Anglo-Saxon turriform churches were an

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...

style of

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a place/building for Christian religious activities and praying * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian comm ...

that were built in the form of towers. They can also be called tower-nave churches.

Overview

Several Anglo-Saxon churches were built as towers. The ground floor was used as the

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

; there was a small projecting

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the Choir (architecture), choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may termi ...

on the east side and sometimes also the west, as at

St Peter's Church, Barton-upon-Humber St Peter's Church is the former parish church of Barton-upon-Humber in North Lincolnshire, England. It is one of the best known Anglo-Saxon buildings, in part due to its role in Thomas Rickman's identification of the style. It has been subj ...

(the

baptistery In Church architecture, Christian architecture the baptistery or baptistry (Old French ''baptisterie''; Latin ''baptisterium''; Greek language, Greek , 'bathing-place, baptistery', from , baptízein, 'to baptize') is the separate centrally planned ...

).Ernest Arthur Fisher, ''An Introduction to Anglo-Saxon Architecture and Sculpture'', London: Faber, 1959, , p. 57. Archaeological investigations at St. Peter's in 1898 revealed the foundations of the original small chancel; marks on the east wall of the tower also show where its walls were, and that it was narrower than the tower. Later, in this case in the fourteenth century, the chancel was replaced with a nave extending eastward from the tower. Some have suggested that the turriform churches were the earliest type of churches built in Anglo-Saxon England, particularly in small settlements where it was natural to use timber, as in non-ecclesiastical buildings.Fisher, ''Introduction'', p. 58. However, there are no churches left that still have only the tower. The sequence of development into the usual stone cruciform church would have been: #A small tower church built in timber, with a small eastern extension for the chancel and sometimes also a small "west-nave". #Replacement of the chancel and west-nave, if present, using stone. #Rebuilding of the ground floor of the tower in stone. #Addition of north and south wings to the tower, to make a "winged square". #Construction of a long nave, with the tower now at one end. Usually the extension would be to the east, producing a west tower. However, this is only a hypothesis; we have only one surviving Anglo-Saxon timber church,

Greensted Church Greensted Church, in the small village of Greensted, near Chipping Ongar in Essex, England, has been claimed to be the oldest wooden church in the world, and probably the oldest wooden building in Europe still standing, albeit only in part, sinc ...

, a small number of written descriptions, and some archaeological evidence of ground plans.

Warwick Rodwell Warwick James Rodwell (born 24 October 1946) is an archaeologist, architectural historian and academic. He was lately visiting professor in the Department of Archaeology, University of Reading, and is Consultant Archaeologist to Westminster Abbey ...

, "Anglo-Saxon Church Building: Aspects of Design and Construction", in ''The Anglo-Saxon Church: Papers on History, Architecture, and Archaeology in Honour of Dr. H.M. Taylor'', ed. L.A.S. Butler and R.K. Morris, London: Council for British Archaeology, 1986, , pp. 156-75, p. 171; reprinted in Catherine E. Karkov, ''The Archaeology of Anglo-Saxon England: Basic Readings'', New York/London: Garland, 1999, , pp. 195-232
p. 222
The extant stone structures can also be interpreted as having been built by carpenters who were transferring their skills to masonry work. Analysis of the towers has revealed that they had far more timberwork than had been thought. The tower of St Peter's, Barton-upon-Humber had three levels of timbering: a first-floor gallery (which cannot have been a solid floor, because the ground-floor nave would have been lighted only by the first-floor windows), a belfry floor, and a frame on which the roof rested - either a stepped roof or a small spire. Since the three surviving churches universally recognised as having originally had tower-naves are all in the

Danelaw The Danelaw (, ; ; ) was the part of History of Anglo-Saxon England, England between the late ninth century and the Norman Conquest under Anglo-Saxon rule in which Danes (tribe), Danish laws applied. The Danelaw originated in the conquest and oc ...

, one suggested reason for building them as towers is defence. Blair suggests that the Earls Barton tower church, with its heavy ornamentation, was built by a lord of the manor to impress and to " ombineecclesiastical, residential, and defensive functions". However, with wooden floors and access from both nave and chancel, they would have been deathtraps in a Viking raid. Another possibility is that they emulated Byzantine models; Fisher points out that the domed centrally planned churches of Eastern Christianity may also be regarded as towers.

Surviving churches that were originally towers

Generally accepted

, Lincolnshire *

All Saints' Church, Earls Barton All Saints' Church is a noted Anglo-Saxon Church of England parish church in Earls Barton, Northamptonshire. It is estimated that the building dates from the later tenth century, shortly after Danish raids on England. The tower The tower at Earl ...

, Northamptonshire; there was a chancel attached, but no western annexeFisher, ''Towers'', p. 45. * St Mary's Church,

Broughton, Lincolnshire Broughton is a town and civil parish situated on the Roman Ermine Street, in the North Lincolnshire Non-metropolitan district, district of Lincolnshire, England. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 5,726. In 2021, the pop ...

; later in the Anglo-Saxon period, a circular stair tower was attached to the nave-tower.

Norman continuations of the style

* St Bartholomew's Church,

Fingest Fingest is a village in Buckinghamshire, England. It is in the Chiltern Hills near the border with Oxfordshire. It is about six miles WSW of High Wycombe. It lies in the civil parish of Hambleden. The parish church of St Bartholomew's dates ...

, Buckinghamshire * Church of St Simon and St Jude, East Dean, East Sussex, generally thought to be Norman

Similar churches in Scotland

* Holy Trinity Church,

Dunfermline Dunfermline (; , ) is a city, parish, and former royal burgh in Fife, Scotland, from the northern shore of the Firth of Forth. Dunfermline was the de facto capital of the Kingdom of Scotland between the 11th and 15th centuries. The earliest ...

; foundations of a 2-cell church under the nave * Abbey of St Peter, Restenneth * St Regulus' Chapel,

St Andrews St Andrews (; ; , pronounced ʰʲɪʎˈrˠiː.ɪɲ is a town on the east coast of Fife in Scotland, southeast of Dundee and northeast of Edinburgh. St Andrews had a recorded population of 16,800 , making it Fife's fourth-largest settleme ...

Taylor, volume 2, pp. 711-13.

Gallery

Image:EarlsBartonChurch.JPG, Tower of

Image:St Mary's Church, Broughton, Lincolnshire.jpg, Tower of St Mary's Church, Broughton Image:Fingest Church.JPG, St. Bartholomew's Church, Fingest - early Norman tower

References

External links

* Michael G. Hardy
Anglo-Saxon churches
slideshow, with a section on turriform churches {{Architecture of England Church architecture Anglo-Saxon architecture Types of church buildings