Bell's Cathedrals: The Church of St. Martin, Canterbury: An Illustrated Account of its History and FabricRoutledge, C. F. (Charles Francis)
History
Bell's Cathedrals: The Church of St. Martin, Canterbury: An Illustrated Account of its History and Fabric
Routledge, C. F. (Charles Francis)
St. Martin's Church (Canterbury, England)
On the removal of the flooring beneath the piscina there was found a hole
measuring 2 ft. by 1 ft. 8 in. and 5 ins. deep with a bottom of rough
concrete, and 3 feet away were some =foundations of a wall= running
parallel to the south wall. These foundations, chiefly consisting of flint,
are about 18 ins. wide and 15 in. deep, though in parts rather fragmentary,
and they were at first supposed to be connected with the parclose of the
Altar of St. Nicholas, which formerly stood there. But Mr Livett opens
out another possibility. He writes to us as follows:--"The portion of
the east wall of the Nave, into which the south respond of the Chancel
Arch is bonded, is similar in character and material to the brick walling
of the western part of the _Chancel_, with which therefore, rather than
with the _Nave_, it must be identified in date and construction. The
same may be said of the corresponding bit of wall on the north side,
which, however, has been more interfered with by the bondings of later
work. In the face of the bit of wall on the south side, though rough
and plastered with hard cement, may be detected the broken bonders
of a wall that formerly ran westwards from it, and exactly in a line
with the south wall of the Chancel. The vertical line of the junction
of the southern face of the destroyed wall with the bit of wall under
examination can be traced clearly. It has all the proper signs of bonding,
precisely similar in treatment to the signs of bonding seen on the face
of the south wall of the Chancel immediately above the foundations of
the Adjunct. The foundations discovered under the flooring of the Nave
are in a position to have carried this destroyed wall. Though they
are fragmentary, their material and depth correspond exactly with the
foundations of the Chancel wall below the brick footings thereof. I
drew Mr W. H. St. John Hope's attention to the signs of bonding which
I have described, and from recent correspondence with him I infer that
he accepts the evidence as sufficient to prove the former existence of
a destroyed wall. The recovery of this wall running in the direction
described, and contemporaneous in date with the western part of the
Chancel, is an important factor in the consideration of the relative
dates of the existing Chancel and Nave."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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