building revealing graves from Chester’s Benedictine nunnery. The website of Earthworks Archaeology – the commercial archaeologists who excavated the remains associated with the Benedictine Nunnery – says that post-excavation is ‘under way’.
The Cheshire Live article says that not only were there remains of 100 individuals from the cemetery at the nunnery site, but “foundations for at least one large Roman town house were discovered including an undisturbed mosaic floor – the first to be found in Chester since 1909.” The Earthworks Archaeology site announces: “The practice is currently on sabbatical.” There is no additional content and the website says nothing at all now. If anyone has any information about the excavations I would be grateful? But I suspect that it’s a horribly lost cause.
The last remaining structural feature of St Mary’s Nunnery – a 15th century archway that now stands in the Grosvenor Park.
Excavation without publication is an archaeological evil. If the remains carefully troweled out of the ground are not professionally published, the information is lost forever, the data never contributing to knowledge about the city as a whole and about the nunnery’s history in particular. It is the responsibility of an excavation not merely to extract data from the ground, but to share it. Anything else is an abdication of responsibility, and the loss of an important story. If the excavation results are never published, how will we ever understand what there was to know about St Mary’s? Where contracts are granted for this sort of work, surely the conditions of those contracts should be enforced.
The Chester HQ building where the nunnery once stood
The Chuch is at left, the Chapter House opposite and the ground floor monks’ day parlour whcih once had their dormitory overhead. The line of the cloister, a covered walkway with arcades, and the central garth are marked out by the stone foundations
I have been to Basingwerk Abbey a couple of times, but never got around to writing it up. It’s a super site, and although it is now a ruin, it retains enough of its original structures to ensure that its layout is easily understood. St Winifred’s Well, with its lovely late gothic shrine, is only a mile and a bit away, and an important part of Basingwerk’s property for most of its life, will be covered on another post.
Basingwerk Abbey is only a few miles away from Flint Castle. The abbey preceded the castle by over a century but when Edward I founded Flint Castle and its accompanying town in 1277, the histories of abbey and castle became entwined. A visit to the abbey is easily combined with a look-in at the attractive riverside remains of Flint Castle. I have written about the history of Flint Castle on an earlier post.
Digital Aerial Photograph of Basingwerk Abbey. AP_2009_2896 – s, Archive Number 6355272. Source: Coflein
Savignacs and Cistercian Basingwerk Abbey
Remains of the church
The first Basingwerk abbey, dedicated to St Mary, was founded as a Savignac monastery Ranulf II (Ranulf de Gernons) (1099–1153), fourth earl of Chester and later merged with the Cistercian order. It is not known why the Savignac order was chosen by Ranulf, but the monks who were sent to Basingwerk were provided directly by the founding monastery of Savigny in southwest Normandy itself. It became Cistercian in 1147. Most of the monks who served there subsequently, up until the 15th century, were English, aliens in territory that was a bone of contention between England and Wales.
A monastic order is formed of a shared set of spiritual ideals, often spelled out in considerable detail in rules that covered everything from how many times a day a monk should pray, communally or individually, to where and when they could speak, eat and sleep, and what work they should engage in. All orders involved, at least in theory, a degree of renunciation and isolation by communities of monks, but these ideals were eroded as the influence of monastic houses grew. The trajectory of monastic history in Europe changed in the late 11th century and early 12th century with the establishment of the so-called reforming orders, who wanted a purer, less self-indulgent and more hard-working approach to cloistered living than other contemporary monastic institutions offered. The reforming orders believed that the Rule of St Benedict, as it had been originally conceived and set down in the 6th Century Italy, was the key to recovering a holier and more disciplined approach to a communal life of worship. The Carthusian order was established in 1084, the Cistercian order in 1098, the Savignac order between 1109 and 1112.
12th Century links between Cistercian monasteries.Although Citeaux, the node for all Cistercian abbeys, established early new bases in France, it was Clairvaux under the lead of St Bernard that was responsible for the earliest new abbeys in Wales. Of these Whitland was the most important for the northward spread of monasticism. The green lines emanating from Savigny reflect the Savignac order, which merged with the Cistercians after only 20 years, in 1147. So although Basingwerk in the north and Neath in the south were founded as Savignac orders, after 1147 they were brought under the rule of the Cistercians at Citeaux. Source: Evans, D.H. Evans 2008, Valle Crucis Abbey (Cadw).
In Wales one of the most successful of these orders was the Cistercian order, which left remains in north, mid and south Wales. Valle Crucis in Llangollen is the nearest of the Cistercian abbeys to the Chester-Wrexham areas, established in 1201, and is discussed in a series of earlier posts, which begins here with Part 1. The Savignac order is much less well represented throughout Britain, and the reason for this is that in 1147 it was amalgamated with the Cistercian order. Basingwerk Abbey, established as a Savignac monastery, became Cistercian in that year.
Because of their similarities the Savignacs and Cistercians were a good match, but there were differences too, largely in terms of the constitutional framework and systems of accountability. To ensure that these were understood after the fusion, Savignac monasteries were put under the supervision of an appropriately located and senior Cistercian order. Basingwerk was put under authority of Buildwas Abbey in Shropshire, which had also originally been Savignac. This was perfectly in keeping with the Cistercian hierarchical approach to monastic management with every new monastery answerable and accountable to a mother house. The mother house for the entire order was Cîteaux, and Clairvaux was the mother abbey for Whitland in south Wales, which was established by monks from Clairvaux itself. Whitland in turn established other abbeys including Strata Marcella near Welshpool, and this abbey in turn established Valle Crucis. This system created a network of houses that all linked back to the ultimate mother house at Cîteaux (Cistercium in Latin) in France, the founding monastery of the Cistercian order. Every Cistercian abbot had to return from his abbey to Cîteaux every year for what was known as the General Chapter, a great conference of the Cistercian abbots.
The foundation and economic basis of Basingwerk Abbey at Holywell
Exterior of the refectory
The first Basingwerk Abbey was probably in wood, and was located at a different but nearby site possibly somewhere in the vicinity of Hên Blas in Coleshill, near a now-lost castle. There is a reference to a fortification in the Annales Cambriae describing how, when Henry II advanced into Wales from Chester, Owain Gwynedd prepared for the upcoming battle by digging a large ditch associated with a hastily built camp at a site called Dinas Basing. It is thought that this was the castle known to have been in the area of Hên Blas, which lies on a ridge between two streams and overlooks the Dee estuary. Excavations in the 1950s demonstrated the existence of a 12th century motte-and-bailey castle , which was flattened by Llewelyn the Great in the early 13th century, and was replaced with a defended courtyard with timber-framed buildings.
The central garth on a very moody day looking at the remains of the church. The tall upstanding ruin is the main remnant of the church at its east end. Photo taken from within the refectory
Basingwerk Abbey was later rebuilt in stone at the current site of the ruins, possibly in the 1150s, probably when Henry II granted a charter to the house and endowed it with the wealthy manor of Glossop in Derbyshire to assist with its financial future, 10 years after it became Cistercian. The general location seems to have been strategic rather than purely spiritual. The area of Tegeingl is located in the Four Cantrefs between the earldom of Chester and Welsh Gwynedd, always the subject of territorial dispute between England and Wales and a source of regional discontent until Edward I completed his invasion in the late 13th century. The establishment of a large French monastery was probably part of this process of establishing a presence, and a holy one at that. Although the monastery was later mainly populated by English monks, the Welsh too saw the benefit of patronizing a prestigious religious establishment and both Llywelyn ab Iorwerth (d. 1240) and his son, Dafydd ap Llywelyn (d. 1246) were benefactors.
Detail of Map 12, page 91 in Williams 1990 showing Cistercian Lands in Wales, with those of Basingwerk marked in red. Click to enlarge.
When an abbey was founded, its endowment included a number of properties that included farmland or pasture that were intended to support it by the provision of produce to make it self sustaining and later by selling produce. Some of these could be quite substantial manors, but others were smaller farms, which the Cistercians referred to as granges. These could resemble mini monastic establishments and often had their own chapels. Later still, properties with their land could be rented out to tenants, but as late as the early 16th century, Abbot Nicholas Pennant was busy creating a new open enclosure in the mountains adjacent to the monastery apparently for agricultural development.
Gelli Chapel, from Thomas Pennant’s 18th Century Tour in Wales. Source: National Library of Wales, via Wikipedia
Based on the work of D.H. Williams in his 1990 Atlas, Silvester and Hankinson 2015 list all the known Basingwerk granges, shown on the above map produced by Williams. These were supplemented in 2001 by Williams in 2001. Apart from two properties in Derbyshire these are all concentrated in northeast Wales and the Wirral and include, in alphabetical order: Baggechurch /Beggesburch Grange, Bagillt; Calcot; Gelli Grange, either at Gelli or Gelli Fawr; lands in Whitford and the adjacent parish of Cwm; the Lordship of Greenfield, alias Fulbrook, including lands of Merton Abbot and party of Holywell town; and Over Grange, Holywell (all in Flintshire). Lands with uncertain boundaries have also been identified elsewhere in the area, including Mostyn, Wake, Flint and Gwersylt as well as transhumant pasture close to property belonging to Valle Crucis Abbey at Moelfre-fawr in Denbighshire, at Boch-y-rhaiadr and Gwernhefin. They also owned Lake Tegid at Bala.
Beyond Wales, there were also three granges on the Wirral: Caldy Grange (West Kirby), Thornton Grange and Lache Grange (known as “La Lith”), as well as the granges in Charlesworth at Glossop, their mos profitable property, and leased land in Chapel le Frith.
Over Grange, Holywell. Source: Williams 1990, plate 39, page 120. No indication of when the photograph was taken.
Of this list, only two buildings seem to have survived into relatively recent times, the remnants of two granges. A chapel at Gelli Fawr in Whitford (Flints), apparently once belonging to Basingwerk Abbey was recorded in a late 18th-century drawing which suggests that the chapel was part of a larger building complex. More can be found about the building and its possible function it in Silvester and Hankinson 2015. Another grange, Over Grange, was listed by Cadw in 1991, according to Silverster and Hankinson, and was located located to the southwest of the modern farm house, and has been much-altered. The photograph below shows it with small cross over the gable.
The Coflein website says that it is believed that Basingwerk Abbey originally constructed a windmill on this site, but the present structure probably dates to the late18 or early 19th century. Now restored. Source: Coflein 804658 – NMR Site Files. Archive Number 6259181
To support its farming activities, the monastery built watermills, windmills and fulling mills. Abbot Thomas Pennant (abbot from 1481 to 1522) appears to have been particularly active in the building of mills. Records indicate that there were at least four windmills, at least three watermills, and at least two fulling mills, as well as a tithe barn in Coleshill.
The site of the Holywell windmill is thought to be preserved by the surviving windmill that can be seen today, shown right. Two of the windmills were on the Wirral. Rowan Patel’s research has found that the Basingwerk windmill that stood at West Kirby area had been established at around 1152, and was probably upgraded and even replaced several times. It stood on a high spot near the coast, an ideally windy location, and eventually featured on sea charts as a major landmark for coastal navigation. It was mentioned in Henry VIII’s Valor Ecclesiasticus, the valuation of all monastic properties. Patel has found that after the Dissolution the mill became the property of the Crown and was rented to Thomas Coventree for an annual sum of 40s. Rowan Patel’s research suggests that the second Basingwerk windmill was at Newbold, east of West Kirby, mentioned in the Taxatio of Pope Nicholas IV in 1291, where a Newbold windmill was referred to and valued at 40s a year. Before the Dissolution it appears to have been rented out to Thomas Coyntre in 1525 on a 100 year lease at 40s a year. By the time of the Dissolution, Thomas’s son Richard Coventry was apparently paying rent to the Crown, and in 1659 William Coventry, presumably a descendant of Richard’s, was still paying rent. In 1664 it is next recorded having been sold to one Thomas Bennett in who donated it to the support of the poor. Patel notes that in 1546 two men stole oats, barley and pease worth 10d, indicating the cereals proposed at the mill in the mid-16th century if not before.
Watermills continued to have a value well into the 20th century, and medieval mills will have been replaced over time, removing the visible remains of them, particularly along the valley that ran down the hill behind St Winifred’s Well and past Basingwerk before emptying into the Dee.
Economic Values excerpted from Williams 1990, map 21, p.105, showing the dominance of the agricultural contribution to the abbey’s income
Basingwerk had a large amount of livestock. The hills and newly cleared meadows around Basingwerk were ideal for sheep in the uplands and cattle in river valleys and pastures. The Welsh princes are also recorded as expecting two horses annually from Basingwerk which may indicate that the monks, like those of Cymer Abbey, were breeding horses.
As well as agriculture, which made up most of its income, Basingwerk was also involved in industrial activities, owning or leased industrial properties, Williams lists silver mining as a component of Basingwerk’s economic activities, and this is supported by Gerald of Wales whose trip through Wales in 1188 records leaving Conwy and heading east through Tegeingl through “a country rich in minerals of silver, where money is sought in the bowels of the earth” before spending the night at Basingwerk. The abbey was also involved in the salt trade, with salt extraction enterprises in Northwich and possibly Middlewich. Williams notes a coal mine leased from the Crown in Coleshill. Lead was also mined at Basingwerk, probably making use of the same resources that had been exploited by the Romans in the area.
Economic resources excerpted from Williams 1990, map 22, p.105
Timber was taken from woodlands in Penllyn in Merionydd for housing, hedges, fuel and other requirements, as well as for sale. Tenants were permitted to take a reasonable amount of firewood. Assarting, the removal of woodland for conversion to agricultural land and other uses was a common activity in the middle ages.
Fishing probably made up a significant part of the diet, as it did at most Cistercian monasteries. Basingwerk held the fishing rights for Lake Tegid at Bala, which it owned, and had a weir at West Kirby. Prince Dafydd granted them one fifth of the catch at Rhuddlan in the 13th century. They may also have purchased fish caught in the nearby coastal waters.
Basingwerk had a number of urban properties too, in Holywell, Flint, Chester, and Shrewsbury, which served as bases in town for the abbot and his representatives, which were probably loaned to friends of the monastery, but could also be leased out for additional income if required. The Shrewsbury house was probably a legacy of the abbey’s connection with Buildwas Abbey after the amalgamation of the Cistercian and Savignac orders.
The fan vaulting in St Winifred’s Well at Holywell
A major feather in the financial cap of Basingwerk was St Winifred’s shrine with its beautiful natural spring. The Holywell shrine of St Winifred was also another source of travelers requiring somewhere to stay and something to eat. St Winifred’s shrine was granted in 1093 to St Werburgh’s Abbey in Chester, but was passed to Basingwerk in 1240, together with the living of Holywell church. An abbey with a pilgrim shrine had a whole world of opportunities for income generation, and St Winifred’s was not only famous in its own right for its powers of healing and provision of miraculous cures, but was on the pilgrim trail to Bardsey Island at the end of the Llŷn peninsula and Ireland, via Anglesey. In 1427 it was given a considerable boost when Pope Martin V granted indulgences for those visiting the shrine and giving alms to the chapel. Indulgences rewarded certain behaviours, like pilgrimages, with a remission of sins, meaning less time in purgatory. Royal visitors included King Henry V in around 1416 and Edward IV in 1461, helping to raise the profile of the shrine, which continues to welcome pilgrims today. It became even more attractive from the late 15th – early 15th century when the shrine was provided with a spectacular gothic building that surrounded the spring. I will cover Holywell in a separate post.
A traditional method of income acquisition for monasteries was appropriating a church and its income, sometimes to cover a particular expense, such as a major building project, and sometimes just to supplement income. The Cistercians officially frowned on this practice, but the ban on appropriating church incomes did not survive very long. Even so, Basingwerk had appropriated surprisingly few, just parish churches at Holywell, Glossop and a third at an unknown location, possibly to be identified with Abergele.
The fairs and markets granted to Basingwerk during Edward I’s reign in the 1290s are discussed below, and this must have been a considerable aid to their income.
Behind the monks’ day room and the dormitory above it was a block of buildings the function of which remains unclear. Suggestions include an extension of the abbot’s personal quarters, with rooms for special visitors, or a dedicated guest wing.
In spite of these various forms of income, Basingwerk sometimes found itself in financial stress. The monastery had been unable to provide a required payment to Edward III in 1346, and by way of explanation complained of the burdens of hospitality that came partly with being a Cistercian abbey, which put a great deal of emphasis on providing free hospitality, and partly from being near a major road, which had become increasingly busy after Edward I had moved forward into Wales, establishing market towns whose merchants moved between Wales and Chester for trade. Even later in its history, in the late 15th/early 1gth century, it was reported that guests were so numerous that they had to take their meals in two sittings. Smith paints an evocative picture of other travelers in Wales who “cautiously flitted from one English settlement to the next, seeking safe overnight bases where food and shelter could be found “in a land in which rumors of insurrection abounded.” Basingwerk was by no means the only abbey to complain of this burden, which was a particular problem for Cistercian abbeys, but was shared by any monastic community that sat at a busy location. Birkenhead Priory, which ran the ferry that allowed crossings between the Wirral and Lancashire for access to Chester and beyond (and later Liverpool), found itself in real difficulties due to the requirement to supply hospitality for ferry users who might be stuck at the monastery for several nights in bad weather.
A rather more specific problem was the expectation by the Welsh princes to use the abbey’s Boch-y-rhaiadr range for its annual hunting expeditions, during which the abbey was expected to provide bread, butter, cheese and fish for a hunting party of 300, expanding to 500, with money due in lieu when hunting did not take place. This was abolished by Edward I after his conquest of Wales.
The Cistercian monasteries in Wales were not exempt from all taxes, or subsidies, and some of the abbots and their community were employed as tax collectors. Other occasional charges were made on the abbey, such as a demand for financial contributions towards the marriage of Edward III’s sister. Basingwerk provided £5 in 1333.
The abbey, being so active in economic production in the Holywell-Flint areas, was responsible for the management of its lands and the personnel who managed and worked the land, but was also required to function in a judicial role, its courts administering justice and meting out punishments. Lekai says that the monastery had “a pillory, tumbrel and other instruments of punishment, although the penalty most often inflicted was a fine.”
The church is on the left and the two arches of the chapter house at right,. All the buildings were arranged around the central green area, the garth. The stone foundations for the covered and arcaded walkway survive.
Most of the Cistercian abbeys in Wales, at one time or another, had a diplomatic role acting as intermediaries between the Welsh princes and the Crown, acting for either side, a role that was in their political interests to accept. For example In 1241 Henry III used the Lache grange for a conference between himself and Prince Dafydd’s clerk. In 1246 Henry III chose the abbot of Basingwerk to escort Prince Dafydd’s wife Isabella from Dyserth Castle to Godstow nunnery near Oxford. A decade later, Prince Llywelyn ap Gruffyd used an abbot of Basingwerk to carry a letter to Henry III.
In 1291 the Taxatio Ecclesiastica of Pope Nicholas IV valued Basingwerk at £68 8s 0d, gross value (compared with Valle Crucis at £91 8s 0d, and Margam at £255 27s 4½d). In 1346 it claimed that its lands were sterile, and it went through some bad years, but in spite of the rebellion of Owain Glyn Dŵr in the early 1400s and a very troublesome period when a monk took the abbacy without being legally elected in the first half of the 15th century, with a similar problem in the later 15th century, the appointment of Thomas Pennant in the early 16th century seems to have turned things around. In 1535, Henry VIII’s Valor Ecclesiasticus valued the monastery at £157 15s 2d. Margam by this time was valued at £188 14s 0d, and Valle Crucis £214 3s 5d. ——
The layout of the monastery
Plan of Basingwerk Abbey. Source: Robinson, D. M., 2006. Basingwerk Abbey (Cadw).
The remains of the monastery conform to a standardized layout favoured by all the orders that followed the rule of St Benedict, clearly shown on the Cadw plan to the right, which helpfully colour-codes the dates for each part of the building. Few parts of the 12th century abbey are left. Most date to the early 13th century, but the monk’s refectory was built in the mid-13th century. Much of the abbey was rebuilt in the 13th century, which was not unusual when, for example, a new abbot might want to make a mark, but in this case it is possible that much of not most of it was done due to damage inflicted during the wars between the English and the Welsh, when Edward paid compensation to the abbey to enable it to carry out repairs, about which more below.
The cloister arcade was apparently remodelled in the late 14th century. In the late 15th century Abbot Thomas Pennant carried out building work not only at the abbey but also at the shrine of St Winifred just up the road in Holywell. There are various aspects of the site where both date and function remain unclear. The western range, opposite the chapter house, would have been part of the original layout, used to house the lay brethren, discussed below, but may have gone out of use if a new use for them could be found when the lay brethren were no long featured in the community. Although the above plan shows that the possible guest accommodation is undated, timbers from fire damage Basingwerk were saved for future analysis and tree-ring dating shows that the felling-date of the crown-post truss was c. 1385. This is one of the earliest Welsh tree-ring dated. The dating was commissioned by Cadw.
The church is at left, the chapter house to its right, the day room and the windows of the first floor dormitory next, and set to the far right is the refectory
Although every monastery differed in some aspects, the basic template of buildings surrounding a central square area, a garth (green area) with surrounding walkway (the cloisters) with the monastic church making up one side, was a universal arrangement. The church was usually on the north side, as it was here, and often included two chapels in the transepts that flanked the crossing area where the choir was located. Some churches featured towers either above the crossing or at one end. The other buildings usually included a chapter house (the important monastic meeting room), day room with a dormitory on its first floor, a refectory, and sometimes an undercroft for storage. with an external door leading into the cloister on one side and the monastic precinct beyond. A sacristy was usually attached to the church, sandwiched between the church and the chapter house, which is how matters were arranged at both Basingwerk and Valle Crucis. The cloisters were usually supplied with desks (called carrels) along the exterior wall of the church where the monks could study and write.
The precinct, in which this arrangement of buildings sat, could include other structures like farm buildings, and visitor accommodation and often included a gatehouse, the whole surrounded by some form of boundary. A key feature of Cistercian monasteries was good drainage, which supplied the kitchens and fish ponds, where present, and took away toilet waste, and various parts of the Basingwerk drainage system can be traced at the site.
Part of the abbey’s drainage system
Part of the abbey’s drainage system
The church, with its entrance at far left and the south transept at right
Many of these features can be found at Basingwerk. The church is largely in ruins, but the layout is still visible in the very masonry walls that sit on the grass, including the columns that supported the roof and divided the church into a central nave with three aisles and seven bays, two side transepts each with a small transept and an eastern presbytery where the high altar would be located. At around 50 metres in length the church would have been one of the smallest Cistercian churches in Wales. Only Cymer near Dolgellau is shorter, at just over 30m in length. At the entrance to the presbytery a stone set into the floor may have supported a lectern.
What remains of the south transept, with the presbytery beyond
Basingwerk Abbey refectory wall
Opposite the former church, and one of the best preserved parts of the abbey, is south range with the refectory, which was built perpendicular to the cloister rather than lying along it on a north-south axis. The refectory in Chester Cathedral, the former St Werburgh Abbey, was built along the length of the cloister, limiting its size, but the the refectory at Basingwerk as limited only by the size of the precinct. This was probably a change introduced in the 13th century remodelling of much of the abbey, replacing a 12th century refectory that lay along the side of the cloister on an east-west axis. It is a substantial building with many features preserved in its walls. This includes the former entrance and stairway to the pulpit, now blocked off, from which religious texts would have been read during meals. S series of tall windows would have let in a lot of light, and there was a hatch between the refectory and the kitchen for the convenient handing over of food, as well as a cupboard, which was apparently shelved, opposite.
The monks’ day parlour at ground floor level, with the dormitory on the first floor, the windows suggesting the original height of this building
The east range of buildings, again along the edge of the cloister, extends between the east range and the church. As you face this range, running from right to left are the monks’ day parlour, over which was the dormitory, the length of which over-ran the cloister and ran parallel for a short distance with the refectory; a long thin parlour is next, and then most importantly is the chapter house, where the monks met daily to discuss the business of the order. To its left is the sacristy, which adjoined the south transept of the church.
The Chapter House
The sacristy to the left of the chapter house, with doorway leading into the church to the left.
Looking towards where the western range would have been located. The building beyond is now the café.
Opposite this range was the western range, of which there is almost nothing left. In a Cistercian monastery this was usually used, at least in the early decades, for the lay brethren. These were members of the monastic community who worked the land, and were not required either to be as educated as the monks, or to dedicate a similar amount of time to worship. They worked the land and were maintained by the monastery. As properties were leased out, the lay brethren were increasingly redundant and the western range was usually put to different uses. It is not known how it would have been used at Basingwerk.
When Edward I settled on his location for his new castle at Flint, Basingwerk Abbey was just a few miles west of the new site. The monks of Basingwerk Abbey, which was established over 100 years earlier in 1132, must have wondered about the impact of the castle on their own security and their livelihood. During the first few months of the castle construction process in the summer of 1277 Edward stayed near Basingwerk. Edward saw himself as a religious man. He had been on crusade, and had made a vow to establish a monastic house of his own, under the Cistercian order, and had selected a site for it in Cheshire. Vale Royal Abbey was already underway in 1277 near Northwich, Edward having laid the first stone in early August. It seems unlikely that Edward was not often a guest of the Basingwerk Cistercian Abbey during the building of Flint, which apart from being obliged under Cistercian rules to provide hospitality, was unlikely to reject a royal visitor. Although Basingwerk had been founded by an English patron, Ranulf II it was probably more in tune with Welsh interests by the arrival of Edward. Indeed, earlier in 1277 seven Cistercian abbots had written a letter to Pope Gregory X supporting Prince Llewellyn ap Gruffud against charges placed by the Bishop of St Asaph, although the abbot of Basingwerk was not amongst them.
Drainage at Basingwerk, from the refectory
Whatever their personal leanings, it would have been very much in the interests of the order for good relations to be maintained. They may have offered advice about his plans for Vale Royal, and it is clear that some of the abbots in the Welsh-based monasteries, including Basingwerk, played an invaluable role as intermediaries between the Welsh and the English. Fortunately for the monks at Basingwerk, Edward I chose the Cistercian abbey at Aberconwy for his headquarters, forcing that monastic community to eventually shift further south along the Conwy valley to a new home.
The monks of Basingwerk would have been less than astute, however, if they had not regarded the new castle with misgivings, and if they had concerns about being caught in the middle of a fight between Edward and Llywelyn, their worries would later be justified. In the 1270s and 1280s the abbey suffered damage during the wars of Edward I, in spite of letters of protection issued to it in 1276,1278, and 1282 and in 1284 Edward granted £100 compensation to the monks after the army stole corn and cattle and the loss of workers who were abducted, presumably for labour. An additional 132 4d was paid in damages to churches in Holywell. Basingwerk was not the only abbey in the area to suffer and receive compensation. Valle Crucis near Llangollen received a sum of £160.00, and nearby Aberconwy was occupied by Edward I’s forces and its monastic community was forced to move to a new home to the south, at Maenan. Relations between the abbey and castle obviously continued to remain good, because when the castle was completed in 1280 a monk of Basingwerk was engaged as the chaplain to the royal garrison.
One of John Speed’s maps showing Flint Castle and town. The castle and town of Flint as mapped by John Speed in 1610, showing the original road layout and market place. Source: National Library of Wales
At Flint, Edward had established a Norman-style new town as part of his vision for colonizing various parts of Wales. This was an English settlement, and any new burgesses prepared to live there was given numerous incentives. In 1278 Edward granted it permission to hold weekly markets and an annual fair. In 1292 he granted Basingwerk the same permissions for Holywell, having granted them permission to hold an annual fair at their Glossop manor in 1290. The monks could charge market stall holders rent for the duration of the market, a nice source of income, as well as selling their own products. Basingwerk, with its water mills, windmills and fulling mills and land under both grazing and grain, was certainly in a position to sell a number of products, including grain, livestock and livestock products including meat, skins and wool. Welsh wool was recognized as being of very high quality, sometimes superior to even that of the better known wool produced by the Yorkshire monastic producers. The Taxatio ecclesiastica of Pope Nicholas IV in 1291 recorded that Basingwerk had 2000 sheep producing 10 sacks of wool, 53 cows (at a ratio of 37.1:1), and no goats. Even if it found itself in competition with Flint, Basingwerk’s fairs probably represented the opportunity to raise the abbey’s income. Its industrial products, as well as some of its wool, may have been sold for export.
The 14th – 16th century
Burton and Stöber describe how by the mid 14th century there were reports that the abbey was in debt, and in the fifteenth century some of its abbots were a distinct liability:
in 1430 the house was seized by Henry Wirral, who made himself abbot, and the following year he was engaged in a legal dispute for the office with Richard Lee. Despite the court ruling in favour of Lee, Henry continued in power at Basingwerk until 1454 when he was arrested for various misdemeanours and deposed. Matters did not improve, for in the following decade Richard Kirby, monk of Aberconwy, disputed the abbacy with Edmund Thornbar. Although the General Chapter ordered that Edmund be recognized as abbot, Richard was still in office in 1476.
Fortunately the abbey’s fortunes improved under Welsh Abbot Thomas Pennant, who ruled the house for about forty years from around 1481 to 1523, although this was very much a last hurrah before Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries beginning in 1535. By the early 16th century Welsh bard Tudur Aled (died 1526) makes it clear that there was lead roofing and stained glass at the abbey. Tudur Aled praised Abbot Thomas , commending his his learning but also his generosity, generally an indication that they were being sponsored by a given abbot, as at Valle Crucis. Gutun Owain seems to have benefited from Basingwerk Abbey’s patronage. Owain is notable for having addressed over fifteen poems to Cistercian abbots, and is known to have stayed as a guest at Valle Crucis and Strata Florida as well as Basingwerk. Although the late fifteenth century manuscript known as the Black Book of Basingwerk (Llyfr Du Basing, now NLW MS 7006D, which was the mainly the work of Gutun Owain copied into a single volume) was probably held by Basingwerk at the time of the dissolution in around 1536, it is thought in fact to have been the work of copyist monks at Valle Crucis.
Thomas Pennant was not a man of undiluted virtue. In an order where celibacy was required and monks were not permitted to marry, Pennant not only fathered a family, but his son Nicholas, became the last abbot of Basingwerk, which in theory was an act of simony banned by the order. When the abbey closed, probably in 1536, with just three monks, Nicholas was the abbot.
After the Dissolution every valuable object and piece of structural material was stripped for Henry VIII’s treasury. James says that part of the timber ceiling is at Cilcain, and that stained glass can be found at Llanasa. Burton and Stöber add that the choir stalls from the abbey were transferred to the church of St Mary on the Hill in Chester. Lead from the roof was removed, and may have been used for the repair of Holt Castle on the Dee and Dublin Castle. Williams adds that it may have been employed also in other crown buildings in Dublin, and that it is possible that the wooden sedilia in the parish church of St Mary, Nercwys, was from Basingwerk. There is a tradition that the Jesse window was reinstalled in the parish church of St Dyfriog (Llanrhaeadr-yng-Nghinmeirch) but this remains unconfirmed.
I have been unable to get access to St Mary on the Hill, a comprehensive history of which is on the Chesterwiki. It was decomissioned in 1972 and now describes itself as a Creative Space and venue for a range of activities. However, the Chesterwiki site says that the fittings, presumably including the Basinwerk choir stalls, were removed after the church was decomissioned, although it does not say where these fittings went.
From the 18th century the site attracted artists who recorded features that are now lost. In the early 20th century a large section of the south transept collapsed. In 1923 the site was put in State guardianship and in 1984 it was put into the car of Cadw.
Basingwerk Abbey miniature by Moses Griffiths, c.1778. Source: National Library of Wales, via Wikipedia
Information about Basingwerk Abbey is fragmented and partial, but researchers have pieced together a history of the abbey that tells a story about abbey’s past, beginning as a Savignac establishment before being absorbed into the Cistercian network of monasteries. The disputes between the Welsh princes and Henry III and Edward I caused grief for the north Wales monasteries, but they survived to rebuild and move forward. Like other abbeys in Wales, the abbots of the abbey had a diplomatic role, often acting as intermediaries between Wales and England. As members of the wider community with an important economic role, the abbey was often involved in local judicial matters. Financial difficulties in the 14th and 15th centuries are recorded and but again the monastery survived these difficulties. In the early 16th century the abbey became a haven for Welsh bards, supporting their work. Throughout its history, its location on the main route through north Wales meant that it was obliged to provide more hospitality than more secluded monastic houses, whilst the shrine of St Winifred, whilst contributing to the prestige and financial value of the abbey, also required some management to prevent it becoming a drain on the abbey’s obligation to provide shelter and food. After the Dissolution in 1536, the abbey was decommissioned, its valuables removed and its properties either sold off our leased out. Today it is managed by Cadw and offers an excellent visitor experience.
The site is free to visit. There is no visitor information centre but a small modern shop sells guide books, postcards and souvenirs relating to Basingwerk, St Winifred’s Shrine and the Greenfield Valley Park. The abbey’s postcode is CH8 7GH and the car park is on Bagillt road, just to the west of the enormous railway bridge, opposite a small trade/industrial estate.
There is a big car park at the foot of the abbey, shown to the right left on the A548, just west of the enormous railway bridge, which has a fairly gentle metalled incline up to the abbey, with a bench and information map half way up.
There is also a café just outside the main gates, which in October 2022 was doing a good coffee and a splendid lunch.
Basingwerk Abbey is a component part of Greenfield Valley Park, and is popular with dog walkers and children, so if you want a quiet visit it is probably best to go on a weekday outside the holidays. The rest of Greenfield Valley Park is an excellent visit in its own right, with a remarkable amount of industrial archaeology within its borders, and plenty of interpretation boards. I have posted about the industrial archaeology of the Green Valley Park here.
If you want to stay in the medieval period, St Winifred’s Well is about 1.5 miles through the park (shown as No.9 at the very top of the map right), or if you prefer to drive it has its own car park. Flint Castle is only 4 or so miles down the A548 towards Chester, and makes for a great visit. I wrote about the history of Flint Castle on an earlier post, Together, the three sites make a very fine medieval day.
Elfyn Hughes, R., J. Dale, I. Ellis Williams and D. I. Rees. Studies in Sheep Population and Environment in the Mountains of North-West Wales I. The Status of the Sheep in the Mountains of North Wales Since Mediaeval Times. Journal of Applied Ecology , Apr., 1973, Vol. 10, No. 1 (Apr., 1973), p.113-132 https://www.jstor.org/stable/2404720
Rhys, Ernest (ed.) 1908. The Itinerary and Description of Wales with an introduction by W. Llewelyn Williams. Everyman’s Library. J.M. Dent and Co, London. and E.P. Dutton and Co (NY) https://archive.org/details/itinerarythroug00girauoft
Huws, D. 2000. Medieval welsh Manuscripts. University of Wales Press
Lekai, Louis L. 1977. The Cistercians. Ideals and Reality. The Kent State University Press
Patel, Rowan 2016. The Windmills and Watermills of Wirral. A Historical Survey. Countyvise Ltd.
Robinson, D. M., 2006. Basingwerk Abbey. Cadw
Silvester, R.J., and Hankinson, R., 2015. The Monastic Granges of East Wales. The Scheduling Enhancement Programme: Welshpool. Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust (CPAT) coflein.gov.uk/media/241/979/652240.pdf
Full statue angels only arrive on the churchyard scene in the Victorian period.
This informal look at the monuments in Gresford’s All Saints’ church graveyard follows on from three previous posts about All Saints’, the first a general history of the interior, the second a quick look at the splendid gargoyles and grotesques on the exterior of the building. The third post looked at misericords (fascinatingly carved so-called mercy seats in choir stalls) in a three-part series about misericords in Gresford, Malpas, Bebington and Chester Cathedral.
I began writing this over a year ago, mainly for my own benefit when I was getting to grips with how churchyards develop, what sort of chronological markers can be found and the variety of monument types and themes that could be expected. I have just re-found the post in my drafts folder and thought that others might find it useful. This is no more than a very basic introductory starting point for investigating this and other churchyards in the area.
The churchyard surrounds the Gresford parish church of All Saints’ on all sides. The main part of the cemetery is to the south of the church. In parish churchyards the area to the north side of the church was usually the last to be occupied by the dead. This is partly because the brighter areas were favoured, but partly because the darker area was often reserved for church and community events until the 19th century when a requirement for more burial grounds resulted in the extension into all areas of a churchyard.
There is a variety of different tomb styles with the All Saints’ churchyard, mainly belonging to the late-18th, 19th centuries and 20th centuries. This includes chest tombs, table graves, ledger gravestones, vertical gravestones and sculptural monuments. Although most of the grave markers are relatively uniform in shape, size and motifs, reflecting standardization in the approach to gravestones, some are very personal and inevitably there are a few that stand out either because they are conspicuously larger than their neighbours, or because they are slightly unusual in some way.
Grave Types
Terminology can differ slightly from publication to publication. Graves are, on this post at least, subterranean pits into which the deceased is placed. Grave stones, markers and monuments may sit over the grave to mark their positions and, if required, provide details of the deceased. Head stones are specifically the vertical slabs that sit at the head end of the grave, and may be accompanied by a short foot stone to mark the other end of the grave. Kerbs are low stone frames for the space occupied by the grave. Tombs are constructions, sometimes resembling buildings, that contain above-ground storage of the dead, but the term is often applied to false tombs, which are containers that sit on the ground but lie over a subterranean burial like the chest tombs and table tombs that are found at Gresford. Memorials commemorate the dead, but may not be associated with the grave where people are interred (like war memorials). There are no mausolea at Gresford or, indeed, at most parish churchyards, but these are standalone buildings, often highly ornate, that contain one or more tombs within.
The following photographs, all from All Saints’, show individual grave marker types that have been mentioned below. There are other types that do not appear in the All Saints’ churchyard, which are not included here. Click the image to enlarge so that the descriptions are legible:
The main types of grave marker present in Gresford All Saints’s churchyard, although there are other types too. Click image to enlarge.
Headstones
The dead are buried on their backs facing upwards, with heads to the west, feet to the east. Table tombs have inscriptions on the ledger (flat top) and the supports may be plain or more elaborate. Headstones face east, with the inscription on the eastern face. Because many inevitably face away from footpaths, in some cemeteries a name may be etched into the back of the headstone, to identify the deceased, whilst the full details are shown on the east-facing side. Chest tombs may have decorative components on the side panels, and text may be on both the ledger (flat top) or the side panels, or both.
Date Range
The earliest graves at Gresford are located within the church itself in the north and south aisles, and have been mentioned on the first post about All Saints’, both dating to the 13th century. They consist of effigies, the inscribed or carved sculpted images of the deceased and represent two of the highest status and wealthiest individuals of local 13th century society.
Marked graves in British parish churchyards were a relatively late phenomenon, the first ones appearing in the 17th century. These are quite few and far between, and I have not yet seen mention of any in local or neighbouring churchyards. Grave monuments in the Gresford churchyard date mainly from the late 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries..
18th Century
Ledger of 1710
The earliest graves that I have found are early 18th century, one of the earliest dating to 1710, although there may be earlier examples that I have not noticed, including some completely concealed by ivy. A number of examples from this period are ledgers, flat tablets that in this churchyard are usually carved from fine-grained yellow stone, often greyed with age, set horizontally into the ground, with large, simple text, and almost no decorative features. Later ledger stones were sometimes provided with small decorative embellishments.
Some of the ledger gravestones flank walkways and paths, forming kerbs and revetments, such as the ones shown on the right that flank the main churchyard path. It is easy to forget that they are grave markers in their own right. This is apparently a particular feature of churchyards in Cheshire and Lancashire.
Other ledgers are laid between chest and table tombs, with which they are usually contemporary. Chest tombs are simply more elaborate versions of ledgers, with the horizontal slab raised off the ground, the space beneath enclosed with stone panels. Table tombs are also raised ledgers, but on four legs or on three cross-members. This raising of the ledgers may have been to create something more monumental, to provide more space for inscriptions where a grave is intended for more than one generation of family members, or to prevent the slab being encased in grass, moss, ivy and weeds.
Organized in a row alongside one of the paths, near the east end of the church, are the smallest (c.16in/ 41cm tall) upright grave markers. These are either footstones that have been separated from their corresponding headstones (only ever inscribed with initials and date if inscribed at all), or were purchased as gravestones by those with few means at their disposal. None have many inscribed details, and the one shown left, dating to 1778, is particularly minimalist, providing only the initials of the deceased, the year of death and the age at time of death. Others in the row are slightly more informative than this example but there is insufficient space for them to provide detailed information.
Red sandstone chest tomb (with decorative pilasters at each corner), sadly commemorating child deaths, just one month apart, of Robert Jones, aged 12, in July 1791 and Sarah Jones, aged 13, in August 1791, aged 13.
There are a number of chest tombs consisting of four stone panels with a ledger stone set on top. Chest tombs of all periods are merely monuments like gravestones, in the sense that they do not contain the burial themselves, but sit over the top of subterranean graves. There is something undeniably spooky about a breach in a chest tomb, but as Trevor Yorke says “Don’t be alarmed when you see a chest tomb with a cracked or missing side, a skeletal arm will not reach out to grab you! The body was always interred below the ground with the hollow interior empty.” Most are made of yellow sandstone, but there is one isolated chest tomb in red sandstone.
19th Century
Chest tombs are also a feature of the 19th century, and many of these are more elaborate than earlier forms and have side panels decorated by geometric shapes and small motifs.
Chest tomb dating to 1835, one of a kind within this cemetery
A yellow sandstone chest tomb with another sad inscription, commemorating the death of a 12 year old in 1846 and a 2 year old in 1849. These are by no means the only records of child and infant mortality in the churchyard. This grave later went on to house the children’s parents.
An elaborate chest tomb raised on feet and provided with a lid rather than a simple ledger, with decorated panels. The first-mentioned deceased was Bridget Hugo from Truro in Cornwall, who died aged 44 in 1820. It was used again in 1837 for the interment of Elizabeth Hugo, aged 88. Mother or sister?
A table tomb of 1879
Pedestal graves, essentially smaller square versions of chest tombs, also appear at this time. Like chest graves, pedestal graves could have inscriptions on more than one side. Some had inscriptions on all four sides, but others might have inscriptions on only one or two, depending on how many people were eventually interred and commemorated. The pedestal gravestone below is engraved on all four sides with the details of family members related to Timothy Parsonage of Wrexham, who were buried successively in 1811, 1817, 1831, 1839, 1872 and 1875.
Platform of stone paves, surrounded by railings, presumably the remnants of an elaborate monument.
Both chest and pedestal graves could be surrounded by iron railings in the 19th century, and there are several examples at All Saints’.
There are a couple of graves consisting of nothing more than sprawling platforms of paves with a higher raised section in the middle. It is very probable that the centre of the platform formerly supported some form of monument, now lost, possibly on a fairly narrow stand, such as a cross, that resulted in a fall when the platforms destabilized. Alternatively, there is a pedestal tomb on a similar platform, which could be an alternative arrangement, although it is more difficult to explain how such a monument could be lost, unless it was destroyed in a fall.
Headstone with kerb defining the area of the grave
The main 19th century cemetery is on the south side of the church and consists of tall headstones of the upright variety with an inscription on the main panel, a few decorative flourishes at the top, and sometimes an epitaph or other line of text at the base. On several of them the top of the headstone had been carved into a decorative sculptural component in its own right. These also contain introductory phrases and are often accompanied by religious symbols and motifs.
The area occupied by the body in front of the headstone could be demarcated with a stone kerb or a set of railings. Although it is difficult to tell because of the long grass, these seem to be confined to a relatively small number of graves, presumably because of the additional cost that would have been incurred. I noticed at Farndon’s St Chad’s churchyard that the plentiful kerbs accompanying headstones usually belonged to the early 20th century.
Most of the headstones in this section of the churchyard were made of local sandstone, mainly superior fine-grained yellow sandstone, but a few, particularly towards the end of the 19th century, were also made of imported stone, such as rose granite, often highly polished to achieve a glossy surface, such as the 1891 coped stone shown below (interestingly one of the few to be inscribed in Welsh). Some were partially polished, with parts left unworked to provide contrasts in colour and texture, such as the 1908 example on the right. Similarly, some of the later grave stones combined different types of stone to draw attention to particular motifs or to highlight inscriptions. Colour inserts are unusual, but the headstone above includes a blue and white religious symbol, containing the letters IHS. These are usually interpreted as a Christogram, representing the first three letters of the name Jesus Christ’s in Greek, iota eta sigma. The H is the capitalization of “eta.”
Rose granite coped gravestone
Dotted amongst these more conventional 19th century headstones, and particularly popular in the Victorian periods, is the monumental grave stone, consisting of a large sculptural element supported on an inscribed plinth. Frequent types are crosses, angels and obelisks. One example, below far right, has a column on a plinth topped with the crucified Jesus on one side and Mary with the baby Jesus on the other, both protected by a roof. The relatively tiny cross at its base was dedicated to an infant.
The later 20th Century
At some point between the late 19th and early 20th century, highly polished imported black stone became desirable for gravestones. There are a couple of full-sized early versions of this stone in the Gresford churchyard, most of which have both polished and unpolished sections to create texture and contrast.
As the 20th century proceeded, the same stone type was used to make tiny grave markers usually laid flat, with white or gold lettering. Because those commemorated by these stones are often within living memory of children or grandchildren, some of them may be visited and flowers often accompany them, real or artificial, a brightly coloured foil for the standardized lines of shiny black polished stone, quite unlike the earlier, upright headstones. Although very different from their monumental antecedents they give a sense of continuity from the 18th century.
Grave locations
The irregularly shaped churchyard
The wish for burial within a church or as close as possible to the church, demonstrated by the two 13th century examples in the north and south aisles of the church itself, was driven by the belief that proximity to holiness would confer some form of additional divine spirituality on the dead. The chancel, the east end section where the choir and high altar were located, was particularly desirable as a burial place. Throughout history, burial within church premises was reserved only for a limited number of people including senior clergy, those drawn from the upper echelons of society, and those who had provided financial support to the church. Others might be buried in private mausolea in their own premises, but most would be consigned to a churchyard or, later, a dedicated cemetery. The north side of a parish church was often the last to be used for burials, in some cases because the cemetery might have been used in early years for village community events, but also because it, or parts of it, were sometimes reserved for unconsecrated burials such as babies who died before baptism and suicides; but in some cases it appears to be simply because the darker north side was seen as less attractive and further away from the divine.
Designs and motifs in the churchyard
Elaborate monument to William Trevor Parkins, Chancellor of St Asaph, who died in 1908 and is also commemorated with a stained glass window in the church. His wife and son are also commemorated on the the monument.
Although gravestones were primarily used for recording details of the deceased, motifs, emblems and symbols were introduced in the late 17th century, and became popular in the 18th century, establishing memento mori and other themes as part of the language of the grave marker. Most of these helped to express ideas with which the deceased might wish to be connected, a visual reference to the connection between the living, the dead and the afterlife. The range of visual features in the Gresford churchyard is fairly limited, but they echo churchyard motifs in other local churchyards, suggesting that there was a limited range of ideas with which local people were familiar or felt comfortable, such as as crosses, floral motifs and the letters IHS that stand for the first three letters of the name of Jesus in Latin. Others are rather more specific, and convey a particular association, such as a cross showing the Star of David and a military grave showing the Canadian maple. If anyone can enlighten me about the multiple serpents wending their way through half-globes on the Celtic-influenced cross on the image to the right, the 1908 monument to William Trevor Parkins, I would be very grateful! There is a similar one in the Overleigh Old Cemetery in Chester.
Instead of looking at the limited range of symbols and motifs on gravestones at Gresford, a future post will look at some of these.
Challenges for grave architecture
Heavy central erosion to the headstone on the left; de-lamination of the sandstone of the headstone on the right, leaving a small part of the original surface containing the inscription in one corner
In all churchyards, some grave markers fare better than others, thanks to unavoidable natural processes. Most of the graves at All Saints’ are in good condition, and the churchyard as a whole is well maintained and cared for. Natural processes, however, can defy all attempts to conserve grave markers and there is no blame attached to this. The greater percentage of grave markers at All Saints’ are made of friable yellow sandstone, which is susceptible to damage by extremes of the weather, to the impact of concentrated dripping from trees and to the fumes from motor pollution. Some of this is mild erosion, some of it has rendered text illegible whilst leaving the basic form unharmed, but other cases are very severe, such as examples shown here, some of which have large patches resembling melted ice-cream, whilst others are suffering serious de-lamination.
Like most rural churchyards, some of the churchyard is well manicured, and other parts of it have been left to develop a more natural feel. The dominant vegetation surrounding the 19th century headstones away from the trees is very tall grass, (very wet up to mid-thigh in some areas after rainfall – beware!). The tall grass appears to do little harm to the headstones, although it does inhibit visits to those gravestones, and the build up of foliage at the bases eventually creates topsoil that covers up inscriptions at the bases, particularly in the case of pedestals at the bottom of crosses, obelisks and similar statues, where text may be confined to the base of the monument.
Carved ivy tendrils wrap around a rustic cross as real ivy on the ground just begins to encroach on the pedestal.
Under trees and in shaded areas invasive ivy does real damage, fastening itself to the stone, hiding inscriptions and, when removed, removes the friable surfaces of the stone. Ivy is very difficult to eradicate from an area once it establishes a network of roots, from which it sends out runners that in turn root themselves. It is resistant to just about every form of weed killer, even if that were desirable in a graveyard that strives to encourage a natural environment. One or two of the gravestones are carved with images of ivy spreading across their surfaces, which seems like an ironic acknowledgement of the inevitable blending of nature with death. The only way of dealing with it is to keep cutting it back when it it begins to climb the grave stones – a thankless and endless task!
What appears to be one or more chest tombs, completely overrun and concealed by ivy.
A grave dedicated to Arthur Henry Leslie Soames M.C. and Légion d’Honneur, which had been partially hidden by ivy and other weeds, was uncovered in May 2018 by local historian Jimmy Jones, with the permission of the church. His account, and the before-and-after photographs used to be on the now defunct Wrexham-History website, and described how the central grave monument and a horizontal slab to one side were visible, but once the full monument was uncovered, a second slab on the opposite side was revealed, indicating that this was a family plot. This contributes to the biography of Arthur Soames, who died testing an experimental bomb for the army in 1915.
Moss is similarly invasive and destructive where conditions favour its growth and spread, and there are examples at All Saints’ where inscriptions on ledgers have been colonized and concealed.
Ledgers encroached on by moss as well as grass and lichen
Lichen is another natural invader of stone grave monuments, and is very difficult, if not impossible to tackle. Different types of lichen prefer different environmental conditions, so can be very widespread in a cemetery, even in the most cared-for sections. Where lichen spreads across inscriptions, it can obscure them completely, and it can eat away the friable surfaces grain by grain over the period of many decades, meaning that inscription, motifs and decorative features may be damaged, obscured or lost. It can also add to the more abrupt problem of certain types of sandstone de-laminating, which can eliminate big sections of text very suddenly.
Fairly minor lichen damage to a gravestone, dating to 1807. It has not completely obscured the inscription just yet, although the centre epitaph is illegible. but will probably become worse as time passes
An example of damage inflicted on an inscription by a combination of weathering and lichen, making much of the the text, including the date, illegible.
Lead lettering from 1882, some of which have parted company from the headstone leaving empty peg marks
A small number of the 19th century tombs were provided with lead lettering, hammered into peg holes in the stone. Some of the lettering has been lost from these grave stones, leaving behind some whole letters, some partial letters and some of the peg holes. Again, this is natural wear and tear over the centuries and in some ways it seems surprising that any of these lead inserts have actually managed to survive at all.
Some of the stonework of chest and table tombs has been damaged, with panels falling away and ledgers tipping to the side, but this is the usual wear and tear as trees grow and roots find new paths, and storms impose injuries.
Final Comments: The living, the dead and eternity
Although there is some uniformity in the appearance of the churchyard, with certain forms, motifs and shapes being repeated, when you stand in the middle of it all, with the wet grass up to your knees, the great sweep of gravestones and monuments spreading to the limits of the churchyard provides a great sense of individual character and personal commitment. Each monument contains a fragmentary sense of how precious life could be. The inscriptions, whilst often fairly formulaic, also represent choices and decisions about what what best represented the interests of the deceased, the living and how this connected to belief in an afterlife. Churchyards are often places of sadness, but for a great many they also represented ideas of hope.
The grave marker links the living, the dead and Christian belief in a relationship that, particularly when the text survives, may still be engaged with. Whoever made the decisions about the design of the grave marker, what stands out is how these inanimate objects, the material commemoration of the dead, reflect a wide range of understated emotional ideas a including love, commitment, devotion, fear, anxiety, grief and hope. Collectively they convey both the sadness that the living confront in death and the comfort they find in commemorating their lost loved ones. People find solace where they can.
If you want to find out more about the owner of a particular grave, the findagrave.com website is a terrific resource.
A ledger and inscription dating to 1796, describing the pain that the deceased suffered.
Sources:
Frisby, Helen 2019. Traditions of Death and Burial. Shire Library
Hayman, Richard 2019. Churches and Churchyards of England and Wales. Shire Library.
Heritage, Celia 2022. Cemeteries and Graveyards. A Guide for Family and Local Hstorians in England and Wales. Pen and Sword
Post, W. Ellwood 1962, 1974. A Concise Dictionary: Saints, Signs and Symbols. SPCK
Interesting example of a chest tomb that has suffered de-lamination but where the carving of the inscription was so deep that even where it has de-laminated, some of it can still be read. The ivy is beginning to gain a foothold.
Birkenhead Priory is one of the most enjoyably unexpected places I have visited in the region, even more surprising than a Roman bath-house embedded in a 1980s Prestatyn housing estate. The priory site incorporates both the remains of the 12th century monastic establishment and the ruins of St Mary’s 1822 parish church with its surviving tower and terrific views. On all sides the site is surrounded by both heavy and light industry. Cammell Lairds shipyard not only butts up against the south and east walls, but purchased part of the priory’s former churchyard and cemetery for its expansion and the building of Princess Dock. On the other sides are warehouses and commercial units. The result is that in spite of the clanging and banging from the vast ship under construction immediately next door (fascinating in its own right), the obvious and somewhat inescapable cliché is that the ruins of the priory and parish church are an oasis of peace in the midst of all the busy activity. The small but quiet stretches of grass, the trees and the wild flowers contained within the remains of the priory site are a treat, and the splendid views from the top of St Mary’s tower are a powerful reminder of how the world has changed since the foundation of the priory.
I have divided this post into two parts, because there is so much to say. A visit to Birkenhead Priory is really five visits in one. In chronological order, a visit to the site provides you with the following heritage:
1) The priory, established in the 12th century and built of red sandstone, is the oldest part of the site and the star turn with its vaulted undercroft and chapter house
2)St Mary’s parish church was built next to the ruins in 1821 to serve the growing community, its gothic revival windows wonderfully featuring cast iron window tracery
3) The priory’s scriptorium over the Chapter House, now with wood paneling over the sandstone walls, is the exhibition area for the Friends of the training ship HMS Conway,
4) The Cammell-Laird shipyard is hard up against the priory’s foundations and fabulously visible from St Mary’s Tower. When it wished to expand into the church’s churchyard, it purchased the land and re-located the burials
5) St Mary’s Tower, which is open to the public with amazing views from the top, is now a memorial to the 1939 HMS Thetis submarine disaster in the Mersey.
In this part, part 1 I am taking a look at the priory. In part 2 I have looked at the post-dissolution history of the site; the 1821 construction of St Mary’s parish church; the memorial to HMS Thetis and the display area for HMS Conway. I will tackle Cammell Laird’s separately, as I suspect that it will be very difficult to handle in a single post, and I need to do a lot more research before I make the attempt to summarize its history.
Birkenhead in the foreground with the manor and ruins of the monastery, and Liverpool in the background over the river, c.1767, showing just how isolated Birkenhead remained even in the 18th century. Attributed to Charles Eyes. Source: ArtUK
Foundation of the priory in the 12th Century
Artist’s impression of the priory done by E.W. Cox by 1896.
The priory was dedicated to St Mary and St James the Great. There are no documents surviving from the priory, and none of its priors became important in other areas of the church or in life beyond the priory, so most of the information comes from other sources of documentation as well as from the architecture itself. Its principal biographer, R. Stewart-Brown, writing in 1925, commented that it was “not possible to compile anything in any degree resembling a history of this small and obscure priory,” but the result of his work was an impressive overview of the priory, its financial stresses and its involvement in the Wirral as a whole and the Mersey ferry in particular. Much recommended if you can get hold of it. Although not certain, is thought that the priory was founded in the mid-12th century by one of William the Conqueror’s Norman followers who was rewarded for his service to the new king and the local earl Hugh Lupus with land on the Wirral. His name was Hamon (sometimes Hamo) de Massey from Dunham Massey, the second baron, who died in 1185, suggesting that the priory was founded before this date, probably in the middle of the 12th century.
Exterior of the west range, showing the two big windows that illuminated the guest quarters, the one on the left heavily modified.
The priory was established on an isolated headland, surrounded on three sides by water. Hamon almost certainly took as his model for the priory the abbey of St Werburgh in Chester (now Chester Cathedral) which was founded in 1093 by Hugh d’Avranches, also known as Hugh Lupus. Hugh Lupus had convinced St Anselm of Bec (later Archbishop of Canterbury and after his death canonized) to come and establish St Werburgh’s, and it was organized along classic Benedictine lines, about which more below. The founding of a monastic establishment was seen as a Christian act, a statement of piety and devotion, and was most importantly a precautionary investment in one’s afterlife, securing the prayers of the monks, considered amongst the closest to God, throughout the entire lifetime of the monastery
A priory was smaller and inferior in status to an abbey and was was often dependent (i.e. a subset) of an abbey, and answerable to it. It is possible that the much larger and infinitely more prestigious St Werburgh’s Abbey in Chester supplied the monks to establish Birkenhead Piory, but there is no sign in the cartularies (formal documents and charters) of St Werburgh’s that there was any ongoing formal connection between the two. The difference between a non-dependent priory and an abbey was usually that the priory did not have sufficient numbers to be classified as an abbey, or that it had not applied for the royal stamp of approval required for the more senior status of an abbey. The minimum requirement for the foundation of a Benedictine abbey was 12-13 monks. A 16th century historian suggested that there were 16 monks, but it is by no means clear where this figure came from. Twice during the 14th century it is recorded that there were only five monks at the priory, and it is very likely that the priory remained too small to become an abbey.
The typical monastic day in a Benedictine monastery. Not a great photo, but a very nice representation from a display in the museum area in the undercroft
The Benedictine Order was not the oldest of the monastic orders in Britain, but following the Norman Conquest it became the most widespread. It was named for St Benedict of Nursia who, in the 6th century, set out a Rule, or set of guidelines, for his own monastery. This spread widely and became the basis of many monastic establishments setting out to follow his example. The Benedictines had been well established in France at the time of the Conquest, and sponsorship by incoming Normans, granted land by William the Conqueror, ensured that they spread rapidly in England, and later Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Benedictine monasteries were all built to a standard architectural layout, with minor deviations, based on both religious and administrative requirements.
The monastic buildings
Plan of the Birkenhead Priory site. Source: Metropolitan Borough of Wirral leaflet (with my annotations in colour). North is left, south right.
If you take the guided tour, which I sincerely recommend, you begin your tour in the undercroft, now used as a museum / display space. Most helpfully it has a scale model of the priory with Stewart-Brown’s 1925 site plan, both of which help you to orientate yourself and get a sense of how the ruins were once a complex of buildings that defined and enabled a monastic community, combining religious, administrative, domestic and other functions. In the plan on the left, with the surviving remains of the priory outlined in red, the site of the priory church outlined in orange and remains of the 1822 St Mary’s Church outlined in green. The blue margin indicates the shipyard over the priory wall. The numbers on the plan are referred to in the description below. You can download a copy of the map (without the coloured additions) as a PDF here.
Like St Werburgh’s Abbey, the priory buildings were made of locally available red sandstone. Like all monasteries based on Benedictine lines, the monastic site plan began with a square. The bigger the monastery envisaged, the bigger the square. This was known as the garth (1 in the plan on the left), and was either a grassed area or a garden. Surrounding this was the cloister, a covered walkway that served as a link between the buildings that were erected around the garth, and where desks were usually arranged so that the monks could work. This was a secluded space, confined to the inmates of the monastery.
Model of the priory church and claustral buildings in the priory’s museum space in the undercroft showing a possible layout of the church. The chapter in this view is hidden behind the tower.
The most conspicuous of the buildings would have been the one that no longer stands: the church and its tower (4 on the plan above, outlined in orange), which made up one side of the cloister. Traditionally in Benedictine complexes this was built on the north side of the garth, making up an entire side of the cloister, in order protect the rest of the buildings and allow light into the garth and the other cloister buildings, but at Birkenhead Priory’s church was on the south, possibly to protect the claustral buildings from the winds whistling down and across the Mersey. The model and plan show that the 13th century church was built in the standard cross-shape. It featured a long nave at the west end (where the public were permitted to observe religious ceremonies), and a surprisingly long east end (where the ceremonies were performed) with two side-transepts, which were usually used as chapels for commemorating the dead and a tower over the crossing. A pair of aisles flanked the south and north transepts as show above. When it was first built in the 12th century, the church would have been much smaller and probably smaller than this footprint.
View of Birkenhead Priory by Samuel and Nathan Buck in 1726, showing the remains of the church’s northern arcade. Source: Panteek
Lonely remainder of the church’s northern arcade
The entrance to the chapter house with its Norman arches. You can clearly see the difference between the 12th century chapter house masonry and the 14th century scriptorium above with its gothic window and tracery. The tower in the background belongs to the 19th century church.
The chapter house (2) is the oldest of the Birkenhead Priory buildings, the only one remaining that dates to the 12th century. The building of the priory church, being the place where the main business of praising God took place, was usually started straight away, but the chapter house was often built in tandem as this was also of fundamental importance to a monastery. This is where the everyday business of the priory was attended to, from the day-to-day administration and disciplinary matters, to the daily readings of chapters of St Benedict’s Rules or other improving texts such as excerpts from one of the many histories of saints (hagiographies). The Birkenhead Priory’s original medieval chapter house is a gorgeous. The vaulted roof of the chapter house is superb (see the photo at the very top of this post), and although the windows have been altered over time, one of the deep Norman Romanesque window embrasures survives, and is a thing of real beauty (see below). The stained glass is all modern, but all are nicely done, the one over the altar by Sir Ninian Cowper combining religious themes relevant to the house (St Mary and St James flanking Jesus) with two prestigious characters from the priory’s own history (its founder Hamo de Massey and its two-time visitor Edward I). Gravestones from the medieval cemetery have been incorporated into the floor around the post-Dissolution altar. In the medieval priory, there would have been no altar in the chapter house, but following the Dissolution the chapter house was converted into a chapel and is still used for weddings, funerals and baptisms.
Over the top of the chapter house, a scriptorium was added in the 14th century. In theory this was where the copying of books took place, but it has been pointed out that this was a particularly large space for such an activity, and it may have been used for something else, or for a number of different activities. Today it is the display area for the training ship HMS Conway, and at some point in the 19th or early 20th century was provided with panelling and has some very fine modern stained glass by David Hillhouse. This modern usage will be discussed in part 2.
Opposite the chapter house the remains of the west range (7-11) survives, which was again a two-floor building separated into a number of different spaces It seems to have been divided into two, with the northern end and its big fireplace reserved for guests, and the southern end, with an entrance into the cloister, seems to have been split into two floors, with a fireplace on each, for the prior’s personal quarters, which would have included a private parlour that he could use for entertaining VIP guests. Although it’s not the most aesthetically stunning of the surviving claustral buildings today, the stonework displays a fascinating patchwork of different features and alterations that reflect many changes and refinements in use over time and are still something of a fascinating puzzle.
West Range
Remodelling in the 14th century created the undercroft and the refectory above it, as well as the kitchen. The undercroft (14), once used as a storage space, with the original floor intact. The investment in the lovely architecture may indicate that before it was used as a storage area, it had a more high profile role, perhaps as a dining area for guests. Above it was the refectory, unlike St Werburgh’s, Basingwerk Abbey or Valle Crucis Abbey, all of which had refectories at ground level. It was reached by a spiral stone staircase leads up to this space today.
The kitchen was apparently to the north of the west range, and connected to it, as shown on the above plan (12). This was convenient for the guest quarters, but not quite as convenient for the refectory over the undercroft, from which it was divided by a buttery (or store-room, 13), over which a guest room was also installed. The kitchen was apparently a stand-alone structure made mainly of timber, and this may have been because kitchen fires were so common, and building the kitchen slightly apart from the main monastery would have been a sensible precaution. Kitchen fires are thought to have been the cause of several devastating scenes of destruction in monastic establishments, spreading quickly via roof timbers and wooden furnishings.
Between the chapter house and the north range, which contained the undercroft and refectory, was an infirmary (19 on the plan) and the dormitory (18) side by side, each accessible from the cloister. The infirmary was for the benefit of the monks, and was where those who were sick or injured or suffering the impacts of old age were cared for.
Sources of income and financial difficulties
Carved head in the side of the fireplace in the guest quarters on the ground floor of the west range
Monasteries were amongst the most important land-owners in medieval Britain, on a par with the aristocracy. Their income came mainly from agricultural activities, both crops and livestock, as well as making and selling bread, beer, buttery and honey; but they might also own mills, mines, quarries and fisheries and the rights to anchorage, foreshore finds and the use of boats on rivers. For those with coastal and estuary locations with foreshore rights, there was, as Stewart-Brown lists, the benefits of flotsam (items accidentally lost from a boat or ship, jetsam (items deliberately tossed overboard), salvage from shipwrecks and keel toll. The luckier (or most strategically inclined) monasteries and churches also had pilgrim shrines, sometimes reliquaries imported from overseas. St John’s Church in Chester had a miraculous rood screen, St Werburgh’s Abbey in Chester had the shrine containing the bones of St Werburgh herself, and Basingwerk Abbey had the neighbouring holy well of St Winifred. These attracted donations and bequests and were good for the settlements in which they stood, because the pilgrims needed places to stay, food and drink, and would probably buy souvenirs. Birkenhead Priory had no such shrine, but it probably felt the impact of the pilgrim route as the ferry crossing over the Mersey, which it ran free of charge, was an important link between Lancashire, west Cheshire and northeast Wales.
The original foundation of the monastery would have included both the land on which the monastery sat, funding for building it, and an economic infrastructure of landholdings as well as the income of some local churches. The long list of land-holdings sounds impressive, but most of them appear to have been quite small and scattered, some of which will have been wooded and some wasteland, not all of it suitable for cultivation or pasture. These include lands in Birkhenhead (including the home farm in Claughton with its mill), Moreton (with a mill and dovecote), Tranmere, Higher Bebington, Bidston, Heswall, Upton, Backford, Saughall, Chester, Leftwich, Burnden at Great Lever in Middleton, Newsham in Walton, Melling in Halsall, and Oxton. Either at foundation or not long afterwards, the priory was granted the incomes of the churches of Bidston, Backford, Davenham and half of the church of Wallasey, and claimed rights of Bowdon church that were disputed.
Carving at the base of a window arch in the west range
The monastery did not flourish with these assets. In spite of the claim that there were 16 monks at the time of its foundation, the records made by official church visitors suggests there were only a small number of monks at any one time (only five in 1379, 1381, and 1469, and seven, including two novices, in 1518 and 1524), and there is plenty of evidence to indicate that the priory struggled financially. Monasteries had significant overheads including feeding the community, buying tools and supplies, repairing monastic and farm buildings, appointing stewards and other employees, providing charitable alms and providing hospitality free of charge. Where they earned incomes from churches and chapels, they were also responsible for the provision of the clergy and shared part of the cost of maintaining the buildings. Ambitious priors often invested in building projects, sometimes to improve the monastic offering, sometimes for prestige, and even with donations this was usually costly. There were also occasional challenges to bequests made to churches from following generations, which involved costly legal proceedings. Balancing the books was a frequent problem for monastic establishments, and the priors of Birkenhead Priory were no different.
There were quite limited means by which the priors of Birkenhead might increase their income. The most obvious way of generating ongoing income was to acquire more land through gifts and bequests. In this endevour the priory probably had a real disadvantage in being near to both St Werburgh’s Abbey in Chester and, across the river Dee, Basingwerk Abbey at Holywell. Both abbeys had significant land-holdings on the Wirral, and both had pilgrim shrines and were on pilgrim routes. Both were large and prestigious, and were far more likely to attract big gifts than a small and rather remote priory. If Birkenhead hoped to attract gifts of land, it probably had to depend on local landowners and merchants who felt a personal connection with the priory but would not necessarily have had the wherewithal to significantly change the income-earning potential of the priory, providing personal items rather than swathes of land. For these very local gifts and legacies, it is entirely possible that the priory was also in competition with contemporary parish churches on the Wirral. There are records in the early 16th century, not long before the monastery was closed during the Dissolution, that give an idea of the sort of bequests made by local people in return for requiem masses to be recited for their souls: one will provided a painting of the Crucifixion for the priory church. Another bequeathed the owner’s best horse, 10 shillings, and a ring of gold.
As the Middle Ages progressed, populations expanded and both new and old towns began to hold markets where everyday goods and more prestigious products could be traded, even once-isolated monasteries found themselves becoming integrated into the secular world and in competition with it. It certainly did not initially help the monks at first that during the early 13th century Liverpool began to grow. Under the Benedictine rules, monasteries had an obligation to provide hospitality to visitors when required, and the Birkenhead monks ran the ferry over the Mersey as a charitable service. When the priory was first established, offering occasional hospitality and running the ferry free of charge were not onerous. This changed rapidly after 1207 when Liverpool was granted burgh status by King John, as the following translation of the original Latin charter confirms (Translation from Picton 1884):
John, by the grace of God King of England, Lord of Ireland, Duke of Normandy, Aquitain, and Earl of Anjou, to all his faithful subjects who may have wished to have burgages in the town of Liverpool greeting. Know ye that we have granted to all our faithful people who may have taken burgages at Liverpul that they may have all liberties and free customs in the town of Liverpul which any free borough on the sea hath in our land. And therefore we command you that securely and in our peace you come there to receive and inhabit our burgages. And in testimony hereof we transmit to you these our letters patent. Witness Simon de Pateshill at Winchester on the 28th day of August in the ninth year of our reign.
A little later Liverpool was granted the right to hold markets and fairs, and the links between Liverpool and the busy port of Chester grew to be increasingly important. There was no infrastructure to cope with this increase in human traffic. They were already offering a ferry service free of charge but even more pressing on their resources was the cost of housing guests. There were no inns between Liverpool and Chester (showing a lack of commercial ambition on the part of both Liverpool and Chester medieval merchants!), so the monks found themselves obliged to offer accommodation and food, which the rules of the Benedictine order required them to offer free of charge. This hospitality became particularly difficult if there was a spell of bad weather, during which those waiting to cross from Birkenhead to Liverpool would have to wait at the priory until the weather improved and crossings could resume. They were also were troubled with all the through-traffic that travelled along a route that ran through the monk’s Birkenhead lands close to the priory buildings.
The spiral staircase from the undercroft into the former refectory
It must have exacerbated the monks’ financial situation when Edward I visited the monastery twice with his entourage during this period. Edward’s first visit was in September 1275 for three nights, seeking a diplomatic solution to his dispute with the self-styled Prince of Wales, Llywelyn the Last of Gwynedd. His second was in 1277 for six days with the apparently dual motives of pursuing his campaign against Llywelyn and receiving a delegation from Scotland to settle a boundary dispute. Although the king would pay the costs of his entourage and horses, the cost of entertaining the king and his most senior advisors fell to the monastery. Hosting a royal entourage was notoriously expensive, and any contributions made by a visiting monarch to a monastic establishment only rarely compensated for the outlay.
One of the measures to improve their income in the 1270s involved the expense of serious litigation when incumbent prior claimed that the church had been presented in its entirety to the priory. This was disputed by the Massey family, who triumphed in the courts. Fortunately for the priory, in 1278 the 5th Hamon de Massey came to an agreement with the monks to their benefit. Other litigation occurred over pasture rights in Bidston and Claughton.
In 1284 the priory received permission from Edward I, who had probably witnessed the priory’s problems at first hand in the 1270s, to divert the road that disrupted the priory “to the manifest scandal of their religion” and to provide the priory court with an enclosure, either a ditch, hedge or wall, to preserve its privacy. This would have incurred costs, but would have eased one of the problems caused by the ferry. Rather more significant for their finances, early in the 14th century the priory was granted a licence to build and charge for guest lodgings at the ferry at Woodside, and in 1311 they were granted the rights to sell food there. It was at this time that the church was expanded, which would have been a significant project.
Chapter house building with scriptorium room added over the top in the 14th century.
The first half of the 14th century had been hard for most of western Europe, with both famine due to anomalous weather conditions that caused crops to fail, followed only a few decades later by a plague that killed huge numbers of people. In Britain the famine lasted from 1315-17 and the Black Death arrived in 1348. The priory survived both the famine and the plague, as did the settlement of Liverpool, now a century old. At some point in the first half of the 14th century, the priory acquired land in Liverpool so that the monks could begin to trade their goods at market, building a granary or warehouse on Water Street (then known as Bank Street).
In 1316 the hospital of St John the Baptist in Chester was judged to be seriously mismanaged and was put into the hands of the priory, perhaps because of their experience running their own infirmary. This was a failure, merely adding to the priory’s problems, and was removed from their care in 1341.
Multiple layers in the west range, with a window added into the top of a former fireplace, blocking it, and a fireplace above it.
In 1333 Edward III requested monasteries to contribute to the expenses of the marriage of his sister Eleanor. Local monasteries who contributed included Birkenhead, which contributed £3 6s 8d and Chester’s St Werburgh’s Abbey which, bigger and more prosperous, gave £13 6s 8d. There were doubtless other payments of this sort, occasional and therefore unpredictable, and impossible to resist. The priory was also liable for taxation.
The ferry from Woodside had continued to be supplied free of charge, but the priory appealed to Edward III and was permitted for the first time to charge tolls in 1330, setting a precedent that remains today. A challenge to the monk to operate the ferry and claim the tolls, was challenged by the Black Prince in 1353, but the priory produced its charter and successfully resisted the removal of this privilege. The tolls charged were recorded at that time: 2d for a man and horse, laden or not; 1/4d for a man on foot or 1/2d on a Saturday market dasy if he had a pack
Other ways of generating income from lands to which they had rights were also explored, and from records of litigation against them, they were often accused of infringing forest law. Wirral had been defined as a forest by the Norman earls of Chester, which restricted how the land could be used. The monks were clearly assarting (cutting down wood to convert to fields and pasture), reclaiming waterlogged land, enclosing certain areas and cutting peat for fuel. The priory was able to argue special exemptions for some of the charges, and produced the charters to prove it, but at other times they were fined for the infractions. In 1357, for example, they were fined for keeping 20 pigs in the woods.
A number of monastic establishments seem to have responded to surviving the plague by redefining themselves via architectural transformations. Whatever the reasons for this trend, Birkenhead Priory was no exception and the 14th century could have been an expensive time for the monks. The frater range (including the elaborate vaulted undercroft and the refectory) was completely rebuilt and the west range was remodelled. The room today described as a scriptorium was also added over the chapter house at this time. Although Stewart-Brown suggests that much of this could have been accomplished with “pious industry . . . without much cost” with the assistance of donations of labour and money, that is probably somewhat optimistic, and there would have been an outlay. Certainly, at the end of the century the priory was considered to be so impoverished that it was exempted from its tax contribution.
There is some evidence that for at least some of the Middle Ages the priory rented out land rather than working it themselves, except for their home farm at Cloughton. This had the benefit of providing a dependable income if tenants were reliable, and obviated the need to appoint managers or deal with labour and handle the sale of produce, but if the cost of living went up, the fixed income that no longer purchased what it had previously afforded, and this could represent a serious problem.
Dissolution
The opening page of the Valor Ecclesiasticus, showing Henry VIII. Source: Wikipedia
When Henry VIII’s demand for a divorce was rejected by the pope, the king severed Britain from the Catholic Church, creating the Church of England. This provided him with the opportunity to acquire land and valuable assets by dissolving all monastic establishments, all of which had been subject to the papacy. The spoils were to be used to fund Henry’s wars with France and Scotland, and some former monasteries were given to Henry’s supporters as rewards. To assess the potential of the monastic assets, Henry VIII commissioned the Valor ecclesiastis, a review of every monastery in the country. All monastic establishments with an annual income of less than £200.00 were to be closed as soon as possible. The first monasteries were dissolved in 1536 and the process was more or less concluded by 1540, with a handful of the more prestigious abbeys, like St Werburgh’s in Chester, converted to cathedrals. Birkenhead Priory was only earning £91.00 annually so it was amongst the first to be closed. There was no resistance by the Birkenhead prior, who was provided with a pension of £12.00 annually. The brethren were either dismissed or disseminated to non-monastic establishments.
Visiting
The car park is on Church Street, at the rear of the priory, where the cafe is also located. There is some on-street parking on Priory Street at the front of the priory. Source: Birkenhead Priory website
This is a super place, and makes for a terrific visit. Do go. You won’t be disappointed!
Even with SatNav, the big thing to remember about finding your way to Birkenhead Priory, if you are arriving by car from the Chester direction, is to do whatever it takes NOT to end up at the Mersey tunnel toll-booths 🙂 They were very nice about it, let me out through a barrier, and gave me perfect directions to get to the priory once they had freed me from the tunnel concourse. Very nice people. If Edward III was looking down, I’m sure he would have rolled his eyes in despair, given that it was he who gave the monks the right to charge for their Mersey ferry crossings.
Do check the opening times on the website, as the priory is only open on certain days and for only a few hours on those days, mainly in the afternoons. There is dedicated parking on Church Street at SatNav What3Words reference ///super.punchy.report. From there, the priory is up a short flight of steps. You can also park on Priory Street, which is where the SatNav will take you if you simply type “Birkenhead Priory” into your SatNav (at What3Words ///indoor.vibes.hips), which offers step-free access but there is limited parking there, and it is a favourite place for van drivers to park and eat their lunches so may be better used as a drop-off point before going round the the car park.
Remnants of the decorative floor tiles, now in the priory’s undercroft, which is used as a museum space
At the time of writing, a visit is free of charge, and so are the guided tours. My guide was the excellent Frank. He covered not only the priory but St Mary’s, the HMS Conway room, and the HMS Thetis memorial and, when I headed up to the top of the tower of St Mary’s, directed me to out for the dry dock where the CSS Alabama (the US Confederate blockade runner) was built by John Laird, to be discussed in Part 2. Frank was very skilled at providing sufficient knowledge to get a real sense of the place, but not so much that it became information overload. I very much appreciated this, having always found it difficult myself to strike that particular balance. I was lucky enough to have him to myself, having turned up at opening time, but I noticed that the next tour had a respectable group attending.
There is a small gift shop where you can also buy a really useful guide book with plenty of plans, illustrations and colour photographs. Please note that they are not able to take cards, and payment is cash only.
There are toilets in St Mary’s tower, a picnic area behind the undercroft on sunny days, and the highly rated Start Yard café is almost next door on Church Street.
For those with unwilling legs, I would suggest that apart from the tower and its 101 steps, and a flight of around 10 steps up into the scriptoruim (the display area for HMS Conway) this is entirely do-able. There are occasional single steps and uneven surfaces, and it is a matter of taking good care. As mentioned above, if you park in the carpark at the rear on Church Street, there is a flight of steps into the priory, but even if there is no space in the limited street parking available at the front of the priory on Priory Street, it is a useful drop-off point for anyone needing step-free access. You can find the SatNav references for both above.
I have posted a two-minute video of the priory, recorded on my iPhone, on YouTube:
Sources
Books, papers, and guidebooks
Baggs. A.P., Ann .J Kettle. S. J. Lander, A.T. Thacker, David Wardle 1980. Houses of Benedictine monks: The priory of Birkenhead, In (eds.) Elrington, C. R. and B. E. Harris. A History of the County of Chester: Volume 3, (London, 1980) pp. 128-132. https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/ches/vol3/pp128-132
Burne, R.V.H. 1962. The Monks of St Werburgh. The History of St Werburgh’s Abbey. S.P.C.K.
Stewart-Brown, R. 1925. Birkenhead Priory and the Mersey Ferry, and a Chapter on the Monastic Buildings. The Gift of the Directors of the State Assurance Company Ltd.
White, Carolinne 2008. The Rule of St Benedict. Penguin.
Rosemary’s Baby: Adventures and Insights from Contributing to the Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture in England
Paul Everson, Keele University
Tom Pickles, Chair of Chester Archaeological Society, introducing Paul Everson
On Saturday 4th May, in the last in-person Chester Archaeological Society lecture of the 2023/24 spring season in the Grosvenor Museum’s elegant lecture theatre, archaeologist and landscape historian Paul Everson introduced members and guests to the “Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture (CASSS)” project inaugurated in 1977 by Professor Dame Rosemary Cramp (https://corpus.awh.durham.ac.uk/). With his long-time collaborator David Stocker, Mr Everson has published three volumes of the CASSS, and in this lecture explained how the decades-long project has not only provided us with a definitive catalogue of decorated stonework of the period but also stimulated new avenues of thought.
Professor Dame Rosemary Cramp’s name is synonymous with Early Medieval sculpture, combining her expertise in Old and Middle English with archaeological research, beginning her own excavations at Monkwearmouth in 1957. Having identified an opportunity to create a corpus of early stone sculpture after working on examples in Durham Cathedral and the Wearmouth and Jarrow monastic sites, she developed a standardized format for the publication of the CASSS, and a “grammar” of Anglo-Saxon ornament (also used for knitting!). This enables each volume of the corpus to be used in the same way and, where required, directly compared, making the series invaluable as a cohesive research tool. The first volume to be published was County Durham and Northumberland in 1984, and the last two, currently being compiled, are volumes 15, Leicester, Notrh Rutland and Soke Peterborough and volume 16, Norfolk and Suffolk.
Some examples of the types of Anglo-Saxon sculpture included in the Corpus (slide from Paul Everson’s presentation)
The corpus of Anglo-Saxon carvings, dating from the 7th to the 11th centuries and much of it previously unpublished, includes crosses, grave markers and grave covers, architectural detailing and inscriptions, both in original locations and in relocated positions. The compilation of the Corpus required the establishment of procedures for locating and recording both known and previously unidentified carvings. A mixture of archaeological, field survey and historical approaches are employed. All churches in a Corpus volume area are inspected, inside and out. Sketches, photographs, measurements and notes ensure that full details were recorded. Lost items have been rediscovered by tracing records in publications produced by antiquarian and early scholars. Antiquarian and early scholarship are always described and credited in the first chapter of each volume, reflecting their value.
As with most archaeological data, Anglo-Saxon sculptures often exist only in fragments and this requires virtual reconstruction work so that these too can be understood as whole pieces and included in the corpus. It was interesting to note that, like Roman tombstones, the ornament was picked out in bright paints, exemplified by a replica from Neston which has been rendered in full colour, shown on the above slide.
Bringing to together substantial data across each area has led to an exploration distribution patterns, with some specific types distributed widely across a county and others being more localized, leading to a search for explanations An example is Raunds Furnells where a small cluster of 10th century stone monuments may help to explain similar finds in east England, perhaps representing the founding families of churches, which in turn may represent the first stages of the development of the parochial system. “Exceptional collections” also occur, where large numbers of sculptural stones are found in a particular location, and it has been found that these tend to be near river sites where markets were held, and where merchant communities with disposable incomes concentrated, such as Chester where an impressive collection is retained at St John’s Church, and at Neston on the Wirral.
The Hedda Stone, Peterborough Abbey
A surprising finding was that there may have been very little pre-Viking quarrying of new stone. Instead, earlier stone masonry in church architecture and graves was often recycled and has become a much-debated topic. Some of these re-uses are pragmatic and practical, making use of usefully shaped pieces. The re-use of Roman masonry could explain, for example, some puzzling holes in the famous early Medieval Hedda Stone at Peterborough Cathedral. Another form of recycling is described as “iconic,” where earlier scenes are appropriated and re-positioned in a new cultural context. Interpretation of specific instances of recycling differ, and the resulting debates, although usually amicable, may be very animated! Discourse provided by differing perspectives, specialisms and sub-disciplines and by a new generation of researchers ensure that research into Anglo-Saxon sculpture continues to be a lively field.
At the other end of the chronological scale, studies of post-Conquest sculpture have helped to elucidate the continuity of earlier medieval traditions, and this too is an important research vector for understanding the period when Saxon and Norman interests vied for supremacy.
Making use of database technologies, an important leg of future work will include the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)-funded “Worked in Stone” project which will re-digitize all the volumes to make them into a fully searchable database, an important new initiative that will be hosted by the Archaeological Data Service (ADS) and will be free to access.).
The challenges of interpreting different syncretic and iconic schemes. (slide from Paul Everson’s presentation)
An enthusiastic round of applause marked the end of the lecture. There was the opportunity for questions, and the audience took full advantage. The topic of recycled Roman stonework lead to some discussion about how identity and meaning may have been syncretized or replaced. Another question concerned how future discoveries might be incorporated into the corpus, and although nothing formal yet exists, the topic is obviously on the minds of those looking to the future of this research area. At the end of the questions the audience again applauded loudly in appreciation.
By the end of the lecture, it had become clear that the loss of Dame Rosemary last year at the age of 93, and the publication of the final two volumes of CASSS will not draw any sort of line under the research into Anglo-Saxon sculpture. The Corpus continues to be provide an invaluable resource. The digitization of the corpus will make it readily available to support a new generation of researchers as they develop new ideas and perspectives and explore new directions. It is clear that in spite of her passing away last year, this project remains very much “Rosemary’s Baby.”
The first twelve volumes of the CASSS are available online at https://corpus.awh.durham.ac.uk/. For Anglo-Saxon stone sculpture in Cheshire see volume IX. For a paper produced as an offshoot of the corpus work, see the study of the social background of the St John’s (Chester) crosses in the Members Area of the CAS website (https://chesterarchaeolsoc.org.uk/members-area/): P Everson & D Stocker. Transactions on the Dee: the ‘exceptional’ collection of early sculpture from St John’s, Chester
In: Cambridge, E & Hawkes, J eds. Crossing boundaries: interdisciplinary approaches to the art, material culture, language and literature of the early medieval world. Essays presented to Professor Emeritus Richard N. Bailey, OBE, in honour of his eightieth birthday. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2017, 160–78.
Finally, the international ‘Worked in Stone: Early Medieval Sculpture in its International Context’ conference takes place next year in Durham (https://corpus.awh.durham.ac.uk/wis.php).
Many thanks to Paul Everson for such am engaging and enlightening lecture.
Paul Everson in the Grosvenor Museum lecture theatre
The Chester Archaeological Society 2024 season of excursions started excellently today with the CAS visit to the Church of St Collen, who gave his name to Llangollen. It is the only church in Wales to have taken the saint’s name. Like most Medieval churches in Wales, St Collen’s has undergone considerable alterations, including an 18thcentury tower and a 19th century chancel, vestry and south nave, but there are some very fine 13th century features to be seen, in the Perpendicular Gothic style, including an impressive shrine canopy and mason’s marks. There are also intriguing signs that a Lady Chapel was once incorporated into north aisle. The most remarkable feature of the church is a really superb hammerbeam roof bedecked with ornamental sculptures, both religious and secular, from the early 16th century.
Today, to ensure the survival of the church as a living and breathing community asset, it is undergoing extensive but very sympathetic re-forming. Suzanne Evans is the Project Manager of this massive task, and was our superb guide today. Suzanne described how the reinvented church will be fully inclusive, not only of the existing congregation who are much-attached to the church, but of the wider community as well, taking into account the needs of those currently unable to make the most of what St Collen’s has to offer. At the same time, the exciting opportunity will be taken to investigate as much of the church’s architectural and funerary history as possible, adding to the community’s understanding of this important contributor to the town’s impressive ecclesiastical heritage.
Suzanne guided us around both the key features and recent discoveries, explaining all the steps to be taken in the upcoming weeks and years. As well as replacement glass doors and the opening up of the nave to enable the interior to be visible by passers-by, there will be new lighting, heating, kitchen and toilet facilities, as well as a large stage, which will all contribute to enhancing the value of the space and improving the visibility of the superb architecture. All archaeological and architectural discoveries will be professionally recorded and published.
After a very welcome cup of tea, there was a round of applause as we thanked both Suzanne for being our terrific guide and Pauline for making all the arrangements. It was great to meet some of the other CAS members, and to hear all the questions and observations. There was a lot of information sharing, which is exactly what one expects of CAS members. What a great start to the year’s excursions! Many thanks again Suzanne and Pauline.
On a recent visit to the National Waterways Museum at Ellesmere Port on the Wirral, I noticed a long, dusty glass cabinet with what looked like a big length of seriously traumatized tree trunk inside. Having seen pictures of logboats that looked just like this, but never having seen one on display, I went to have a closer look. Sure enough, it was the Baddiley Mere logboat. In its presumably temporary display position it was hemmed in by other objects and difficult to reach and the cabinet was seriously dusty making it difficult to view properly. Happily an information poster was clearly displayed explaining that this is a nationally important piece of English heritage.
Baddiley Mere Log Boat at the National Waterways Museum, Ellesemere Port, not really living up to its full potential as an exhibit and an artefact of national importance.
Finds of logboats or dugout canoes (properly known as monoxylous crafts) are comparatively rare, and their survival is always due to environmental conditions that favour their unexpected preservation. The Baddiley Mere log boat is one of a short list of survivors to have been found in the boggy conditions of Cheshire, all of which are discussed below. In western Europe, log boats have been found in the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, France and Scandinavia as well as Britain and Ireland. In Britain, many were found at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, often due to land drainage and water cleaning activities, including all of the Cheshire examples. This post lists the Cheshire logboats, and puts them into the context of British logboats in general.
The environments that preserved the logboat
Artist’s reconstruction of the Poole Harbour logboat, which dates to the Iron Age. Source: Wessex Museums
The relatively small number of logboats discovered relates partly to accidents of survival and partly to accidents of discovery. If you were to look at a distribution map of logboat locations (had I been able to find one), you will be looking at where logboats were found, not the full geographical range over which they were used. Organic remains like bone, wood, leather and reed are so much less commonly preserved than the durable tools made from stone, ceramic and metal that Linda Hurcombe refers to organic objects that must have dominated the human toolkit throughout prehistory as “the missing majority.” Differential conditions of preservation for organic remains means that logboats are only found in very specific environmental conditions.
It is almost certain that logboats were a standard part of the riparian kit during later prehistory, if not before. The waterways were an important communication network over considerable distances, but even when used for purely local activities, boats would have been useful for getting around, crossing rivers and for fishing and capturing wildfowl. The remarkable example of eight logboats found at Must Farm in Cambridgeshire near contemporary eel-traps and hurdle weirs creates a picture of experiments with slightly different forms of boat, in use for everyday activities in the fenland area.
The Carpow logboat in Perth, Scotland, as it was found.
The distribution of logboat finds is confined in Britain to waterlogged environments where oxygen, which enables decay, has been eliminated, and where these waterlogged environments have been preserved for 100s, sometimes 1000s of years. These anaerobic conditions only exist under certain conditions but may be found in meres, swamps, marshes, fens, carrs, riverbanks and deeply silted river and lake beds. Peat deposits, especially waterlogged ones, may be acidic, which hinders bacterial decay and helps to preserve organic remains. Waterlogged acidic conditions are ideal for preservation of wood and plant remains. As organic remains decay rapidly, even something as large as a log boat would have to be buried with anaerobic sediments very quickly, making preservation even more of a challenge.
Discovery is always by accident, at times when activities are taking place to drain or clean waterlogged environments, to dredge silt, to dig up peat, or where hot summers or longer-term climate change desiccates waterlogged areas, exposing wooden items. Other organic items that are found preserved include trackways, platforms for buildings, tools and objects made of bone, wood, leather and reed, and even fabrics.
Cheshire Logboats
The short list below shows the Cheshire logboats, prehistoric and early medieval that I have been able to find information about.
Table of logboats from Cheshire. Click to expand to read more clearly
The Baddiley Mere logboat, now in the National Waterways Museum in Ellesmere Port (and formerly in the Grosvenor Museum, Chester), can be visited. The Ciss Green example has been in the Congleton Museum from the museum’s opening in 2002. I have been unable to find if the others are still preserved.
Baddiley Mere
The log boat was found in Baddiley Mere (about 15 miles south west of Nantwich) in 1911, when the water quality in the mere, a glacial lake, was being improved for supply to Nantwich. Baddiley Mere is part of a group of wetlands in the south-west of Cheshire, that lies between between Cholmondeley and the Shropshire border, and they can be associated with areas of peat and other waterlogged deposits.
It was found in peat deposits at around 6ft c.1.83m) beneath the surface, embedded in the anaerobic conditions that ensured its preservation. It is formed of a single piece of oak and is nearly 18ft (5.5m) long by just under 3.3ft (c.1m) wide. It weighs 458kg. Its slightly distorted shape is due to shrinkage after it was removed from the waterlogged conditions. In 1929 a preserved paddle, about 4ft long (1.21m) was found near the findspot and may (or may not) have been associated with the boat. Rust was found in a hole in the boat, thought to be from a nail. A vertical hole at one end is thought to have been for a mooring rope or for fastening a pole into position.
The Iron Age date suggested by a piece of rust in a nail hole may be indicate that the boat does not predate the Iron Age. There was not a lot to rule out a later date in terms of the features of the logboat itself, but a radiocarbon date suggested a late prehistoric date.
The Baddiley Mere logboat was apparently on display in the Grosvenor Museum until at least 1974, so must have been moved to the National Waterways Museum at Ellesmere Port sometime after that date. See the end of this post, just before Sources, for a link to a TikTok video of Professor Howard Williams talking about the Baddiley Mere logboat.
Warrington 1 and 2, Arpley Meadows
Arpley Meadow Logboat March 1884 by Charles Madeley. Source: Madeley 1894
In 1894, just a year after the discovery, Charles Madeley wrote about the discovery of two logboats during the construction of the Manchester Ship Canal:
The construction of the Manchester Ship Canal has been, in one respect, a great disappointment to those who dwell upon its banks. It was only natural to expect that the excavation of so great a cutting for thirty-six miles, through the soil of the Mersey valley, could not fail to result in large discoveries of relics of the former inhabitants of the district, and numerous additions to the contents of our museums. But these anticipations were speedily relinquished on the advent of the steam navvy, whose rapid evolutions and wholesale manner of procedure obviously offered little prospect of the preservation of any but the largest objects which might be in its way. Of such large objects, however, two very interesting examples were the two canoes which were found, not in the course of the canal itself, but on the banks of the Mersey, during certain subsidiary operations at Arpley, in the township of Warrington. . . .
Early in September, 1893, during the completion of the new course for the Mersey which was cut across the Arpley meadows, the dredger came upon an obstruction, which proved to be a dug-out canoe, over ten feet in length. Later, on the 28th March, 1894, another and larger canoe was discovered, at a point 600 yards further east and close to the west end of the present Walton Lock. Each canoe lay 20 to 25 yards north of the former bank of the River Mersey, and at a depth of about eighteen feet below the surface of the ground. On their discovery both canoes were carefully removed and preserved, under the direction of Mr. William Burch, C.E., the Ship Canal Co.’s engineer for this section, and Mr. H. Davenport, who was in charge of the dredging operations when the first discovery was made. The canoes were eventually presented by the Canal Company to the Warrington Museum.
Arpley Meadow logboat September 1893. Source: Charles Madeley 1894
The 1893 logboat (Warrington 1) was the bigger of the two (shown above right), and shows a number of interesting features, described in detail by Madeley. Its length was unbroken and measured 12 feet 4 inches (c.3.8m) long. The width was irregular, 2ft10ins (c.87cm) at the stern and ; the greatest width, near the stern, was about 2ft3 1/2 ins (69cm) from midsection to bow. The depth was also slightly irregular, at around 15ins (38cm) at the stern and 12ins (31cm) at the bow. The timber of the base is around 2ins (c.6cm). Two internal ribs remain on the floor of the boat, as shown in the above diagram. The ends of the boat are rounded, inside and out, both in plan and section, but it not known whether there was what Madeley refers to as “a projecting nose,” like that on the smaller canoe. At each end there is a section of gunwale and at the stern end some timber waling fastened down with four trenails an inch (c.2.5cm) in diameter. Indentations in the stern suggests the presence of a plank perhaps serving as a seat or a standing platform at the stern end, clearly visible in the top of the sketches.
The 1894 Walton Lock logboat (Warrington 2) was discovered (shown above left) and this was smaller and of a slightly different form. It measures 10 feet 8 1/2 ins (c.3.30m) in length and was probably about 2ft 9ins (c.84cm). Its depth was about 14 inches (c.36cm) and the rounded bottom was in places as much as 4 inches (c.11cm) thick. It features “an overhanging nose or prow, the remains of which project some three inches beyond the stem.” The bow has a vertical auger-hole on the starboard side, which may suggest a waling-piece similar to that other logboat. The timber was oak and “very free from knots.”
Radiocarbon dates listed by Switsur suggest that they are Anglo-Saxon, placing them in the second half of the first millennium A.D.
One of the Warrington logboats found at Arpley, although I don’t know which one. Source: Festival of Archaeology 2022
The Heritage Gateway entry record is as follows:
Logboat found in dredging the Mersey opposite the Corporation Electric Works in 1908. It is 10 ft 3 inches long (3.14m) x 2 ft 8 ins (0.80 metres) wide and 1 ft 7 inches (0.48 metres) deep ). One side and some of the bottom have been lost. Made from oak it has a radiocarbon date of around 875 AD.
Logboat found in 1922 in works on the north bank of the Mersey at the Corporation Electric Works. Boat is 11 ft 6 ins (3.5 metres) long with part of the bow broken off. 2 ft 11 ins (89 cm) wide and 20 ins (50 cm) deep. It was covered by 20 ft (6 metres) of river sand, mud and earth. Found in association were two rows of alder stakes forming a fore-runner of the later ‘fish-yards’ or traps It has a radiocarbon date of around 1072 AD.
Warrington Logboat 5, Arpley
The Heritage Gateway entry record is as follows:
Logboat dredged from the old river channel near its junction with the diversion at Arpley in 1929.It is 11 ft long (3.35metres) x 2 ft 4 ins wide (71 cm) and 22 ins deep (56 cm).It is damaged and may have been longer.The find spot is only a few yards to the east of the find spot of Warrington logboat 2. It is made of oak and has a radiocarbon date of 958AD.
Warrington Logboat 7, Walton Arches
The Heritage Gateway entry record is as follows:
Logboat dredged from the Mersey, west of the central pier of Walton Arches in 1931 though it probably came from the vicinity of the junction of the river diversion where other logboats have been found. It is 13ft 6ins long (4.11 m) x 2ft wide (61 cm). Made of oak it dates to 1090 AD.
Warrington Logboat 11, Gateworth
Piece of the Gateworth logboat. Source: Festival of Archaeology 2022
The Heritage Gateway entry records this piece of a logboat as follows:
Logboat found in 1971 at Gateworth sewerage works, near Sankey Bridges. The boat is made from elm and was found at a depth of 3.3 metres in coarse sand. The end is rounded and has a protruding ‘beak’ through which there is a horizontal hole. A radio carbon date of 1000AD has been given.
Cholmondeley 1 and 2
The discovery of the logboat found in a peat bog below Cholmondeley Castle was found in 1819 and published in the Chester Chronicle in the same year. It was reported to be 11ft c.3.35cm) long and 30 inches (c.76.2cm) wide, but very little additional information is available on the subject other than that it was hollowed out of the trunk of a single tree. Although initially believed to be Iron Age in date, it is more likely to be of a similar date to other Cheshire logboats that lie in the date range from the eighth to thirteenth centuries AD. A second Cholmondeley logboat is mentioned on the Heritage Gateway website, but the link to it is broken (SMR/HER 525/2).
Ciss Green Farm, Astbury, near Congleton
The Ciss Green Farm, Astbury logboat on display at the Congleton Museum. Source: Wikipedia. Photograph by Ian Dougherty ex oficio Chairman of the Board of Trustees Congleton Museum
Found in 1923 by farmer Charles Ball during gravel digging near the source of Dairy Brook, the Ciss Green logboat was found near Asbtury, and was stored in the basement of the Manchester Museum until it was eventually moved to the new Congleton Museum in time for the museum opening in June 2002, where it was one of the star attractions. The Museum website does not appear to mention it, so I do not know if it is still there.
Its original measurements are unknown because one end was broken off, but it was made of oak and was nearly 12ft long (c.3.66cm) when found It had a square cross-section with vertical sides. Two holes in the boat have have held oars. Although it was assumed to be prehistoric when it was found, Switsur’s radiocarbon dating puts it in the Anglo-Saxon period at around 1000BC.
Oakmere, near Delamere
In September 1935 an oak logboat was discovered by during extraction of water from Oakmere in September 1935, which lowered the level of the mere. Frank Latham’s local history book on Delamere happily contains a first hand account of the discovery by the gamekeeper George Rock, who had lived there since 1910. Rock noticed what was the prow sticking up out of the shallow water and recognized that it was something man-made. He reported it to his employer, and in due course Professor Robert Newstead of Liverpool University was brought in to supervise excavations.
The Oakmere logboat at the time of its discovery. Source: Cheshire Archaeology News, Issue 4, Spring 1997, p.2
The logboat was found to be lying on a bed of glacial gravel and silt. At that time it survived to its full length of c.3.6m (dsfdsfds) with a width of 0.79m (sdfsdf) but following removal from its waterlogged habitat, which had preserved it, it became fragmentary. Newstead published a paper about it stating his opinion that it was at least 2,000 years old, probably associated with the nearby Oakmere Iron Age hillfort. Eventually radiocarbon dating carried out by Professor Sean McGrail provided a date range between 1395 and 1470 AD.
A site visit described on the Heritage Gateway website found that both the vegetation and the shoreline had altered considerably since discovery and it was therefore impossible to identify the exact find site. Apparently the landowner Captain Ferguson, who had photographs of the boat as it was found, “waded into the lake and endeavoured to identify the site by means of photographs of the boat in situ. He used detail which was between 250 and 600 metres distant, and was identifiable on the ground and on the photograph. He estimated that the find site was at SJ 5731 6768.”
The canoe was sent on loan to the Grosvenor Museum and then in 1979 or 1980 it was sent on loan to the Maritime Museum at Greenwich. The National Museums Greenwich Collection Search website confesses to owning a piece of logboat from Llyn Llydaw, but makes no mention of one from Cheshire, so its current location remains unknown.
Other submerged wooden constructions
Other significant constructions made of wood have been found in Cheshire in waterlogged environments such as at Lindow Moss in Wilmslow and Marbury Meres near Great Budworth, both of which produced evidence of prehistoric trackways, another important means of communication and local resource exploitation. At Warrington, during the works for the Manchester Ship Canal, pilings were found that suggested the presence of a wharf, although it is unclear if these were contemporary with the logboats found.
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Dates
List of radiocarbon dates from the north of England. I have highlighted those from Cheshire in pink. Source: Switsur 1989, p.1014. N.B. Switsur also gives dates for the rest of England, Wales and Scotland on subsequent pages.
Although their simple design and overall similarity of appearance often lead to the assumption that the logboats are prehistoric, it has been demonstrated by radiocarbon dating that log boats were far more common during the Anglo-Saxon and later Medieval periods, whilst in Scotland they may have been in use as late as the 18th century.
In his 1989 paper on the dating of British logboats, from which a table of the logboats from the north of England is shown right, Roy Switsur comments:
The general condition of the vessels together with lack of bark or sapwood seems to make dendrochronology [tree ring dating] of less practical use for these objects than at first imagined, so that, thus far, the chronology for the boats has depended on radiocarbon measurements. 14C determinations of several early craft from England and other regions of Europe have been published and reviewed . . . and these have shown that some of the boats originate as late as the Medieval period.
Graph showing the distribution of radiocarbon dates for British logboats of all periods. Source: Lanting 1998, p.631
An additional difficulty with logboat dating is that early attempts to preserve boats that were taken out of bogs and meres in the late 19th century and early 20th century used substances that changed the composition of the wood and made radiocarbon dating difficult if not impossible.
The earliest example is not a boat but a paddle made of Betula (birch) that would have accompanied a boat, found in 8th millennium BC contexts in the Mesolithic environs of Star Carr. In his 1998 survey of logboat dates in Europe Lanting estimates between 350 and 400 recorded logboats in Britain and Ireland, but of these the prehistoric examples are a very small minority, with the majority of the earliest dating to no earlier than the Neolithic, most appearing in the Middle Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age (dates in the 4th millennium BC).
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The manufacture of a logboat
A reconstruction of how the Poole logboat may have been built. Source: Berry et al 2019 e-book
Most surviving logboats were constructed from the trunks of the oak, probably because of the hardness and enduring properties of the wood. However, it is probable that many other types of tree were also used for boat construction, as suggested by the elm example from Warrington. Even though softer woods would have been less durable and more prone to damage, they would have been easier to hollow out and carve into shape. Unfortunately softwoods are much less likely than hardwoods to survive as well after deposition.
The skills required for the hollowing out of tree trunks would have represented a fairly mundane activity, although the cutting down of a live tree for use of a whole trunk would have meant different things at different times. A paddle dating to the 8th millennium BC at Star Carr in the Mesolithic was made at a time when wood was plentiful and had not yet been cleared for agricultural activities. By the later Bronze Age and Iron Age the use of a whole live tree for a single boat would have represented more of a pause for thought. Cut marks are preserved on some boats, suggesting how they were carved and what sort of tools might have been used.
A logboat from Must Farm Cambridgeshire, showing features within the hollowed out section. Source: Must Farm Flickr page
All of the boats described as log boats are carved from a single piece of wood, which in Britain is usually oak. Some may have been burned to assist the shaping processes. Although many were not elaborated any further, some were carefully shaped to improve their movement through the water, and some were provided with additional features to improve the usability of the logboats. Even those of a similar date may have very different features in terms of bow and stern shape, holes and fittings. Most have been found in association with inland waterways, lakes, meres, marshes and estuaries, where the shallow and calm waters were suitable for such vessels, and were almost certainly fabricated as near to the shoreline as possible to prevent the very heavy boat having to be dragged too far.
The means for propulsion would have been made at the same time. Logboats could have been either rowed, punted with a pole, or paddled, and a small number of paddles have indeed been found, but not in unambiguous association with logboats. The annual lighter (unpowered barge) races on the Thames show the power of using a combination of oars to row with a paddle at the rear to steer.
It would be surprising if an enterprising person or group had not made the attempt to manufacture a copy of one of these boats, and sure enough The Promethsud Project at Butser Experimental Farm made a logboat using a tree that had come down in the 1987 storms. More recently, the BBC in October 2023 reported that an experimental build was underway in Northamptonshire, part of a £250,000 Heritage Lottery project. Replicas of traditional Bronze Age tools and techniques are being used, including fire, and it is hoped that the two logboats will launched later in 2024.
Experimental reconstruction of a Bronze Age logboat. Source: BBC News
In his book Making, Tim Ingold draws attention to the creation of objects and built environments as a process in which people become involved with materials,during which objects become part of a seamless relationship with their makers. As cultural items, fully integrated both into ways of thinking as well as ways of doing during manufacture, lifetime and at the point of disposal, logboats would have been tied in to perceptions about materials, landscapes, waterscapes and the ability to travel.
Potential uses of logboats in daily life
The uses to which the logboats were put were central to livelihood management, such as fishing, traversing rivers, and travelling over short distances. As mentioned above, the Must Farm Bronze Age logboats were associated with eel traps and river captures, demonstrating how the management of waterways was incorporated into resource management techniques.
The truly remarkable state of preservation of fish traps found in association with logboats in Must Farm, Cambridgeshire. Source: Excavator Francis Pryor’s “In The Long Run” blog.
It has been calculated that the well known Carpow logboat could have carried up to fourteen people, or with a crew of two, around one tonne of cargo. The Brigg logboat was found in an estuary inlet in the river Humber (Hull) where it has been suggested that it could have been employed in carrying heavy cargoes such as grain, wood and perhaps iron ore, as well as having a capacity for up to twenty-eight people. These figures give a good indication that log boats really could make a difference for communities that, as well as fishing, wanted to move resources around including, for example, foodstuffs, ceramics, construction materials and people.
Major riparian connections showing how the river network links from Wessex, the Thames valley and the Humber estuary. These are just as valid for prehistoric, Saxon and Medieval periods. Source: Bradley 2019, p.20
More ambitiously, logboats could have been used for longer distance travel, forging and maintaining links between communities in different areas, exchanging gifts or commodities like salt, heavy objects like stone querns, or exotics (items not available locally), or helping to reach valley-based livestock herds, or move communities to new habitats as part of a mobile livelihood system.
There are independent measures of the value of log boats to communities. Even in some prehistoric periods, sacrificing an entire tree for one vessel would have represented something of a commitment, if not a sacrifice. Most communities would prefer to use branches from slow-growing live trees like sturdy wide-beamed oaks for construction work, only killing off the whole tree if it was necessary for particularly large buildings and other important structures. This suggests that the logboat was deemed to be of sufficient value for the sacrifice of a mature live tree to be worthwhile.
That logboats were valued on an ongoing basis has been demonstrated by the extensive repairs that were made to them. Prior to conservation the Carpow logboat was carefully recorded, including taking an inventory of all its features, including the repairs that had been carried out on it.
Repairs that had been made to the Carpow logboat were carefully recorded during conservation. Source: Woolmer-White and Strachan (ScARF)
Bob Holtzman’s tabulation of all the known repairs of logboats, published in 2021, and his analysis of these findings, has recently highlighted that repairs are another lens through which logboats can be understood. He identifies 73 repaired logboats incorporating 128 repairs, dating from the Middle Bronze Age to the post-medieval period. His typology of repairs clearly indicates that every form of damage that could be imposed on a logboat had a corresponding solution, and that considerable trouble was taken to ensure the longevity of these vessels, some repairs being rather ad hoc, whilst others were far more skilled and permanent. You can read his paper online for his full analysis (see Sources below).
Preserving and conserving logboats
Removing sugar crystals from the logboat following preservation. Source: Wessex Museums
Not only do waterlogged conditions make the discovery of logboat and other large wooden items difficult, but ongoing preservation becomes tricky once the item is removed from the waterlogged conditions that preserved it. Many early logboat finds were removed from their waterlogged contexts and put proudly on display, but began to dry out. Cracks formed and fragmentation began to occur, as well as decay. Attempts at preservation were often unsuccessful, and where successful changed the chemical makeup of the vessel, and made radiocarbon dating difficult if not impossible.
Items have to receive special treatment in order to remain above ground. Decisions have to be made about whether it is best to treat the item in order to retain it in for display in a museum, which can be costly, or to return it to the waterlogged conditions in which it was found. Various techniques have been tried. The Carpow boat from Scotland was kept wet as it was recorded but another solution was needed for long-term display It was decided to use a waxy polymer called polyethylene glycol (PEG) which would replace the water in the wood. The boat was submerged in the solution, in three pieces, in a specially made tank, after which it was freeze-dried, which converted the water turning into ice enabling its removal as a vapour. Prior to these measures, the logboat and its contemporary repairs had been recorded in detail using high-resolution digital photography and 3D scanning. The Poole Harbour logboat was also initially kept in water to prevent it drying out and disintegrating, but in the 1990s conservators from York Archaeological Trust came up with the idea of preserving it in over six tons of sugar solution before being dried out in a sealed chamber. The excess white sugar crystals that covered the boat had to be removed manually.
The Medieval Giggleswick Tarn logboat. Source: Leeds.gov.uk
A rather different problem was presented by the Medieval Giggleswick Tarn logboat (North Yorkshire), originally discovered during drainage works in 1863, “which was blown to pieces during a Second World War air raid” in 1941. It was not until 1974 that the fragments of the ash-built vessel were sent to the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich where they were examined and partially re-assembled, and dated to c.1335AD. The Giggleswick Tarn boat was luckier than the Brigg (Hull) logboat which was destroyed in the bombing of the museum where it was on display, suspended from the ceiling, in 1943. In the latter case, all that survives of the boat is the information that was recorded before it went on display.
Prehistoric logboats as special objects
One of eight Bronze Age boats found at Must Farm in Cambridgeshire was decorated, suggesting that particular care was given to the appearance of the boat. Logboats that were used for longer distance journeys and the forging of new connections with other communities have had a special status. Some boats may have been specially created for this purpose, giving them additional prestige and kudos.
Decorated Bronze Age logboat from Must Farm in Cambridgeshire. Source: Must Farm Flickr page
Normally objects that are found isolated and abandoned were discarded at their place of use when no longer needed. They might be deliberately disposed of in middens, broken and swept to the edges of settlements, could be lost to flood or fire or simply dropped by accident and never recovered by their owners. However the deposition of hoards of Late Bronze Age and Iron Age metalwork, like that in Llyn Cerig Bach (Anglesey), and the discovery of an Iron Age preserved body in Lindow Marsh, are associated with the idea of ritual deposition (i.e. deposition of bodies and items connected with specific rites of passage and religious ceremonies). In later prehistory there is often a connection with lakes, rivers and bogs.
The idea that some of the prehistoric logboats might belong to this latter category has been explored by a number of writers, including Joanna Brück, who describes them as objects that had crossed boundaries, and entered liminal spaces, becoming associated with ideas of transformation in the process. In this they might have required a special “ritual decommissioning” process to ensure that any embedded danger or risk associated with the places through which it had past was neutralized, transforming it from active to inert. Logboats may therefore have equally have been lost by accident, or deposited deliberately when, for whatever reason, they went out of use. It is not always easy to tell which was which, but Panagiota Markoulaki makes the attempt in her 2014 PhD thesis (see Sources below), which is available online for anyone wishing to pursue this subject further.
There is a possibility that a small number of prehistoric the logboats discovered were used mainly or exclusively for ceremonial purposes. A logboat from Lurgan in Co. Galway which is over 46ft (c.14m) in length was far too long for practical purposes, being almost impossible to navigate, and may have been used in ceremonial contexts.
Other logboats may have been used as models for burials, or even incorporated into such burials. Boat-shaped burial mounds are known in Britain, and some burials appear to emulate the shape of logboats, with one from Oban (Scotland) apparently having a re-used logboat at its centre. These date to between 2200 and 1700 BC.
Final Comments
Artist’s impression of the Carpow logboat transporting people across the river Tay. Source: Woolmer-White and Strachan (ScARF)
I started this piece after seeing the Baddiley Mere boat knowing almost nothing about logboats, and certainly nothing helpful. It was fairly slow going without access to an academic library, but thanks to some good some excellent papers shared online, some very useful online articles and the occasional references in books hanging around the house, I have finished up with a real appreciation for what is still a developing field of research.
The 19th and early 20th century discoveries, although marked by enthusiasm and good intentions, were often problematic. Many did not think to consider the context within which objects were found, meaning that logboats were often divorced from any associated objects or structures. A failure to understand the likely outcome of removing logboats from their waterlogged environments led to fragmentation of the wood, and sometimes complete disintegration. Attempts at preservation were variable in their success rate, and some altered the wood so profoundly that later scientific techniques like radiocarbon dating could not be employed. Still, they are to be commended for their appreciation of what they found, and their attempts to preserve both the objects and, in various publications, the knowledge that they had of the objects.
The Carprow (Perth, Scotland) logboat, which dates to around 1000BC, showing the well-sculpted interior. Source: Perth Museum and Gallery
It is a common misconception that most logboats are prehistoric. The same basic manufacturing method, using a hollowed out tree trunk, gives the illusion of contemporaneity, but the similarities are misleading. Although many of the 19th and 20th century discoveries of logboats were simply assumed to be prehistoric, radiocarbon dating, and some dendrochronological determinations have indicated that most of them are more recent and prehistoric logboats are in fact rare. The small number of Cheshire examples were early and later Medieval, with only one lying in the realms of later prehistory. In other areas the date range can extend as late as the early 18th century, although these very recent examples are also uncommon. As a whole, the small number of prehistoric logboats do not provide a sufficient sample to lend themselves conveniently to statistical sampling, and this applies even to the somewhat larger of Anglo-Saxon and Medieval examples.
Possible catamaran-style arrangement of two logboats, suggested by researchers working on the Medieval River Conon logboat. Source: AOC Archaeology Group
Although they look the superficially same, the tools with which they were made and with which they were associated will have differed considerably over time, and no two boats were the same. Even during the Bronze Age at Must Farm, the designs changed and new features were added whilst others were discarded, demonstrating that over time there was no generic logboat, and each had its own shape, features and fittings. Whilst some of the underlying considerations will have remained the same from one century to the next, the skills and tools available will have moved on, and in some cases the underlying needs for logboats and how they were thought about will have been very different. Landscapes and population densities, economic opportunities, social hierarchies and belief systems will have born little resemblance from one period to the next, and it as well to remember that similarities in appearance of logboats disguise huge discrepancies of lived experience. This pull and push between similarities and differences over very long periods is part of what makes the logboat so interesting.
Types of repairs to logboats, by Bob Holtzman 2021
It is good to see a number of publications tackling some of the complexities head on, both for academic and public consumption. The excellent book and e-book The Poole Iron Age Logboatedited by Jessica Berry, David Parham and Catriona Appleby is, for example, a fine example of a publication dedicated to a single example, using all the data available to follow, where possible, the life history of the object from tree to discard.
Technological advances are helping studies. For example, improvements in lighting, laser scanning and new photographic techniques have enabled more accurate capture of surface details, which in turn is helping researchers to understand how different types of tools and techniques were employed in the making and maintenance of logboats, enabling past methodologies to be recreated.
New academic studies are beginning to move beyond the vital building blocks of logboats as typologies and tables of dates to build on this work and consider logboats as integral to both economic and social activity, involved in different levels of livelihood and experience. Looking at how logboats are built has emphasised the role of communities in securing the wood and forming it into the correct shape, creating a communal resource and a shared experience in the process. Some researchers have considered how log boats may be involved not only in everyday activities but as components of mobile livelihood patterns and cross-community contacts. Some researchers have considered logboats in terms of their role in ceremonial and funerary activities, demonstrating that the same themes involved in the humdrum of everyday life are woven into the more esoteric aspects of self-identity and awareness. Others are looking at the significance and social context of repairs or the types of decision and activity required in the final discard of a logboat. Each new thread of research contributes not only to what is known about logboats, but to what is known about the societies and communities that produced them.
Although many of these studies focus on prehistoric examples, there is no reason why the same questions and approaches should not be applied to early and later medieval examples. Instead of being isolated from their contemporary economic and social contexts as something exceptional that requires special explanation, logboats are being repositioned at the heart of our understanding of different periods of the past and the reasons why such boats may have continued to be so attractive. Although the Cheshire logboats represent only a small part of the jigsaw, each one is unique. Both as a group and as individual activists, they too have much to contribute to the overall picture.
TikTok video about the Baddiley logboat by Professor Howard Williams from the University of Chester.
Hurcombe, L.M. 2014. Perishable Material Culture in Prehistory. Investigating the Missing Majority. Routledge
Ingold, Tim 2013. Making. Anthropology, archaeology, art and architecture. Routledge
Kröger, Lars 2018. Within the network of Fluvial ports. In: L. Werther / H. Müller / M. Foucher (ed.), European Harbour Data Repository, vol. 01 (Jena 2018)
McGrail, S. 1978. Logboats of England and Wales. National Maritime Museum Archaeological Series 2, British Archaeological Reports, British Series 51 (volumes I and ii), National Maritime Museum Archaeological Series 2. Archaeopress
McGrail, S. 2010. An introduction to logboats. In D. Strachan (ed) Carpow in Context. Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, p.1-8.
Mowat, Robert J. C., Cowie; Trevor; Crone Anne and Cavers, Graeme 2015. A medieval logboat from the River Conon: towards an understanding of riverine transport in Highland Scotland
Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot. 145 (2015), p.307–340
This is a slight departure for this blog, the usual premise of which is that every visit can be accomplished in a day, there and back, from where I live in Churton. The visit to Peterborough required a stop overnight. I have always wanted to see the Romanesque cathedral at Peterborough, which is a former Benedictine abbey. I set out by car early on a Wednesday in November 2023 and stayed one night in Peterborough near the town centre, visiting the cathedral both on the Wednesday afternoon and again on the Thursday morning. On my way home on Thursday afternoon I visited the lovely Normanton Church. The routes taken and other visiting details are at the end.
Peterborough Cathedral is covered in part 1 (here) and a very brief snapshot of Normanton Church on its custom-made plinth on Rutland Water is in part 2. Needless to say, I have barely skimmed the surface of the cathedral’s history.
Introduction
South transept
Peterborough Cathedral is somewhere I have wanted to visit from the moment that I laid eyes on photos of it in a book. It has an almost split personality with its magnificent and unique 3-bay Gothic frontage, its sublime Norman-Romanesque interior, the stunning painted nave ceiling and the almost organic delicacy of the fan vaulting in the date eastern extension.
The abbey was terminated in Henry VIII’s dissolution of all the monasteries, but like Chester Cathedral was fortunate to escape some of the indignities of this process when it was converted to a cathedral. The building that visitors see today, dedicated to St Peter with St Paul and St Andrew, is the third abbey. The first abbey, Medeshamstede, was destroyed by Danish invaders. The second abbey church, built over a century after the demolition of the first, burned down by accident although the cloisters survived. The third abbey church was started from scratch, and is remarkable for the survival of the magnificent Romanesque vision. All three abbeys were built on the same site, and there is some evidence for a Roman building beneath them. The three phases are described very briefly below. For detailed descriptions see one of the guide books available, or the cathedral website’s History page (details in Sources at the end). If you go in person, I recommend the guided tour.
The 7th Century Abbey – Medeshamstede
Artist’s impression of Medhamstede, shown on an information poster in the cathedral
Bede’s 8th century Ecclesiastical History says that the first abbey on the site, Medehamstede, was established in the 7th century, and it is now thought that it was founded in around 654, and was probably built of wood. A later phase may have seen the rebuild of the wooden walls in stone, imported from a quarry to the west. Very little is known about the building and its phases, although the artist’s impression to the right is a useful suggestion of what might have been on the site. The first abbey was very isolated, deliberately divorced from human settlement to provide a suitable environment for contemplation and prayer.
The River Nene in Peterborough
Perched on the side of the River Nene and on the edge of the marshlands and mudflats of the Fens, it was an ideal location for peaceful contemplation and prayer. For this and subsequent abbeys on the site the nearby marshy Fenlands provided one of the best resources for freshwater fish in England, offered a rich habitat for wildfowl and supported reed beds that provided the raw materials for thatching roofs. The land also had the farming potential required for an expanding self-sufficient and isolationist community, providing summer pasture for livestock, and later on, when improved techniques of land drainage were mastered, the opportunity for agricultural development. Communication links were provided by the River Nene and the nearby Roman road.
The monastic community would have been organized along very austere lines adhering to the so-called Celtic tradition of monasticism. The abbey became an important early religious centre, and founded a number of daughter houses in Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Kent, Surrey, and Bermondsey (now in southeast London), which were important vanguards of the spread of Christianity. I
The Hedda Stone
Housed today in the cathedral chancel / presbytery is the Hedda Stone shown above, a large and beautifully sculpted piece of limestone belonging to this period of the abbey’s history, showing Christ, Mary and the Apostles. It is carved on both sides and pierced with holes that have no generally agreed purpose. It is quite easy to miss, so do make a point of finding it, as it is delightful.
In 870 the abbey was plundered and destroyed during a Danish attack on the east coast, and the site, now abandoned, became part of the Danelaw territory.
The 10th Century Abbey – Gildenburgh
Plan of Saxon and Medieval Peterborough showing the outline of the second church. F is the site of the gate stormed by Hereward and the Danes. It is thought that E is the old marketplace, replaced by the new town in 1133-1155. The motte is thought today to have been built by Abbot Thorold. Source: Current Archaeology 89, 1983
In the 10th century, Æthelwold of Winchester had a vision of Christ in which he was instructed to rebuild the abbey of St Peter. He was assisted in this challenge by Dunstan of Canterbury and by King Edgar and Queen Ælfthryth. It was consecrated in the early 970s by Dunstan as a Benedictine monastery (i.e. one following the guidelines for monastic life developed in the 6th century by St Bendict of Nursia, Italy). From fairly early on it was decided to provide it with a defensive wall, making it a fortified settlement or “burgh.” The church was laid out along traditional lines with a nave, two transepts and a chancel at its east end. It must have been provided with a belfry, because Æthelwold provided 10 bells for the church. Although there were no sources of stone and wood close to the site, these were imported from Barnack and Rockingham Forest respectively.
The prestige of the monastery rose when it acquired an important relic, the right arm of Oswald, a Saxon king and saint who was noted for his kindness to the poor and whose arm, with which he handed out so many alms, survived, perfectly preserved, after he was killed in battle. The monastery’s position was again strengthened in 1041 when one of the monks, Æthelric, was chosen as Bishop of Durham. The selection of the abbey as the final resting place for Ælfric Puttoc and subsequently Cynesige, both archbishops of York was an indication of how well regarded the abbey was in the 11th century. Like many Benedictine monasteries, it became a major landowner, becoming wealthy and both economically and architecturally ambitious, accumulating books for a library, and fine objects for its ceremonies and liturgies. It was so rich that it became known as the golden burgh, Gildenburgh.
Reconstruction of the abbey precinct at the time of Hereward’s attack. Source: Peterborough Abbey
The second abbey was still standing proud when William the Conqueror landed in England. Its abbot, Leofric, died in the Battle of Hastings. Abbot Brand, who followed him, was also Saxon and supported opposition to the Norman invasion. This opposition was punished with heavy taxation, and when Brand died in 1069 the abbey was put into the hands of an abbot, Thorold, loyal to William. In the event, a local Saxon rebel, Hereward, had found an ally in King Swein of Denmark, and in 1070 the Saxons and the Danes marched on Peterborough and plundered it. Although the arm of St Oswald was saved by the prior (second in command) the rest of the treasure vanished with the rebels. The abbey itself was badly damaged, and what survived was occupied by the abbot and sixty knights and significant portions of land that had once formed the basis of the abbey’s wealth was now allocated to many of those knights, filling the formerly rebellious countryside with loyal Normans.
When Thorold died in 1098 he was replaced by two successive abbots who had very little impact, but the third abbot to be appointed, in 1107, was Ernulf who was prior of Canterbury, a scholar with a good understanding of political manoeuvring, who had plenty of ambition for his new posting. He began by rebuilding the damage to the cloister buildings that had been largely destroyed by Hereward. In 1114 Ernulf moved on to Rochester and was replaced by Abbot John de Séez.
In early August 1116 when a fire broke out in the bakery and took most of what remained of the abbey church with it, although Ernulf’s new claustral buildings survived beyond the abbey church. A new church was now not only desirable but necessary.
Today’s abbey, established in the 12th Century
The Romanesque architecture
Plan of Peterborough Cathedral. Click to expand. NB – the “sanctuary” is referred to in most of the Peterborough Abbey literature as “presbytery” so I have stuck with the latter throughout. Source: Sweeting 1899, Project Gutenberg
Abbot John de Séez oversaw the construction of a stunning new Romanesque building, complete with a vast vaulted presbytery. The scale of his ambition saddled the abbey with such an enormous financial and logistical commitment that it took 120 years to complete. Masons who had worked at Durham were brought in to ensure that the most up to date civil engineering techniques were employed, and what unfolded was a mixture of magnificent vision and superb skills. The church was laid out on the usual cross-shape, with a long nave, side transepts (containing chapels) and a shorter east end. The south wall of the church (the righ thand side of the plan) made up the north wall of the cloisters, the administrative and domestic buildings were located, arranged around a square garden called the garth.
Entering the nave, the interior is light-filled and breathtaking. With windows on three levels, light pours in. Cromwell’s soldiers destroyed the medieval stained glass, and the plain replacement glass allows in much more light than the stained glass would have permitted. Of course it does help that the cathedral has installed artificial lighting, but even allowing for the changes, the layers of window and the soft, faintly reflective pallor of the Barnack limestone walls must have provided a degree of light that was remarkable in the Middle Ages.
View from just inside the west entrance to the end of the presbytery, with the pulpit in the foreground, and the modern rood (crucifix) hanging over the entrance to the Victorian choir
Because there is no surviving pulpitum (a stone division between nave and choir in monastic churches) or rood screen (again, between nave and choir), there is a very rare almost uninterrupted view from the west end entrance to the restored stained glass windows at the east end. In spite of the 19th century marble edifice that sticks up in the middle of the presbytery, the impression of a vanishing point is dramatic and gives a real sense of the length of the building. The walls soar upwards too, meeting a unique and fabulous painted ceiling.
On the death of Abbot John, the new Abbot Benedict, from Canterbury, persisted with the same vision. This is interesting because at Canterbury new ideas from France, captured in the Gothic style, were being implemented, but for whatever long-lost reason, Benedict retained the Romanesque plan that Abbot John had initiated, including semi-circular apses at the east end, one of which survives within the rectangular “New Building” that surrounds it. This apse is a rare survivor as most British churches had their apses removed for replacement by rectangular extensions such as Lady Chapels and similarly prestigious expansion projects. Benedict extended the original design west by two bays, and if you stand at the west end and look at the arches of the aisles you can clearly see the difference.
Blind arcading in the north aisle beneath the great arches of the windows
The nave and the two transepts contain the bulk of the easily visible Romanesque architecture. That within the east end presbytery is more difficult to view. The long nave with its side aisles is monumental. The massive arches of the aisles, with characteristic geometric decoration, are supported on vast octagonal piers. They are topped with another set of arches, each of which contains twin arches separated by slender columns topped with square capitals. The top level features rather smaller central arches, each flanked by even smaller blind arcades. The transept ends are simpler, each with three levels of of arches, each of the same size, with unpainted roof panels in the same lozenge shapes as those in the nave.
The lost cloister and infirmary
Artist’s impression of the cloister on an information board in the remains of the abbey cloisters.
Today’s cathedral was once the abbey church, and is a wonderful survival, but it was only one part of the monastic establishment. A cloister was always an integral part of the monastic establishment, with buildings along three sides of a courtyard or garden, with the church making up the fourth side. This cloister was usually on the south side of the church, sheltering it from the worst weather and providing it with seasonal sun. The central part of it was often a garden of some description, called the garth. The buildings arranged along the three sides included the refectory, where the monks ate, the dormitory where they slept and the chapter house where they held daily meetings. Some of these buildings could be very elaborate and ornate, particularly the chapter house.
If you leave through a door in the south side of the cathedral (on the right as you head from the entrance towards the end of the nave) or turn right in front of the cathedral and head down a narrow pathway, you will find yourself in what remains of the cloister. There is some very fine stonework left behind, giving a hint at the magnificent buildings that once stood here, and many of the changes that the buildings clearly underwent. The buildings were robbed for building materials following the Civil War.
Cloister wall, where it meets the abbey church
Beyond the cloister was the infirmary. Many monastic establishments were furnished with an infirmary, mainly to take care of the elderly and unwell within the monastic community, but most of these are long gone, and again there is some attractive gothic arcading that indicates where the monastic ifirmary was located, to the east of the cloister. It was built by Abbot John de Caux in around 1250. It is worth mentioning, because it gives some idea of the scale of the monastic operation at Peterborough.
Relics
The 12th century Becket Casket (Height 29.5cm; Width 34.4cm; Depth 12.4cm). Source: V&A Museum
No important abbey was viable without relics of saints, which gave it great spiritual credibility, prestige and integrity. Amongst the valuable relics collected were the arm of the Saxon saint Oswald of Northumbria. More prestigious by the 12th century were the bloodstained objects directly connected to the murder on 29th December 1170 of St Thomas Becket of Canterbury (the reliquary for which survives in the V&A museum). A 12th century genuine British martyr, canonized in 1173, was a remarkable thing, and the snaffling of authenticated relics for Peterborough was a real coup. Benedict did not witness the martyrdom, but he became an ardent collector and collator of Becket miracles. Becket had actually been to Peterborough, visiting with King Henry II in 1154. A chapel was built to St Thomas at the abbey gate in 1174 to hold this and other relics, allowing pilgrims access to monastic relics without permitting them to disrupt the abbey church itself.
Painted walls and woodwork
Romanesque cathedrals in Europe often preserve painted decorative patterns on walls and ceilings, some emulating red mortar, but only faint hints survive in Britain. Fortunately, some very delicate paintwork in Peterborough survives. As well as imitation mortar, and some lovely swirling curves, there is a truly charming section on the ceiling with tiny red flowers that may have been intended to evoke the Virgin Mary, who is often associated with red and white roses.
Within the apse, at the rear of the Presybytery, accessible from the New Building ambulatory, there are coats of arms painted on the white walls. Given that the eye is inevitably drawn first to the Hedda stone and the enormous marble high altar, it is easy not to notice the paintings. I have been unable to find out anything about them either in the literature I have to hand or on the Peterborough Cathedral website, but they probably belonged to wealthy benefactors of the abbey or the later cathedral.
The chapels in the south transept were provided with wooden screens to provide access and entry, and provide privacy. Remarkably, some of the decorative painting on these also survives.
The west front, the porch and the Lady Chapel
The Romanesque building did not escape the fashion for Gothic style embellishments. Tracery in the window arches, for example, is Gothic, and the Romanesque interior was topped and tailed with a remarkable Early English west front and a stunning fan-vaulted rectangular ambulatory around the central semi-circular apse at the east end.
The unique 3-bay frontage was started in 1195 but progress was halted when King John, and England as a whole, were excommunicated from the Catholic church in 1209. When the crisis was over, building resumed under Abbot Hugh, and it is thought that he made some changes the original design. The result is three 29m high arches at the front, the central one narrower than the two flanking ones. Inset into these are further arches. Flanking the arche tops and and built into the triangular gables above were a total of 22 figures looking out from the front, although many have crumbled and have now replaced. The three at the top of the gables are Saints Paul, Peter and Andrew. The figure at the very top of the central gable is St Peter, overlooking the entrance, and marking the transition from the impure outdoor world to the heavenly space within.
Following the 13th century fashion for adding a Lady Chapel to a church, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, one was built at Peterborough 1272-1286 to the north of the presbytery, accessed from the north transept, and was still standing by the 17th century, when it was taken down during the Civil War. It was in the Gothic style and was probably elaborately decorated and furnished.
A later Gothic porch, dating to 1375, protrudes from the middle of the west front. I was inclined to be more than a little judgmental about the porch, which looked like a very misguided vanity project, but I stand corrected. It was found that the central arch of the west front was beginning to tip forward, and the engineering solution was to create a wedge to prop it up. The structurally necessary wedge was designed as a Gothic style galilee porch with perpendicular windows, and although it breaks up the magnificent frontage, has done a great job of preventing its collapse.
The 15th century “New Building”
The so-called “New Building,” a sublime gothic vision, is in fact an eastward extension of the Romanesque cathedral. The New Building was probably built between 1496 and 1508 by star architect John Wastell of Bury St Edmunds (later responsible for the fan vaulting at Westminster Abbe, under the abbey’s superior, Abbot Robert Kirkton. This was no mere add-on, but a fabulously imagined and beautifully crafted piece of fan-vaulted delight. The abbot who took the gamble of gluing on an extension to a perfectly conceived Romanesque delight lived up to the legacy of his predecessors. The ceiling bosses, some of which are shown in the above photograph, were carved with both secular and religious themes showing coats of arms, symbols of the saints, and other familiar subjects. The job of the extension was to enclose the central semi-circular apse within a rectangular extension, providing a low-level ambulatory around the inner sanctum, which rises above it, for ceremonial processions. Ambulatories often contain additional chapels, but the cathedral’s architecture remains largely uninterrupted and therefore retains the impact of the fabulous fan-vaulting, which is one of the largest examples in England.
Ceiling boss showing the instruments of the passion
The New Building also, of course, delivered some fairly glossy feathers to the cap of the abbot who was so pleased with himself that he incorporated his name, a partial rebus, into the building itself. Abbot Robert Kirkton was not a self-effacing man – his initials are also conspicuous in the elaborate Prior’s Gate that he built and which celebrated key royal figures in the form of their heraldry, and ornamented with Marian roses, managing to be both obsequious and self-congratulatory.
Prior’s Gate by Abbot Kirkham
The unique 13th century painted ceiling
Magnificent painted ceiling of the nave
Deserving a post in its own right, the wooden ceiling is a marvel. Unique, it was started in around 1238 and was finsihed sometime in the 1240s. It is made up of a series of lozenge-shaped panels, which one painted either with a small scene or with leaf and floral motifs. The repeating pattern of the lozenges is dramatic from below. Interpretation of the scenes has established that the individual subjects are arranged into a series of core themes, but there is much that it still unclear. Obvioulsy religious scenes like the Creation, The Lamb of God, Saints Peter and Paul and the Anti-Christ are accompanied by historical clerics and kings, music, astronomy and the liberal arts. A scene showing a money riding backwards on a galloping goat whilst holding an owl is a representation of folly. John Foyles dedicates several pages to the ceiling in his book and there is a book about it by Jackie Hall and Susan Wright for those who want to delve deeper (see sources at the end).
Unpainted wooden ceilings over the apses are also arranged in lozenges, and are very fine in their own right.
Lozenge-shaped framed painting on the ceiling of the nave., showing St Paul holding a sword in his right hand and a book in his left (panel C7). The sword evokes the means of his martyrdom (beheading) and the book represents his epistles.
The Tudors before the Dissolution
The main contribution of the Tudors to the cathedral are the tombs of Katherine of Aragon, who died in 1536 and Mary Queen of Scots in 1587.
Katharine of Aragon had been married to the heir to the English throne, Arthur, elder brother of the future Henry VIII. When Arthur died, Henry VIII married his widowed sister-in-law. When the marriage failed to produce the necessary male heir, Henry decided to annul the marriage. Unable to obtain papal permission to do so, he split from the papacy and established the Church of England. Katherine was shuffled off to Kimbolton Castle, where Henry hoped that if she was out of sight of the public, she would also be out of mind. When she died she provided, on Henry’s orders, with a tomb in Peterborough Abbey, the nearest important ecclesiastical building to Kimbolton. Here she was identified as the widow of Henry’s brother Arthur. This was presumably Henry’s excuse for not granting her a place in Westminster Abbey. Deposited under the floor up against the south side of the presbytery, where she would be close to God, she was provided with a monument above the grave. This was destroyed in the Civil War, but the grave beneath remainsin situ, marked by a stone slab and gold lettering.
The Dissolution
The opening page of the Valor Ecclesiasticus (the survey of monastic establishments that paved the way to the Dissolution), showing Henry VIII. Source: Wikipedia
The New Building had only just been finished in the first years of the 1500s when Henry VIII fell out with the Catholic papacy. Henry, having found a way to both dissolve a marriage that produced a daughter but no male heir to his throne, and simultaneously remove papal authority over both his personal affairs and the management of the church, also found that being the head of his own Church of England enabled him to raise substantial funds by laying claim to all the properties and goods of the monasteries, priories and friaries, by simply denying their ongoing right to exist. The Dissolution caught up with Peterborough abbey in 1539, which had survived the first round of closures that took place in 1536. The abbot at the time was John Chambers, and he was unusually fortunate. He took no part in the protests in Lincoln or the Pilgrimage of Grace, and although initially pensioned off his meek resignation to the inevitable was rewarded. Whether it was because of the creation of new dioceses at this time, or because Henry VIII’s first wife Katherine of Aragon was buried here in 1536, the abbey escaped demolition and was converted instead to a cathedral in 1541 with John Chambers as its first bishop. Of all the 100s of abbeys, priories and friaries that were dissolved by Henry VIII, only a handful were converted to cathedrals, of which Chester Cathedral is another example.
Fifty years later Peterborough was again the royal choice of burial place for an embarrassing queen. Executed in 1587, Mary Queen of Scots was buried on the opposite side of the presbytery from Queen Katharine. She remained there for 25 years until her son, James I, removed her remains to Westminster Abbey.
The Civil War
Peterborough, from Speed’s 1610 map, shortly before the Civil War. Source: Sweeting 1899, Project Gutenberg
During the English Civil War of 22 August 1642 – 3 September 1651, each side attempted to use the medieval castles to gain advantage. The result was that many 13th century castles were slighted (demolished) to prevent re-use at the end of the Civil War. Castles were fair game, but religious institutions were also targeted because they represented a different threat – the challenge to Puritan religious belief. Henry VIII had rejected Catholic authority, but his Church of England was established for convenience, and the Church of England contained many lingering aspects of its Catholic ancestry. Oliver Cromwell’s soldiers were given free reign to obliterate any of the artistic signs of lingering tendencies to papism to force through reform. What they could reach they either maimed or destroyed. What they could not reach they sometimes hit with musket fire.
One of three surviving misericords at Peterborough Cathedral
At Peterborough, as in so many places, the medieval stained glass was demolished. Some of the stained glass windows at the east end today was formed of the fragments that people picked up and saved after the Puritans had left. The painted ceiling over the east end apse was shot with muskets, but somehow the ceiling over the nave was missed. The choir stalls, together with the misericords (the so-called mercy seats once in the choir stalls, all of which were carved with fascinating scenes on their undersides) were also destroyed at this time. Only three of the misericords survive (at Chester there are 48 misericords, which gives some idea of the level of destruction at Peterborough). The survivors are preserved in a chapel on the south side of the nave near the entrance, a sad reminder that something quite spectacular has been lost. The high altar was also destroyed. The cloister buildings were used as the raw materials for nearby Thorpe Hall.
The 17th and 18th centuries
This sub-heading would normally be an exercise in naming and shaming, but, amazingly, the abbey has not suffered the usual indignities of an important ecclesiastical building during this period. There are no 17th and 18th century monuments jostling for position on the walls to undermine the sense of coherence and uniform splendour. The soaring nave in Westminster Abbey, utterly spoiled by truly awful funerary memorials, is a good example of how badly a beautiful building can be dramatically undermined by later insensitivities. Although some of the monuments in Peterborough Cathedral were damaged during the Reformation, there seem to have been restrictions on the number permitted.
The biggest surviving monument is baroque, dedicated to wool merchant Thomas Deacon, former high sheriff of Northamptonshire and founder of a charity school for 20 boys. He died in 1730. His wife, who died 10 years later, is also commemorated on the monument. I would much rather that it had not been built in the cathedral, at the entrance to the New Building, because it is such an alien presence, but it is a particularly fine example of its type.
The Victorians
Two of the most active restorers of the Victorian period were Sir George Gilbert Scott and John L. Pearson. Unfortunately, although their ideas of restoration included the valuable rescue and repair of serious damage and decay, it also involved what they clearly thought of as improvements to the original vision of earlier architects and artists. Enthusiasts of Chester Cathedral and Valle Crucis Abbey in Llangollen will probably have Gilbert Scott’s name ringing in their ears.
The crossing
In the late 1800s the tower was on the verge of collapse and it was Pearson who was responsible for dismantling and rebuilding it, a massive undertaking that saved the cathedral from irreparable harm. His work altered the 14th century tower but was done to blend in with the existing architecture. The twin sets of choir stalls, to the east of where the originals were located, the cathedra (bishop’s throne) and the pulpit are also Pearson’s work, and although clearly not medieval, are a skilled emulation of a medieval style quire. Pearson’s, however, was the evil genius that created the temple-like marble high altar within the presbytery as well as the cosmati floor leading up to it.
Cosmati floor
Gilbert Scott was responsible for the painted ceiling over the apse, which he claimed at the time was based on the damaged example that he was replacing. It is unmistakeably Victorian in its rendition and colouring.
Gilbert Scott’s ceiling in the apse
In this period the circular cast iron Gurney stoves were added, manufactured by The London Warming and Ventilating Company who bought the patent registered in 1856 by Goldsworth Gurney, surgeon turned engineer. The stove looks like the filter in my wet-and-dry vacuum cleaner, with ribs standing out from a central cylinder, distributing heat in a full circle. It was fired by anthracite, and the entire thing sat in a trough of water, helping to add humidity to the air. Peterborough cathedral retains several of them, and they are in many other cathedrals too. The Peterborough ones are powered by either as or oil, and they do a stunning job.
Modern additions
There has been some restoration work in the last few decades, but the emphasis has generally been on preservation rather than modernization. For example, many of the badly decaying figures on the west front were replaced by Alan Durst between 1949 and 1975.
A particularly noticeable modern addition is a hanging rood – a red crucifix with Christ in gold affixed to it, suspended from the ceiling at the east end of the nave, added in 1975. This hangs above the line that the rood screen would have taken across the nave. Up against the south side of the presbytery some very fine gold lettering, was put in place to mark the burial place of Mary Queen of Scots, which works well. In the New Building, someone has seen fit to place framed photographs on the walls between the fan-vaulting columns, which really doesn’t do the architecture any favours. The entrance to the west end has automated glass doors, which add to the light, and there is of course the inevitable gift shop on your left as you enter. Outside, Thomas Becket’s chapel is now a tea room.
Final Comments
The Romanesque is so comparatively rare in Britain, that this stunningly coherent and unfettered example is a particularly amazing treat. When the decision was made to extend the east end in a contrasting style, the slender, delicate columns and fan-vaulting of the New Building provided contrasting but additional brilliance. Moving through the building from the Norman to gothic gives the sense of being in an ecclesiastical time machine, a transition from one perfect world to another.
There is so much more to be said about the abbey and its features, inside and out, so much that has been missed out here. If you decide to visit, you won’t be disappointed.
Visiting
View from the choir to the east end
I am accustomed to driving to southeast London, so rather than looking at other options I took was my usual route, zipping down the A41, the M54, the M6 and the A14. From the A14 the A605 goes straight to Peterborough and I was there, end to end with no delays, in just over three hours. The A41 is always the joker in the pack because it is a long way from Chester to the M54, there are very few sections of dual carriageway and it can be difficult to overtake if you find yourself behind something slow. The A5 to Shrewsbury and the M54 is sometimes quicker.
The cathedral opening times are on the website, where any special events and closures are shown. Although I had done some top-level background reading I was lucky enough to arrive half an hour before a Highlights Tour was due to start, so I had a wander around on my own and then returned to the entrance for the tour. I failed to get my guide’s name, which is particularly sad as I had her to myself, November being a quiet time of year, and we had a great chat. She was splendidly knowledgable, encouraged my stream of questions and added multiple layers of detail and interpretation to my visit.
There was full-on white frost resembling snow over the days that I visited, and it was exceedingly cold, but thanks to the deployment of multiple Gurney stoves in the cathedral (fabulous heat-generating monsters like the ones in Chester Cathedral), I actually had to take off my top layer. It is the first cathedral I’ve ever visited that actually felt cosy!
For those who are dealing with unwilling legs, Peterborough as a whole is on the flat. The cathedral has very few steps to negotiate, automated doors provide access to the cathedral, a ramp is provided to get into the chancel from the New Building to visit the Hedda stone, and there are a great many places to sit down even beyond the nave.
I returned home via Normanton Church (see my short post with photos), for no better reason than it looked pretty and I do love a well-proportioned Georgian church, so my return journey was different, following the A606 to Melton Mowbray (I didn’t stop but it looks interesting), the A6006 and the A50 to Stoke on Trent and Nantwich, and the A534 home. Thanks to a convoy of lorries on the A6006 it was slow going but it was a spectacularly beautiful day and the unfamiliar landscape showed to terrific advantage in the sunshine. The A50 is dual carriageway, very unlovely but a smooth run. The drive from Peterborough to Churton, via Normanton Church, took me just over four hours (not including the time wandering around at Normanton).
Sources
Books and papers
Pair of figures believed to be Roman, possibly late 2nd century. In the west wall of the south transept
Biddick, Kathleen. 1992. The Other Economy: Pastoral Husbandry on a Medieval Estate. University of California Press
Foyle, Jonathan. 2018. Peterborough Cathedral. A Glimpse of Heaven. Scala
Higham, Jack (Revd. Canon). 2001. Peterborough Cathedral. The Pitkin Guide. Pitkin
Selkirk, Andrew and Selkirk, Wendy 1983. Peterborough. Current Archaeology, no.89, vol.VIII, October 1983, p.182-183
Sweeting, W.D. (Revd.) 1899 (second edition). The Cathedral Church of Peterborough. A Description of its fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See. G. Bell and Sons Ltd. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13618/13618-h/13618-h.htm
Book about the nave’s painted ceiling (which I have not read, but is listed here for those who would like to find out more)
Jackie Hall and Susan Wright (eds.) 2015. Conservation & Discovery: Peterborough Cathedral Nave Ceiling and Related Structures. MOLA———
There are a number of routes through the park. From the car park, the Main Trail is a wide metalled track that leads from the car park past the visitor centre nearly as far as the castle (after which there are wooden steps leading up to the castle). It follows the line of the brook, which drifts in and out of sight and is constantly audible. The most notable feature on the Main Trail, apart from the lovely woodland, are the outcrops of Hollin Rock, a 320 million year old red sandstone, popular as a building material. Towards the end of the trail is a small and attractive bridge, Pont Aber, that was once located further upstream but was moved here in 1800 to improve access to Wepre Hall. There is a delightful small waterfall on the other side, which used to be the location of the Castle Hill Brewery that used the water from a natural spring.
The second significant route is a boardwalk, which leads from the car park along the brook and connects to the Main Trail about half way way along. The main feature of the Boardwalk route is the waterfall, actually built as a weir to power a small hydroelectric plant, but it is a very attractive feature. The plant used to provide electricity to the Hall before mains electricity arrived in the area in 1925. There is a variety of aquatic vegetation flanking the boardwalk, and information boards indicate the different wildlife, including birds, that can be spotted on a walk. The boardwalk follows the brook closely until it slopes up slightly to meet the Main Trail, and the “bubbling brook” phrase never seemed more apt. This is a very audio-visual walk.
The keep sits within a small upper ward. A larger lower ward was added, possibly at a later date, with a tower at its furthest extent from the upper ward and both were provided with curtain walls, some of which remain. The D-shaped (or apsidal) keep has a small footprint with its semi-circular end overlooking the defences, whilst the tower in the lower keep overlooks both the southern aspect and the valley below. The lower ward would have been provided with timber buildings for domestic functions and storage.
The problem of the poor strategic location could be explained by suggesting a different intention for the castle as more of a political statement than a fully functional military outpost. Its location on the edges of disputed territory, not far from older English castles and the site of Owain Gwynedd’s defeat of Henry II may simply have been a statement of a Welsh return to land that they claimed as their own, and a useful staging point for any future negotiations, given its proximity to the Anglo-Welsh border. This is supported by its probable use first in November 1259 and again in December 1260 when English ambassadors were sent to meet with Llywelyn at a place identified as Wepre, which must have been the castle. There is no record of the castle’s involvement in 1276 and 1277, when war between England and Wales reignited, which may give added weight to this castle being a political gesture rather than a strictly military base, but could also reflect the necessity of Welsh retreat to safer ground.
Access to the castle, managed by Cadw, is free of charge and open all year round, as is the entire park, but you will need to be confident with stairs, as they are the only way in and out of the castle. There are new metal stair cases with handrails, and original stone ones, including a small flight in a stairwell in the keep leading up to a viewing platform at the top. None of the stone staircases have handrails.
Parking is straight forward for both castle and park. If you only want to see the castle there is a lay-by on the side of the B5125 that looks as though it will take about 8 cars, maybe a couple more. I didn’t try the route from there to the castle so have no idea what the footpath is like underfoot, but the What3Words address for the lay-by parking is ///follow.beauty.mistaking. The official car park is a large one near the visitor centre on Wepre Drive. Ewloe Castle is about a mile away from this car park along a very easy and attractive trail. The What3Words address is for the main car park is ///contrived.writing.mailers
The visitor centre is closed at this time of year (November) but its cafe was open on my visit. The public toilets are also open nearby. There’s a substantial play area on the edge of the car park. There are a small number of good information boards throughout the park, including one at the castle, but the Cadw official guide to Flint Castle also has a section on Ewloe Castle. Other sources are listed below, including castle information and an excellent guide to the park, together with a footpath map.
Based in Churton 
