By Jenny Ashby, gesið

This article first appeared in Wiðowinde #183 (Autumn 2017)

I HAVE KNOWN THE CHURCH OF ST NICHOLAS AT Worth all my life; a painting of its chancel arch by my Dad has always hung in their lounge and I can remember looking at it from babyhood, wondering why he’d painted it. Years later he told me he painted it because it was Saxon and it had inspired him. But I’d never actually visited it. So this January I at last decided to go, a personal odyssey, having discovered that not only was it part of my family’s story but it is also one of England’s finest Saxon churches.

When Dad visited Worth years ago, it was a little Sussex village. Nowadays it is part of Crawley New Town, squashed between housing estates to the west, the M23 to the east and Gatwick Airport to the north. Yet it is well-signposted and I found the church first time. Parking Oswald in the little approach lane, I walked through the lych gate and wow! The church is stunningly and unmistakably Saxon, with its pilaster strips all round the outside, its double-headed windows and its apse. I was expecting a flint church, like many churches in Surrey and Sussex, but no, this one is golden. It was a gloriously sunny day and the Wealden sandstone from which the church is constructed just glowed, it looked ethereal. Busily taking loads of photos, whilst trying not to tread on the carpets of snowdrops in the churchyard, I disturbed a fox, who regarded me for a while then trotted off. I reflected that Worth Church is an oasis of Saxon peace in a mad world.

Worth is a common Old English place name, usually meaning “enclosure”, but in this case, and in that of Worthing, it comes from the personal name “Wurth”. Worth lay within the Forest of Andredsweald and the church is believed to have been founded by King Edward the Confessor himself, who dedicated it to St Nicholas, Bishop of Myra (died 6th December, 343 AD). Built to a very high standard, Worth Church may have been a minster or perhaps an outpost of Chertsey Abbey, as it was then in Surrey. Held of King Edward by Oswol, after the Conquest it was given by William l to William de Warenne, whose family held it until the middle of the 14th century. It passed to the Fitzalan family (Earls of Arundel) then, in 1415, to the Nevilles.

The church is cruciform in shape, with an apse at the east end; it has been dated to between 950 and 1050, but possibly earlier which of course would preclude Edward the Confessor being its founder. As it stands today, 99% of the nave walls, the three great internal arches and the two transepts are original Saxon work. It is constructed of coursed rubble (irregular shaped stones laid in lines) which is the commonest fabric used in Anglo-Saxon walling. The nave walls are 2 ft 9 ins or 0.84 m thick; Anglo-Saxon walls are seldom as thick as 3 ft (0.91m) and the average is 2 ft 7 ins (0.76 m).

Outside, it is almost completely encircled half way up the walls by a stone string course, although this is absent from the tower, which is Victorian, and the ends of the transepts, which were altered in the 13th century. String courses may have just been decorative, but they could have enhanced the lateral bonding of the walls or been designed to throw rainwater clear of the building (Taylor, 1978). The Saxon

windows sit directly above the string course and pilaster strips descend at intervals from it. The pilaster strips are of dressed stone and would have helped ensure the walls were straight and upright. The vulnerable angles of the building were protected by dressed quoin stones laid alternately upright and flat with great care and accuracy. They were cut back from the wall to allow for plastering (Taylor, 1978).

The apse is the chancel. Apsidal east ends are a feature of churches south of the Wash, apart from Hexham. The lower walls of the semi-circular apse at Worth are Saxon, but the upper walls, windows and pilaster strips are nineteenth century restorations.

You can see the ghost of the Saxon north door in the brickwork; opposite is the Saxon south doorway, now hidden on the outside by the pretty porch, which was built in 1886. You usually enter the church by its west door, which is also 13th century. Having extensively photographed the exterior, it was time to go inside.

As I entered the church, through the west door, a choir started to sing. I looked around nervously, afraid I was intruding but there was nobody there! It took a while for it to dawn on me that it was a recording, triggered by my entry! My tour was accompanied by a variety of hymns and classical music, a nice touch.

From the door I could see almost all of the interior, apart from the furthest parts of the transepts; this would always have been the case, there were never any internal doorways as there were at Deerhurst. Dominating the view were three massive Saxon arches, one to each transept and one to the chancel, the latter being much the tallest. That chancel arch was entirely familiar to me, I had known it all my life. And yet the church seemed lighter than in Dad’s painting. The walls are white now.

Following a disastrous fire in 1986 which destroyed the roof, the roof was restored in 1988 and the church refurbished and presumably repainted.

Taking it logically, I looked at the nave first. At its west end is a gallery, dated 1610,

which once extended the full length of the north wall of the nave. The font is 13th

century, the stoups 14th century and the pulpit 16th century. The iconic double-headed windows are pure Saxon. There are two pairs in the north wall and one in the south wall (its twin having been later replaced by a 15th century window). They have great through-stones to support their round heads and each has a baluster (a vertical pillar, which in this case bulges slightly in the middle) between the heads. You can see the outline of the Saxon north door in the north wall. The Saxon south

doorway is opposite and dwarfs the later door that is set into it. The nave measures 60 ft x 27 ft (18.29 m x 8.33 m), which gives a ratio of 2:4 breadth to length. The chancel is narrower, being 33 ft x 21.5 ft (10.06 m x 6.55 m).

Now for the chancel arch: it is one of the largest Anglo-Saxon arches in existence, after Stow, Great Paxton, Dover and Wing (Taylor, 1978). It is 22 ft (6.71 m) high and 14 ft (4.27 m) wide. Its jambs (vertical bits) are cylindrical, whilst the arch itself is

square in cross section. High up on its south side are the friction marks of a rope, and on its south jamb there are more signs of wear; these point to the likely existence of a sanctus bell in earlier times. A sanctus bell was rung at the most

important stages in the Mass, such as the consecration of the bread and wine.

The south transept, now the Lady chapel, contains an altar recess consisting of an infilled early (Saxon?) semi-circular arch. The north transept is now the chapel of the

Blessed Sacrament. It contains a small window illustrating the arms of the de Warenne family; this is the oldest glass 12th century in the church.

I was loath to leave the church, having a 270 mile journey back to Yorkshire ahead of me, but I took the joy of having been there with me. Open every day, Worth is worth a visit!

References

Edmondson, D. Anglo-Saxon England in 100 Places. Amberley. Stroud. 2014.

Harrison, F. Notes on Sussex Churches. Hove. 1908.

Taylor, H.M. Anglo-Saxon Architecture, Vol lll. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. 1978.

St Nicholas Church, Worth. Church Guide. 2007.

‘Parishes: Worth’, in A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 7, the Rape of Lewes, ed. L F Salzman (London, 1940), pp. 192-200. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/sussex/vol7/pp192-200  

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By Jenny Ashby, gesith

This article first appeared in Wiðowinde #177 (Spring 2016)

I HAVE BEEN TRAVELLING between Yorkshire and Surrey on a regular basis this year and have taken the opportunity to visit several famous Anglo-Saxon sites, mainly churches, en route. Many gesiðas will know these places better than me, but for those who haven’t yet visited them (and even for those who have), I would like to share my joy and wonder at discovering them. Here goes with my first offering.

I had vaguely heard of St Andrew’s Church at Greensted, but then I happened to see a photo of it in a book I was reading. A quick look at my map showed that it was just off the M11 and a viable diversion for me and my trusty car (who is called Oswald!!).

My first impression of St Andrews was that it is a very pretty church. It has a white weather-boarded tower with a steeple that looks like a witch’s hat (a very familiar tower shape to a Surrey girl like me). Its tiled roof is punctuated, unusually, by gabled windows, such as you would see in a house. It has a beautifully carved wooden porch. But what makes Greensted Church unique is the nave walls, which are constructed of split logs; they date back to 1060, making this the oldest wooden church in the World and the oldest standing wooden building in Europe!

It is also a shrine to St Edmund, whose martyred body reputedly rested here on its way from London to Bury St Edmunds in 1013.

An archaeological dig in 1960 found the impressions of two wooden buildings of seventh century date under the present chancel floor. They had log walls set in trenches. If the dating is correct, the church would have been built soon after the mission of St Cedd in about 654 AD. He was a priest, later Bishop, of the East Saxons, who was trained in the Celtic form of Christianity and sent out to convert the East Saxons by King Oswiu of Northumbria. The church’s dedication to St Andrew apparently suggests a Celtic foundation.

The nave walls are the only Anglo-Saxon features to survive to this day. Their construction was more complex than the previous structure; the 51 oak logs were split in half lengthwise and had tenons at their base which fitted into a wooden sill and bevelled tops which slotted into a beam at the top of the wall, secured with wooden pegs. The sides of the logs were grooved so that tongues of wood could be inserted between them to seal gaps. Inside the logs were smoothed with an adze, the marks of which you can still see. You can also make out scorch marks on these inside walls from the oil lamps used to light the church. The church is still quite dark inside, but this makes it feel safe and cosy!

Today you enter the church from the south, but in Anglo-Saxon times the doorway was on the north side. From the inside of the church you notice, next to the site of the original door, a tiny triangular window low in the wall. A cheerful workman told me it was a spy hole for the congregation to give them warning that the priest was coming so they could look suitably composed when he came in! When you see the feature from the outside, however, it is more obviously a holy water stoup or a small window to light the doorway. I do rather like my informant’s explanation though!

The church also has Norman work, which includes the flint footings of the chancel wall and the piscina; Tudor work, which includes the brickwork in the chancel, the tiled roofs, the original dormer windows, the porch and the chancel arch; and Victorian work. The church was very extensively restored by its Victorian rector, Philip Ray, who found it in a neglected state.

Contemporaries said he was over zealous in his restoration, but actually I think he did a good job and preserved the church for us today. Relevant to our period of interest, he reset the log walls in new brick sills as the original sills had rotted and removed the medieval plaster that had been covering them – and emphasised the church’s connection with St Edmund by having some of the roof trusses carved with devices of the saint and commissioning a stained glass window depicting him.

The church today is clearly very proud of its Anglo-Saxon past and its connection with St Edmund; there are many information boards around the church. It also draws many people to it; I was there for 2 hours (I like to take my time in these places!) and there was a steady flow of visitors on a Monday in November! I heard several, as they read the boards, express interest in St Edmund and the fact that he was England’s first patron saint, which was music to my ears!

The church is open every day, 10am – 4pm in winter, 10am 6pm in summer.