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MINOR ARCHAEOLOGICAL MONITORING REPORT
Church of St Andrew, Kettleburgh, Suffolk: South porch floor alterations/repairs PLANNING APPLICATION REF: N/A HER PARISH CODE. KBU 009
OASIS REF: davidgil1-323689 GRID REF: TM 2650 6062 SIZE: Small scale - c.20 sqms PROJECT DATES: (2 days) April 2018 LISTED BUILDING NO: 1283194 (Grade I)
Summary An archaeological monitoring was undertaken during a re-ordering of the west end of St Andrew’s church, Kettleburgh. The scheme included moving a medieval coffin lid and ledger slabs, which were being used as thresholds to the porch and south doors, and re-setting them into the porch floor; the slabs had been moved sometime in the past and no longer marked the positions of graves. The porch floor was laid in brick, the central section had been renewed in the late 19th or early 20th century but at the edges, away from the heaviest foot traffic, part of an earlier brick floor (dating to c.C15-16th) survived.
1. Introduction
This report provides a record of the small-scale archaeological monitoring undertaken during a re-ordering of the west end of St Andrew’s church, Kettleburgh. The motive for the change was to improve the access through the south porch and door (the main entrance) by creating a continuous level from the exterior of the building into the nave. Prior to the start of the project, this journey required stepping up over a raised (155mm) concrete kerb at the entrance to the porch before a step down (170mm) into the church itself.
As part of the scheme, two medieval ledger slabs which had been laid as paving in the entrances to the porch and nave (0003 and 0004, Fig 3), were to be conserved and relocated into the porch; set into brick floor out of the line of heaviest foot-fall. A Faculty was granted for the alterations with the proviso that an archaeological record of the existing porch floor and monitoring of the groundworks should be done.
The continuous level was achieved by inserting a suspended timber floor into the west end on the nave overlying the existing one; so that the impact on any buried archaeological deposit was negligible. The archaeological work therefore concentrated on the recording of the pre-existing porch floor and the monitoring of ledger slab lifting.
The archaeological monitoring was commissioned by architect Philip Orchard (Whitworth Co-Partnership) on behalf of the Kettleburgh PCC and undertaken by David Gill during April 2018.
2. Brief description and history of the church
The existence of Decorated-style windows in the in the chancel and nave would suggest that the construction of the present church began during the first half of the 14th century but a carved-stone coffin lid set in the floor of sanctuary dates from the 13th century and demonstrates that the church has earlier origins. The tower and porch can be dated to the 14th century whilst the principal windows on the south side of the nave, the east window and the large west window in the tower are Perpendicular (the latter-half of the 14th century).
A church is listed in the entry for Kettleburgh in the Doomsday Book (AD1086) and there is a small blocked opening at the junction of the chancel/nave on the north side of the church, which was described as small round headed, window by A. Welford when he visited the church in 1952 (PSIAH VolXXVI pt 1). It is, however, set very low in the wall and could be interpreted as a squint from a now lost side-chapel; the
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putative window has since been converted into a (?)rain water-outlet and its appearance is not overtly Saxo-Norman.
A chantry chapel was added to the north side of the nave as evidenced by a large, blocked, arched-opening and a piscina set into the external face of the wall. The exterior face of the nave wall is masked by render, but roof line of the lost chapel probably dictated the extraordinary arrangement of windows, which are at eaves height and in descending sizes, on this side the church. (Pl.2). The windows are formed in brick, as are: the chapel arch, the equally unusual upper tier of ‘clerestory’ windows on the south side of the nave, the ‘Tudor’-shaped lancet in the chancel (Pl.1) and the two nave buttresses. All of these features appear to be contemporary and are made from the same brick-type -all the bricks measure 9" x 4½" x 2" and are made from a clay tempered with large pieces of burnt flint. The brick-size and style of the ‘Tudor’ lancet would indicate that these changes date to c.15th century; this is presumably when the chapel was added and suggest that the nave and chancel wall heights were raised to accommodate it. The increase in wall height is most easily seen in the added brickwork above the medieval corner buttresses and for good measure the decorated window on the south side of the chancel was been reset higher in the wall (Pl.1). A similar modification, whereby the nave height was raised to facilitate the addition of a side chantry chapel has been observed by the author at SS Peter and Paul, Sustead in Norfolk; this too dated to the 15th century suggesting that this was not an uncommon development at this time.
The chapel was probably created for the tombs of the Charles family who lived at Kettleburgh Old Hall from 1265-1507 and Alice Charles gave the font in memory of her husband Thomas in 1419. The early 19th antiquarian David Elisha Davy was friends with the then Rector George Turner and was a regular house guest and visitor to the church; in the 1820’s Davy noted that ‘some of the foundations’ of the chapel could still be seen ‘in very dry weather’ (a parch mark?) and suggests its outline on his plan drawn in 1826 (Fig.2). A. Welford, following his 1952 visit, reported seeing the chapel’s west wall foundation in a shallow excavation and from this, estimated the chapel at 18ft long; he also identified evidence of fire and surmised that the chapel burnt down.
The interior of the church has been reordered in the past and different from the one that the David Elisha Davy and George Turner knew in the 1820’s. In his notes Davy describes the church as ‘well seated after the old style’ with the pulpit, with a sounding board and reading desk, on the south side (Fig.2); at the west end of the church, raised up over the font on fluted ionic columns, was ‘a pretty gallery erected in 1710’ with ‘..a swelling Bolection-work front…’ ; the west window was ‘entirely stopped-up’ and hidden behind framed boards bearing the Lord’s Prayer, Decalogue and the Queens Arms - the east window was opened up in 1843 and repaired with new stone, but shortened.
The church was restored extensively in 1880’s and 1890’s when the roof was renewed (Mortlock 2009) and the screen created re-using some 17th panels, perhaps reworked from the reading desk mentioned by Davy. Photographs taken in the 1930’ show the font in the south west corner, rather in its present central location, and the nave and chancel roofed with lead (Pl. 13 and 14). The churchwarden accounts from 1947 records that the chancel tiles were brought from Livermere church - although whether these were floor or roof tiles is not mentioned- and there are expenses for ‘special repairs and improvement to the church’ in 1948 plus payments for repairing the roof and the carriage of tiles and benches (SRO ref. FC 109/E1/2).
3. Results
Porch floor The porch was floored with bricks laid in a stretcher bond that ran N-S across its width; a plan was drawn prior to the start of work and is shown in Figure 3. Unsurprisingly, centre line of the floor sustains most
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wear and has been renewed using a buff-pale orange floor bricks (0002), but the floor edges (0001) are older and survive from a previous surface.
The earlier floor bricks are coarse-textured and are dark maroon – red in colour (Pl.3and 4). The bricks were ‘handmade’ from a poorly-mixed clay tempered with large (<2cms), burnt flint inclusion and measured 8⅝-9" x 4¼" x 2". They match closely the bricks used to construct the nave buttresses, the chancel lancet and chapel arch and probably date to the c.15th century. The early part of the floor was laid ‘dry’, without mortar, directly onto a re-worked and compacted stony sand which was flecked with tiny fragments of brick, and there was no evidence of a specially prepared sub-base or bedding layer (Pl.9).
The replacement bricks at the centre of the floor measured 9"x 4¼", they had a similar fabric to the 11" ceramic tiles used to patch the nave floor alongside the font and were bedded on a deep layer of imported soft yellow sand (S1, Fig. 4). The renovation of the floor dates from the late 19th century, time enough for it to have become polished through wear and become slightly concaved once more; it had been re-patched in two places using an 11" ceramic tile (A) and relatively modern 9" pamments (B).
The brick floor surface was at, or very slightly above, the level of the medieval original. The removal of the concrete kerb in the entrance to the porch revealed the full depth of the carved stone and a stone base 80mm below the existing floor surface (Pl. 8).
Ledger slabs Re-positioned leger stones have been used as door steps in front of the porch entrance (0003) and in the threshold of the south door (0004) with a third slab (0005) was set into the nave floor just inside the entrance to the church.
The slabs are all made from a shelly limestone known as Purbeck marble but showed variations in colour and grain (Pl. 5 and 6). The slab in the entrance to the porch (0003) was neatly rectangular and measured 1940mm x 660mm x 90mm (6ft 4½" x 2ft 2"x 3½"), whilst the other two appeared to have tapering sides, more akin to a coffin lid; the slab in the south door threshold (0004) had been cut down in length to suit its new purpose and measured 1090mm x 730mm. All of the slabs were plain and showed no evidence of ever having had brass plates attached.
Neither of the slabs, which were to be moved as part of the project, marked (identifiable) graves and excavation recorded the intact foundations of the south nave wall 130mm below the base of slab 0004 (S2, Fig. 4 and Pl. 10). The ledger slab in the porch entrance (0003) was severely cracked and could only be lifted pieces (Pl. 6); it was laid over a mixed muddy topsoil soil and under the stone was a wrought iron bracket or tie (a cramp) (Pl.7). The tie was 1ft wide from point to point, flat in section and was probably designed to imbedded horizontally between the joints of masonry; the tips set into the wall and the more elegantly shaped tongue projecting from the wall face to form some form of bracket or fixing – supporting, for example, a wall tablet, hatchment or Royal coats of Arms.
The slabs had already been lifted at the time of the monitoring and were being repaired (bonded back together) by a conservation mason and were unable to be turned over to examine their undersides.
Nave floor, west end Inside the church, the visible nave floor was made-up largely of 1ft square paviours, hand cut from Purbeck marble; these are highly durable and likely to be part of the original 14th fabric of the church. The large square plinth at the base of the font is a the relatively recent addition (which post-dates the 1930’s
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photograph) and the surrounding floor has been altered to suit; the paviours to the east of the font have been re-set and the joints no longer align with the rest of the floor, and to the west and north the paviours have been replaced with 11" ceramic tiles. Raised, timber-built platforms (formerly pew bases) were taken out from the northwest corner of the nave, any previous floor surface had already been lifted and the removal of the platforms revealed only bare earth (Pl.11).
4. Discussion/Conclusion
The bricks used to lay the oldest part of the porch floor, whilst not part of the original church fabric, are thought to date the early post-medieval period. The bricks are comparable with those used to complete the major alteration to the nave (raising of the eaves eight, the addition of window and buttress), which seem to relate to the addition of the north chapel, and therefore the re-flooring of the porch and the creation (or demolition) of the chapel could be related events. There is a record of payments for tiles (16 shilling for the tiles and their carriage) in the churchwarden’s account for 1662 (SRO ref FC109/E1/1) plus outgoings totalling £3, to William Spinks for tiling. Archaic reference to ‘tiles’ can encompass bricks; the account books do not specify what work was being carried out but other purchases that year include sand, lime, lathes, nails and timber.
The choice of Purbeck marble [shelley limestone] for the ‘ledger-slab’ would indicate that they are likely to be medieval or late medieval in date, the shape of slabs 0004 and 0005 suggest that these are probably coffin lids rather than memorial stones and were not intended to be seen. Whilst the entrance is one of the locations of choice for burial inside a church and graves (not always marked) are found frequently in this spot; the ‘porch slabs’ at Kettleburgh were not marking graves, they had clearly been relocated from elsewhere inside the church and have been moved, in all likelihood, more than once.
The Reformation reinforced by later Puritan reforms sought to demystify the medieval Roman Catholic liturgy by, amongst many other things, reducing the distinction between the Chancel (the clergy) and the Nave (the people). This could include: removal of stone altars (mensa slabs), the taking down of screens, communion rails, allowing seating in the chancel, the and reducing the floors of Chancel/Sanctuaries so that they were not elevated above those of the nave. On 8th February 1643, William Dowsing came to Kettleburgh his capacity as Parliamentary Visitor and gave orders to break down six superstitious pictures (stained-glass windows) and to level the steps in the chancel; the decree to lower chancel steps only applied to those that had raised within previous 20 year -i.e. after 1620 (Spraggon, 2003)- so the ones at Kettleburgh must have been a recent addition.
The lowering of the chancel would have entailed disturbing the floor and this may have released the slabs that have ended up in the porch. Alternatively, they could have been moved from the chantry chapel; chantry chapels were dissolved by decree in 1548, their altars destroyed, and their endowment confiscated. The large ledger slab from in font on the porch had already been lifted and was being re-bonded at the time of the monitoring visit which meant that the underside could not be examined, it probably is not a mensa but this could not be ruled-out conclusively.
The slabs were not mentioned by Davy in his church report, the metal bracket found below slab 0003 may have been extracted from the east wall when the boards bearing the Queens Arms, Decalogue and Lord’s prayer were taken down. These were moved to un-block the east window in 1843 and this might be a clue as to the date of the final setting of slabs.
By relocating the ledger slabs within the porch, the damaged stones have been conserved and their future secured.
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5. Bibliography
Mortlock, D.P., 2009, The Guide to Suffolk Churches, The Lutterworth Press Spraggon, J., 2003. Puritan Iconoclasm During the English Civil War, Boydell Press
David Gill 20/06/2018
Figure 1. Ground plan of the church at the start of the project, based on a drawing supplied by architects WCP
Figure 2. Plan drawn by David Elisha Davy in 1824
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Figure 3. Plan of the porch floor prior to the start of work.
Figure 4. Sections excavated through the porch floor.
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Plates Plate 1. St Andrew’s church from the south so showing the unusual upper row of windows on the nave walls. The corners of the church, above the top of the angled buttress, and the upper window openings are built of brick suggesting that the nave was raised during the 15th century - possibly when the chantry chapel was added to the north side the nave; the nave buttresses and the large lancet (second window from the r) were also part of this phase. The bricks used on the early part of the porch floor matched closely those in the nave buttresses et al. Plate 2. The north side of the nave has no conventionally placed windows; the positioning of the windows at the top of the wall must have been dictated by the chantry chapel that was once attached to the church - the chapel arch and piscina (denoting the position of the altar) can be seen on the right. The bricks blocking the top half of the arch date to the c.18th century whilst the infilling the bottom match those forming the embrasure. This suggests that arch was initially filled in with bricks salvaged from the demolition of the chapel walls, leaving a window in the arch at the top to be filled in later. The nave north door, which has been blocked with planks, is part of the original 14th century church and predates the other openings.
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Plate 3 (left). The brick floor of the porch, prior to the start of work. The yellow/orange bricks in the centre of the floor are 19th century replacements but the bricks from an older surface dating to 15th century survive at the east and west margins of the floor. Photographed looking N; the scale is 2m long
Plate 4 (right). The coarse-textured, dark red bricks measure 8⅝-9" x 4¼" x 2" and match those used in the 15th century features built into the nave.
Plate 5 (left). Ledger stones or coffin lids? in the south door of the nave. The stone on the threshold (0004) has been cut down in length to suit the width of the door and has now been relocated into the porch; whilst the stone in the nave is concealed below the new suspended floor. There was no grave below threshold stone and excavation found the solid foundation of the nave wall at 140mm below the surface. The Purbeck stone paviours below the scale date to the 14th century and are part of the church’s original floor
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Plate 7 (right). Wrought iron bracket or masonry tie found beneath ledger slab 0005
Plate 8 (left). Breaking out the raised concrete kerb from the entrance to the porch revealed a stone foundation at the base of the door jamb. The depth of the dressed stone demonstrates suggests that the floor level of the porch is very close to that of the medieval original
Plate 6 (left). Ledger slab 0005 outside the south porch before it was relocated into the porch. All of the recorded slabs were made from Purbeck marble and are probably medieval in date. The slab has been moved from its original location and seemingly did not to mark a grave.
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Plate 10 (right). Nave south wall foundations below the threshold of the south door. The top of the foundations occurs 130mm below ledger slab (0004).
Plate 9 (left). Section through the early part of the porch floor showing the bricks laid on compacted stony sand
Plate 11(left). No early floor surfaces existed below the former pew platforms and their removal exposed only the underlying bare soil. The photo shows the new suspended floor being installed over the existing. Plate 12 (right) the ledger slabs undergoing restoration before being set into the porch floor; the soft sand was the bedding for the floor laid in the 19th century and did not extend under the earlier bricks.
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Plate 13 (above) shows the church in the 1930’s with a lead roof (SRO ref K682/1/273/50) and the chimney for a coal-fired stove which stood in the south side of the chancel. Plate 14 (right) shows the font in the south west corner of the nave, it was moved here when the church was renovated in the late 19th century put has since been returned to its former central location (SRO ref K682/1/273/49) Plate 15 (below) David Elisha Davy’s drawing of the church in the 1820’s. In his first recording visit he describes the roof as being covered in lead and the porch being tiled; once inside he waxed ‘within it hath a handsome, strong oaken roof adorned with several arches’. When he returned in 1824, however, he states that the nave and chancel shared a tiled roof. The roof was renewed during the late-19th century restorations
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