Prior Henry (1285 - 1331)- Rescuer of Eastry Church

199 PRIOR HENRY (1285-1331): RESCUER OF EASTRY CHURCH charles coulson † It is generally assumed that whereas Medieval bishops, abbots and other prelates commissioned and appointed master masons to carry out major building works on their churches and manor houses, high ecclesiastics were not generally designers or architects. Canterbury Cathedral itself demonstrates the practice, especially in the great rebuilding of the late twelfth century. Maintenance and minor repairs, however, carried out by the resident mason of a greater establishment, were apparently more strictly delegated. From 1285 until his death in 1331, Prior Henry of Eastry ruled his community rigorously and tightly controlled its agronomy, economy and political affairs. He took an especial interest, it would appear, in the church of his native village. From the early twelfth century at least, the building was designed and adapted for monastic use. As Prior Henry found it on his accession, it needed drastic remedial work, particularly on the modifications previously carried out on the ground floor of the Tower with less technical skill than subsidence showed was required. The aim of this paper is to focus sharply and in detail upon specific insertions stylistically dateable to Prior Henry’s priorate and to show that a mind of considerable engineering acumen was responsible. Given their originality and Henry’s close organisation of such major and prolonged operations on Romney Marsh, notably by Dymchurch, his own instrumentality can scarcely be doubted. Modern and post-Dissolution problems, crucially those caused by Change Ringing, could not be anticipated by him, but substantial structural evidence of them survives. Of all the ecclesiastical businessmen who had the stewardship in the Middle Ages of the Benedictine Cathedral monastery of Canterbury, the best economist, technician and agricultural planner was undoubtedly Prior Henry of Eastry.1 He had an exceptionally long priorate of forty-six years, starting with his election by the monks, presumably when in his thirties, in the year 1285, nearly mid-way in the reign of King Edward I. In 1331, at his death, perhaps in his eighties, he was still conducting services in the Cathedral. He was given a very distinguished tomb (Figs 1 and 2). His priorate spanned a period of economic progress fully enjoyed by the monastery’s east Kent manors. In Prior Henry’s hands improvements in husbandry and the draining and embanking of a large seaward area of Romney Marsh are the CHARLES COULSON † 200 Fig. 1 Canterbury Cathedral tomb effigy of Henry of Eastry exceptionally placed in the South Choir Aisle adjoining the pilgrim route to Becket’s Shrine (photo by Dr Margaret Carnegie). Fig. 2 Tomb of Prior Henry of Eastry (photo by Dr Margaret Carnegie). achievements for which he is chiefly remembered locally. The Prior of Canterbury, subordinate to his abbot, the archbishop, and ruler of his community of monks and lay dependants, was traditionally in charge of all building and architectural works within the Precinct and beyond. From his allocated revenues he funded and with his technical experience he directed them. Through the appointed monk wardens he micro-managed the abbey’s great estates in east Kent and further afield.2 The years of his priorate (1285-1331) saw quite crucial building done at the Manor Church of Eastry. Exteriorly it is not a building of quality, despite its size. Medieval render and limewash have gone leaving facades of uncoursed flint, with minimal decoration and sparing use of cut stone. Outside there is little to show that this church was the product, little altered, of one of the richest abbeys in east Kent during the Middle Ages. The focus of his attention was inside. The great majority of churches before the reign of Henry VIII were monastic – built by monks and for monks. At St Mary’s, Eastry, this is very apparent. What the great prior ordered for the building was bound to follow this imperative. Not grandiose like earlier building phases, but perceptive and precise remedies to structural failings – notably those stemming from the over-ambitious adaptation in c.1175-85 – entitle him to be described as the ‘Rescuer’ of Eastry church.3 He saved his monastic community from crushing debt and Eastry Church from collapse. Chronology of St Mary, Eastry A brief note of the apparent phasing of the fabric of St Mary’s before Prior Henry’s time is presented in Table 1. 1 2 PRIOR HENRY (1285-1331): RESCUER OF EASTRY CHURCH 201 The obvious oddity for a wealthy and well-connected patron such as Canterbury Cathedral Priory is that work on the original church was cheaply done, notably the pillars of the Nave with shafts of Romanesque construction. The bases and capitals point to the last quarter of the twelfth century, probably soon after 1175, that is coeval with the great rebuilding of the eastern arm of the Cathedral. The Arcade is early thirteenth-century. These pillars were part of the remodelling of the Tower ground floor, and the fons et origo of Prior Henry’s problems. The dating of the new Arcade at c.1225 is conjectural. The arches are broadly pointed, but only the detail of the (one visible) cul de lampe respond at the eastern end is typical. Heavy expenditure in the 1250s building phase had replaced a presumed Romanesque (‘Norman’) apse with the grand fifty-foot Chancel for the vanished choir-stalls of the expanded community. The upper walls of the Nave were superseded by a lofty new Clerestory with large windows, all in ‘Early English’ pointed style (Fig. 3), but using the original pillars, rebuilt and relocated so as to provide narrow arches to the side processional aisles at the east end. The fine roll-moulded bases (Fig. 4), lathe-turned capitals, bases and shafts made up of blocks on a core of infilling, remarkably all still survive almost intact. To complement the grandeur of the new architecture the west face of the Tower was updated in the ‘Gothic’ style (Fig. 5). The hollowing out of the north-east angle for the vice (‘spiral’) stairway was reduced by blocking it up to the first floor, and with aisle access on the north side. Also, delicate halfarches between the raised aisle walls and the corners of the early twelfth-century Tower were inserted at the north and south angles (latter now inaccessible) and a mural passage in the east wall off the tower stairway was blocked (Figs 6a and 6b). Evidently movement had already occurred. Prior Henry’s Rescue As part of his comprehensive review of the infrastructure of the monastic economy, Eastry church will have been assessed by Prior Henry soon after 1285. His engineering insight will have fixed on the serious structural weaknesses in particular those resulting from the twelfth-century alterations to the tower (Fig. 7). Creating the annexes on both flanks of the Tower opened up by replacing the solid wall with TABLE 1. CHRONOLOGY ST MARY, EASTRY C11th Saxon Church (although not mentioned in Domesday Book). Probably timber-built. C12th c.1120s c.1175-c.1185 First re-build of church in stone with aisle-less Nave, Apse (?). Original Nave Arcade built; remodelling of the Tower ground floor C13th c.1225-c.1230 1250s 1285 … New arcade with Clerestory above; Tower ‘vice’ stair rebuilt. Apse replaced with Chancel and updating of Tower west face. Priorate of Henry of Eastry begins….. C14th … 1331 Death of Prior Henry CHARLES COULSON † 202 Fig. 3 Interior as seen from Tower arch: to left (north) replaced capital (c.1290); on right, octagonal pillar and capital (1320s) beyond, late twelfth-century pillars and capitals with earlier thirteenth-century Clerestory over (windows above spandrels); Chancel arch with early fresco. Fig. 4 Example of undamaged deep hollowed ‘water holding’ base of Nave pillar (Victorian ‘encaustic’ tiling to right), hard to see owing to the pews. 3 4 PRIOR HENRY (1285-1331): RESCUER OF EASTRY CHURCH 203 Fig. 5 St Mary’s Eastry, from the west: Tower, Annexes and West Door: flight of steps inside down to the site level, keeping the early Romanesque doorway proudly elevated facing the gentle rise of the avenue to the west. Upper storeys ‘Early English’ alterations. Fig. 6a Modern access stair to first floor of Tower, looking at partition blocking processional way along Aisle. See Prior Henry’s archbuttress and predecessor. Fig. 6b Tower ‘vice’ stair (originally with ground floor access, rebuilt c.1225). Access now on first floor. Inside, opening of east wall mural passage, blocked for structural solidity. 5 6a 6b CHARLES COULSON † 204 arches (Figs 8 and 9), good as they are, created robing rooms for the clergy and gave entry to processional ways along the aisles to the Chancel, but crucially relied upon sound piers and good bond to take the weight (Fig. 10). By Prior Henry’s time, about one hundred years later, that load had been increased. How much has been changed can be seen in the early twelfth-century date of the great West Door and of the two outside slit windows, on the north and south flanks of the original Tower. The crucial works attributed in this article to Henry (interior and exterior buttresses, remaking of the two Nave pillars and the brackets, one either side of the Chancel arch) rescued the west end of the church and improved the monks’ access. Strength, corrective engineering and convenience are the keynotes of Prior Henry’s work. His sobriety contrasts with the extravagance of his predecessors’ opening out of the East Tower Arch to the Nave (Fig. 9). It imitated the impact of the numinous central crossing tower at nearby St Augustine’s Church, Northbourne (c.1170) occurring in Anglo-Saxon ‘minster’ churches.4 The result at Eastry was to throw the extra weight on faced-up but weak lateral piers, covering up previous masonry. The abutment of the infilled stairway helped, but support on the south was weak, now showing severe damage (Fig. 11). The fundamental problem, going back to the later twelfth century, was undue reliance on the bond of the stripped-back rubble cores which were so blandly and attractively refaced in the entry Atrium. Aesthetics tended to ignore structural realities.5 Core compression was the osteoporosis (bone crumbling) of ‘Norman’ architecture which emulated the grandeur of the Romanesque of Carolingian Europe. Hefty Fig. 7 Sketch plan of the remodelling of the Tower ground floor c.1175-85. PRIOR HENRY (1285-1331): RESCUER OF EASTRY CHURCH 205 Fig. 8 Re-setting of the facework of this shaft and spalling of the capital are obvious on inspection. Viollet-Le-Duc’s dictum that ‘we must ornament construction not construct ornament’ has wide application. Fig. 9 Looking west across the Atrium to the West Door (c.1120), with north and south Robing Rooms screened off, through the east Tower arch widened, with composite shafts, round lathed capitals and bases. This great space converts the ground floor of the Romanesque Tower. Fig. 10 Bases of the north-east pillars, of the Atrium on left; north respond of the Tower arch next to it. Both have been neatly coffered at the junction with the floor in (Victorian) concrete, evidently to conceal damage by rocking stresses from bell-ringing. Stair- well behind (blocked). 8 9 10 CHARLES COULSON † 206 Fig. 11 South Tower arch respond to right (base cladding partly cut away) and western Nave Arcade pillar, both recently grouted but showing deep vertical fissures botched up with repairs to the thin shell of ashlar casing, the failing compressed core forced outwards by the weight. The base here (‘water-holding’ type) has ‘spalled’, the only one still visible; all others will have been moved and rebuilt. Vertical cracks in facing ashlar found when grouting to be as little as 4in. thick (info. R. Barwick, deputy churchwarden, Fabric). Fig. 12 Exterior south-east angle of the Tower; showing original small slit window with lintel hollowed head (c.1120); south Annexe, much rebuilt on footings, with dressing stones to the south-east corner (c.1175-85); inserted heavy ‘dog leg’ buttress, upper part a deep pilaster up to the original string course; lower with slope to projecting base-buttress, carried internally by the integral flying arch (Prior Henry, c.1300). On right, junction of Clerestory (c.1225) and Aisle wall. Buttress width just under 48in. Fig. 13 North-east corner of the Tower; to complement the exterior buttress (Prior Henry c.1300) has a strong load-bearing octagonalsection half-arch, capital, shaft and base inserted under the c.1225 rounded elements, integrated but distinct. A shaft with concave moulding linked the two (see Fig. 15). 11 12 13 PRIOR HENRY (1285-1331): RESCUER OF EASTRY CHURCH 207 piers, inordinately thick walls, and an impressive solemnity of mass were more than a matter of style.6 Nineteenth-century engineer-architects, now working ‘scientifically’ on the restoration of surviving great churches often met with hidden cavities in the masonry.7 Symptoms of the persisting problem are still widespread later under the Tower and Nave at Eastry church, chiefly visible in vertical (not horizontal) cracks: in the Atrium,8 in the stairwell, in the ringing chamber and elsewhere. Slow-setting lime-mortared stone masses, coupled with adaptable (even ‘flexible’) arch-construction which allowed limited deformation, has often concealed original errors by the supposedly infallible Norman mason.9 The usual Medieval solution was to put in buttresses wherever distortions threatened – so this was the measure resorted to by Prior Henry of Eastry (Fig. 12).10 Soon after Henry took over the priorate, extra octagonal shafts with rectilinear (Decorated style) bases and capitals were modestly and tactfully inserted inside, against and under the curvilinear elements of wall-shaft and half-arch at the northeast and south-east corners of the tower (Figs 13, 14 and 15). On the south side they are concealed by post-Reformation brickwork curtained off (Figs 16, 17 and 18). The subtlety of the heavy octagonal pillar capital and multi-angular half-arch can still be appreciated (Fig. 19). It is a strong piece of engineering blended into the earlier pier on the north side. Such respect for previous styles is rare.11 At Eastry, the arch was cut off obliquely so as not to obstruct the stair doorway now reached by a Victorian gangway. The workmanship is in ashlar of the highest quality, made exactly to fit, probably trimmed on site, consisting of voussoirs (arch-ring stones) clearly made in the Canterbury masonry workshop or logia at the Cathedral.12 Absence of disturbance (‘movement’) at this crucial place, checking the lean of the Tower, is very notable considering the amount of load-bearing masonry taken out to create the Annexes and the spacious Atrium. It is striking that all that work and the original Nave Arcade (now vanished) were coeval with the great rebuilding of the Eastern Arm of the Cathedral. Donations at Becket’s shrine in the Crypt after his canonization in 1173 provided extra funds. Prior Henry’s works a century later were scientific engineering, self-effacing not ostentatious. Some counter-thrust is provided by the very substantial Nave Arcade (replacing one of c.1175-85) but the deterioration of both second pillars to the east of the tower, one early in Prior Henry’s time, the other octagonal and much later to the south, shows that some movement had occurred (Figs 20 and 21). The crucial problem was (and to lesser extent still is) the stability of the altered Tower (Fig. 7). A twenty-foot square box, three of the walls (south, west and north) originally pierced on the ground floor only by the west door (c.1120), with probably a correspondingly narrow archway to the Nave on the east side, had possessed a free-standing solidity. Replacing the north and south walls on each side with a grand arch and widening the Nave access to match was a bold stroke. The Annexes and the processional ways in the aisles for the clergy, monks and manorial officials, were very economical if highly inventive. Given that it was the monastic community at this time who insisted that as much as possible of Saint Anselm’s choir (1093-1109) should be retained in the Cathedral rebuilding, suggests that their views prevailed at Eastry.13 Ceremonial processions were a dominant factor in layouts, now spoiled by Victorian pews which encroach on the aisles and conceal the bases and lower pillars (Fig. 4). More serious is the blocking on both sides of CHARLES COULSON † 208 Fig. 14 Capitals etc. from the west side (iron Victorian stairway railing). Octagonal insert, included the astragals; matching hollows and rolls. Fig. 15 Round and octagonal bases amalgamated skilfully with hollow-moulded bridging shaft; features of c.1225 (right) complemented by the vigorous and strong c.1300 additions (visible only on this north side). 14 15 PRIOR HENRY (1285-1331): RESCUER OF EASTRY CHURCH 209 Fig. 16 Detail of damaged south-east pillars; curtain concealing blocking of Processional Way. Vicar’s Board corner at top left. Fig. 17 and 18 Views of the voids inside the south-east Aisle blocking (see also Fig. 35). The timespan of the brickwork here displays the anxiety aroused after c.1600 by the shattered condition of the south-east pillars (Figs 16 and 23). Prior Henry’s angled Tower buttresses, with ashlar beds at 90o to the thrust, have endured, with no apparent movement (Fig. 12, exterior, south). 16 17 18 CHARLES COULSON † 210 Fig. 19 Half-arch of fine voussoirs compose the internal two-date flying buttress. Absence of ‘movement’ here, and in the buttress outside, shows they were effective. South side is not easily visible. Massive intervention under the weak c.1225 rounded arch (badly placed electric cables). Aisle roof above. Fig. 20 Renewed proto-rectilinear capital of c.1290. Shadows in the concave (cavetto) hollows were designed to show in natural light. The odd termination of the c.1225 arch ‘frame’ above avoided pressing on the edge. Capital, in sections, is fine-grained hard grey stone slid tightly into the gap kept open by the ‘box’ (Fig. 31) held forcibly up by heavy shores braced on the floor. Fig. 21 Octagonal pillar from the south Aisle. Capital apparently in two sections with very fine jointing and exact cutting of the meetingfaces. Vertical joint visible to the right. Shaft below slightly larger than the vertical ‘bell’. Each ashlar block (4) comprised 1 face and 2 half-faces of the octagon. Grooving to astragal-band set well below. Circumference 96.5in., average diameter 30.7in. 19 20 21 PRIOR HENRY (1285-1331): RESCUER OF EASTRY CHURCH 211 passages from the Annexes (walled off on the south side). In addition, the position of the very fine organ completely fills the narrow archway on the North. To see what had been intended it is useful to study the contemporary Forebuilding or Annexe of Archbishop de Corbeil’s ‘great tower’ (keep) at Rochester (pre-1136). Also significant is the Aula Nova staircase in the precinct of the Cathedral of the same period, both essentially ‘religious’. The adaptation of St Mary’s after 1175 was intended solely for the monks and priests, comprising the Atrium, the north and south Annexes and side aisles passages; all unusual in what now is only a parish church. Not many monks’ ceremonial religious buildings have survived like this, four and a half centuries after the Dissolution. Just like the great creativity shown in the rebuilding of the Cathedral Choir and all the eastern half in the decade 1175-85, the monks at Eastry put architectural effect first. The entry Atrium or foyer, is overwhelmingly impressive, but it presupposed that technical skills which were becoming habitual by this date had been applied to the original building. The masonry is superb (e.g. Fig. 22) but not the mortar with its insufficient lime. This was cheaply produced, burning abundant local chalk or limestone in lime pits (like the charcoal ‘petts’) to produce quicklime. Its use when ‘slaked’, converting the caustic powder giving off heat, was the invariable practice right down to the adoption of concrete in the late Victorian period. Lime mortar cost little and is now obligatory in all restoration and repair.14 Had the old-construction Nave pillars not been reassembled (with some new stone and mortar) in the early thirteenth century, with the Clerestory (c.1225) rather than replaced by new slenderer shafts composed of cylindrical ‘drums’, they would have split, as the recently grouted south-east piers have under the load (Fig. 23). Drum-shafts of quite small dimensions made up of disks of stone of full diameter regularly sustained very heavy burdens if correctly bedded. This construction was soon universal.15 Defective foundations were, like core-compression, a common hazard, but fortunately not at Eastry – although the cessation of coal-mining in extensive galleries from Betteshanger mine has been a relief.16 Subsequent structural problems at St Mary’s; Change ringing The east wall of the tower was exceptionally endangered, despite the solid rebuilding of the north-east angle comprising about 15ft of the stair spiral (‘vice’), and having it strongly buttressed outside and thickened (Fig. 24). The hollowing of the wall by a passageway from the stair, probably for access to a gallery for musicians, was reversed by blocking with masonry. The contrast with the respond on the south side is apparent (Figs 8 and 22). This North one has been rebuilt top to bottom, cutting out stonework and putting in modern red tiles (‘creasing’) packed in a batch in the stairwell near first floor level. This attempted to tackle the problem continuing here long after one capital had to be replaced. (The patch of tiles has cracked.) But the south side was much worse. The aisle passage was blocked by post-Reformation and later brickwork, culminating in a fine (almost invisible) 45o ramping arch, seen plastered over in the Annexe wall. The crucial question posed is how effective Prior Henry’s insertions at the western end were in the long term. The period after the Dissolution and the universal secularisation which followed saw massive changes. CHARLES COULSON † 212 Fig. 22 North-east corner of the Atrium, Annexe partition to left. Banner staff fixed to wall. Good jointed masonry, ‘moulded’ capitals and bases (see Fig. 10). Unlike the Nave pillars these have not been reassembled. Fig. 23 Southern Tower Arch respond (right). Much capital damage (part repaired, see Figs 11 and 16). Split Nave column (left). Top of shaft is canted. Soffit of arch shows dislocation (Fig. 9). Fig. 24 Exterior, north side (cf. Fig. 12) showing Annexe, buttress etc. North-east angle of Tower thickened to house stair. 22 23 24 PRIOR HENRY (1285-1331): RESCUER OF EASTRY CHURCH 213 What gravely affected Prior Henry’s remedies was the rapid growth after Tudor times of full-circle ringing.17 No longer suspended, bells received a ‘headstock’ with ‘trunnions’ (bearings). Heavy bells created powerful centrifugal forces causing church bell towers to rock sideways. Eastry has clear signs of this under the Tower. Stresses focused on the bases of columns which had to accommodate lateral movement of the super-incumbent wall mass while fixed by gravity and structure to the floor. All the pier bases in the Atrium, massive as they are, have been cleverly ‘made good’ with thick cement cladding (Figs 10 and 11). One place on the east side of the south pillar base of the Tower arch respond shows that the concrete used was composed of broken tile fragments (Fig. 23). The shaft here had split and been patched showing much worse damage than its fellow, the respond on the north of the arch, backed as it is by the firm abutment of the solid 15ft of the stairwell. It and the south-east pillar have recently been grouted (Architect: James Ford of Clagues), but the latter alone still shows in its surviving ‘water holding’ base the breaking away and ‘spalling’ due to eccentric and shifting pressure (Fig. 11).18 None of the other Nave column bases, also dateable to c.1175-85 but rebuilt c.1225, has any trace of this damage to the beautifully turned (lathed) profile (Fig. 4). Actually, more radical measures were implemented by the present architect. It was the state of this pillar, clearly, that motivated the clumsy bricking up of the adjacent passage-way, to judge from what was done. The brick type used first (probably 17th-century) was followed by the much more purposeful and effective ramping arch (Fig. 25) the courses set at about 45o (probably later 19th century). It is evident that acute deterioration on the south-east corner of the Tower had persisted behind the meretricious modern cupboard panelling and curtain beneath the Vicars’ Board (Fig. 26). Rocking pressure and oblique stress are to blame.19 Since the late Tudor period there has been a great expansion of bell-ringing, intensified from the early seventeenth century by technical sophistication, and a great change of mode of use. Ringing was claimed to be very much part of the fabric of (post-medieval) English society.20 Wider issues apart, the contrary evidence at Eastry is compelling. Five bells, lately expanded to eight, weighing over three tons in total, equip this ‘the finest ring in Kent’. But full-circle ringing is only at most four centuries old. Bells had once been sounded by a rope pulling on the clapper, or later by a swivel-mounted and revolving spindle, a late medieval method, which may be termed ‘tilt ringing’. Later, again, the bell on a headstock with bearings on a complete wheel fixed to this axle was used, leaving the clapper to move freely.21 ‘Only in this way’, says the scholarly novelist, Dorothy Sayers, ‘could the bell give its fullest and most noble note’. Exploited by the various ‘methods’ of change ringing with controlled sequences of at least five bells, operated from below, often a room in the tower termed ‘the ringing chamber’, a new and enthusiastic ‘science’ was born, practised almost solely in England. The oscillation of heavy weights, theoretically neutralised by the bell-frames being set at an angle to each other, generated unprecedented stresses to many medieval towers, which were firmly believed to have been constructed for that very purpose. To ring a full ‘peal’ took over three hours, often much longer, producing a strong lateral momentum, entirely different from the occasional chiming of the Sanctus and Sacring bell (surviving at Eastry thanks to Dr Michael Baron) during Services, or of the ‘passing bell’ (9 strokes for a man, 6 for a woman, 3 for a child), or from the daily Curfew at dusk CHARLES COULSON † 214 Fig. 25 Barely visible modern ramping arch to the south-east corner of the Tower enclosed in massive earlier brickwork (see Figs 17 and 18), but leaving Prior Henry’s flying arch overhead (not inspected). Fig. 26 Detail of the Arcade pillar (see Figs 11 and 16) next to the curtain hiding the bricked up south Aisle passage. Condition caused alarm to the Tower inspector. Its partner on the north side is in pristine condition; just out of plumb north-south. Diameter of shaft approx. 22.5in. Fig. 27 Octagonal pillar base with moulded roll, etc., from the Victorian planked floor, subdued roll ‘moulding’, hollow to edge, high vertical and inset shaft. Seen between the pews. Shine where rubbed by people sitting on the floor (?) and somewhat abraded. 25 26 27 PRIOR HENRY (1285-1331): RESCUER OF EASTRY CHURCH 215 recalled in the poem Gray’s Elergy. Fortunately, most late-medieval towers were by then well built.22 How much is to be attributed to poor ‘Norman’ construction and how much to post-Reformation neglect (or enthusiasm) is central to assessing Prior Henry’s achievement. Eastry’s largest doorway (on the west) had to be widened; the tenor bell came out for overhaul recently with great difficulty. So much is obvious. But the distortion of the East Tower arch, especially on the south side, requires close inspection. The damage must have occurred while the slow-setting mortar was still plastic. Fortunately, medieval-type arch-construction allowed some settlement without disruption. Core compression evidenced by vertical cracks might take some while to show, and swaying from ringing certainly contributed. The date, or rather the period, cannot be narrowly identified, but surmise is not needed when the two quite precisely dateable repaired pillars in the Nave are examined. Most of the Nave capitals show signs of overloading due to the weight of the c.1225 Arcade and tall Clerestory above. All except the octagonal pillar were ‘moulded’ (i.e. ground on a lathe) like the bases (Fig. 27).23 This damage may not have occurred all at once, but the total failure of the two pillars’ capitals near the west end of the Nave will have been more gradual. They are opposite, on the north and south (Fig. 3), and equidistant from the east side of the Tower. A date early in Prior Henry’s priorate would explain the mildly discordant replacement capital on the north (Fig. 20), approximately imitating the curvilinear originals (e.g. Fig. 28). The components are slightly thicker, copying at the bottom the ‘astragal’ roll and above it the deep hollow of the ‘bell’ shape, effectively making the emphatic shadow desired.24 Above it, in contrast the rather obtrusive rectilinear profile with its ‘square’ fillets and convex shapes stylistically resembles the reinforcement by Prior Henry at the north-east corner of the tower (Fig. 29). It does not clash however as the handsome octagonal pillar opposite does (Fig. 30), but it is quite distinct and hints at a new style after c.1300 (‘Decorated’) superseding the rounded Early English (or ‘First Pointed’).25 How the new capital on the north was put in while holding up the Arcade which it supports was technically quite routine. Stopping a collapse required (expert 19th-century drawings affirm, see Fig. 31) a strong wooden collar in two halves bolted together to clasp the stones of the arch base (‘spring’). Strong raking timber shores or struts all around stressed up from the paved floor, did the work of the modern hydraulic jack. Sufficient upward force on the underside of the collar will have been achieved by carefully striking with a mallet inwards all around on the bottom ends of the sloping shores braced on the floor. With much other pre-modern technology, the process was recorded in Viollet-le-Duc’s, Dictionnaire Raisonné de l’Architecture Francaise.26 His diagramme shows how it was done for the shaft. Before removing the crumbling old capital at Eastry great skill and judgement determined when the upward force at the collar made it safe to cut out the stonework and put in the new capital, in segments. The procedure survives in the ‘underpinning’ of faulty foundations to insert supporting new material. The shaft may not have needed to be disturbed but some re-setting of the facing stones is likely despite dismantling and rebuilding in 1175-85. Importantly, in maintaining or enlarging the churches of the monastic manors with aisles, the Cathedral masons will quite often have had to put in pillars in this way.27 CHARLES COULSON † 216 Fig. 28 Exemplary (undamaged) pillar facing inwards, with heavy ‘label’ of Arcade arch-spring of c.1225 (round indent, perhaps to locate a banner pole), ‘moulded’ capital and shaft (c.1175-85), rebuilt after relocation. Fig. 29 Detail of capitals. Rectilinear profile softened to accord with c.1225 work. Fig. 30 Octagonal pier on the south; distinct ‘noble’ simplicity. ‘Frame’ or label termination cut back (slightly damaged) to accommodate the new capital. 28 29 30 PRIOR HENRY (1285-1331): RESCUER OF EASTRY CHURCH 217 Fig. 31 Viollet-le-Duc, t.5, p. 339 (detail) Etai (‘Stay’); diagramme shows pillar with failed shaft (not capital); timber ‘box’ shaped to fit around the masonry (here of the archspring), with bracing struts (G) to the floor; and detail of ‘box’ tightened with wedges and screw-threaded rods. Fig. 32 Octagonal pillar shaft in beautiful stone far better jointed than before. The internal faces may have been trimmed on the site to fit around the core, with mortar. Elements were often supplied ‘finished’ at the quarry (esp. fonts) and bought ‘off the shelf’’, by this period (1320s). 31 32 When he came to rebuilding the opposite pillar on the south side, perhaps similarly necessitated by overloading or by oblique pressure from movement of the tower, Prior Henry freely adopted the fully-evolved new style of his last years. This second pillar is boldly incongruous and immediately obvious.28 The memorial inserted into its west-facing arch-spring when space for eighteenthcentury bombast was scarce, makes it unmissable.29 Medieval ‘rolls’, fillets, string courses and other features were meant to give contrasting highlights and shadows. Strong horizontals were still conspicuous before the Perpendicular. How these effects were produced varied with changing fashion. This emphatic pillar is octagonal with grooves to the lower roll (astragal) as well as above, where a series of crisp sunk flowers decorates the oversail typically for the 1320s (Fig. 30). The message is a severe rationality, but the mode of construction is idiosyncratic. The shaft is not composed of relatively ‘thin’ horizontal ‘drums’ but of large 3-sided panels, apparently face-bedded (i.e. set upright), fitted so well together as to make the joints hard to see (Fig. 32). Ashlars laid vertically like this mean or imply that the strengthened core of the original shaft was still load-bearing and reusable. The capital, like the one opposite, will have failed, and been replaced in the same way. CHARLES COULSON † 218 Presumably the shaft-shell was in too poor a state also, so that the panels were applied to the remaining core but in superlative quality stone to make up the octagon taking the weight of and upon the large and heavy capital. The base is typically rectilinear and very fine (Fig. 27). Unlike the original later twelfth-century ‘moulded’ capitals, the replacement was fully able to take the load. Like Prior Henry’s other new capital, a slightly larger diameter avoided the vulnerable edges (Fig. 20). Laying blocks level – as they were in the quarry – for maximum compression-strength could, in this instance, be disregarded and the bedding plane be ignored.30 It is permissible to imagine the masons justifying to Prior Henry their unusual procedure on these rather specious grounds. Archaeology can sometimes supply hints of character. The mass of copy letters and documents in the Cathedral Archives show that Henry of Eastry was an expert and exacting patron of craftsmen. Evidence of his knowledge of St Mary’s, Eastry, and of his inspecting and specifying remedial works is abundant. Moreover, he was in the habit of keeping some confidential letters secret. When one went astray and was found lying about in this Church he, rarely for one of his moderate temperament, was extremely angry.31 His masons will have been very careful to please him. He was clearly quite self-effacing architecturally, working to preserve and to enhance the prevalent monastic purposes at Eastry Church. Outside, the Annexes are crude. It appears that architectural ostentation, so commonly displayed by clerical and lay patrons in their buildings, influenced him only in his perfunctory Choir Screen in the Cathedral. He was a dispassionate administrator, accountant and engineer in whom the perceptive monastic historian David Knowles could discern no theological but only political expertise. He was advisor to three archbishops, much travelled and thoroughly versed in the tortuous high politics of the 1320s, but in architecture very restrained. What he ordered at Eastry is very characteristic – but he could also be considerate. On either side of the Chancel arch the ‘detached’ shaft, base and capital of the c.1250 building were all removed and replaced above shoulder level with an ornate Cul De Lampe or bracket to widen the access (Figs 33 and 34). Its style resembles Henry’s addition at the north-east angle of the tower. The Chancel arch itself has been slightly heightened, cutting into the early Fresco or panel of medallions (Fig. 3). When the new Clerestory was built (c.1225), the Arcade was re-spaced to give narrow and lower arches at the eastern end. In order to keep the way from the processional aisles as clear as possible the arch (concealed by the organ on the north side) was carried by a multiple-layer bracket of rounded elements. The lowest of these (now about 12in. higher up owing to Victorian lowering of the floor) has apparently been rubbed by countless monks’ shoulders coming down the Aisle in procession two or three abreast as they turned into the Chancel to take their places in the (now vanished) choir stalls (Figs 33 and 34). Prior Henry allowed himself the exuberant base-finial of the southern bracket (plaque inserted), reduced to a coil on the organ side bracket, together with two little corbels probably once supporting elements of the vanished Rood Screen (Figs 35 and 36). Typical of his tact, both of the brackets are almost imperceptibly merged into the important early chamfered ‘Abacus’. String-mouldings indicate that the east wall of the Nave is of the first build (c.1100). Surprisingly crude, the PRIOR HENRY (1285-1331): RESCUER OF EASTRY CHURCH 219 Fig. 33 Lowest rounded element of multiple-layer bracket carrying the c.1225 arch rubbed by monks’ shoulders (right). Chancel ‘moulded’ bracket attributed to Prior Henry (left). Fig. 34 On either side of Chancel arch ornate culs-de-lampe or brackets were used to widen the access replacing c.1250 columns. Fig. 35 North side of the Chancel arch showing Prior Henry’s bracket with curled termination, early ‘Abacus’ with corbel inserted above it; Victorian organ-case beyond (left). The bracket is set very neatly into the early (c.1120) ‘Abacus’ string. 33 34 35 CHARLES COULSON † 220 Fig. 36 South side detail. Corbel shaped to take a vertical member of the Rood Screen (vanished). Fig. 37 Abutment of the Processional Arch at the east end of the South Aisle. Note the hacked out groove (right). Fig. 38 North Aisle pillar looking across the Nave to the South Aisle. Incipient load-damage to capital and top course of shaft. 36 37 38 PRIOR HENRY (1285-1331): RESCUER OF EASTRY CHURCH 221 abutment of the narrow arch had to be cut shallowly into the original wall to make it fit – not Prior Henry’s style at all (Fig. 37). To go further would be speculative. Thus far it is possible to be tolerably certain. Similarly, the numerous cracks in the lathed capitals carrying the Clerestory Arches (c.1225) in the Nave show that the original arcade of the c.1175-85 build was thinner and lighter (and probably less high). Turning finally to the North Aisle pillar, as an example, the load has not only opened up the capital join facing the Aisle but also the vertical joint (‘perpend’) below it. Perhaps this was the fault which Prior Henry put right in the next pillar (Fig. 38, cf. Fig. 20), as has been noted. acknowledgements For discussion throughout, assistance with examination of the building, photography of the figures, and in many other ways the author is indebted to Dr Michael Kinns, the Church’s Pastoral Assistant and Guide Collaborator. Dr Margaret Carnegie contributed the photographs from which Figures 1 and 2 were chosen, drawing on her acquaintance with Canterbury Cathedral. The author owes the Title ‘Rescuer’ of Eastry Church to Dr Michael Snarey, the Church Treasurer. endnotes 1 See R.A.L. Smith, Canterbury Cathedral Priory (CUP, 1943), esp. ch. 5, 7, 11; D. Knowles, The Religious Orders in England, vol. 1 (CUP, 1960), pp. 49-54 (section on Henry); pp. 322-5 prints Latin summaries of his works in the Precincts of the Monastery compiled, it seems, after his death. On recruitment, The Monastic Order in England (CUP, 1962, pp. 417-25). 2 Knowles (1960, p. 51) did not find him sympathetic spiritually; but his acumen must be admired on the very full evidence of his letters, etc. Knowles saw Henry as ‘highly intelligent’, with an ‘incisive realist bent of mind, and with the assurance that often accompanies a limited outlook’. As an old man he ordered from Flanders a little easy mule – ‘not a great tall beast’ – for his continued ambling perambulations (p. 54). All other information is from personal observation unless a source is given. 3 The Tower had almost ceased to exist at ground level. Maxstoke Castle (Warks.) gatehouse (c.1345) has unusual annexes of this kind. See Fig. 7 below. 4 Under ‘the Lathe of Eastry’, Domesday Book (P. Morgan, Chichester, 1983) gives Northbourne as held ‘by the Abbot himself’ worth £7 p.a with 79 ‘villagers’; Eric Fernie, The Architecture of Norman England (OUP, 2000, p. 226) lists for 1066- c.1200, 80 ‘cruciform minster or parish churches’; also pp. 225-30, etc. 5 But not in the Cathedral with William the Englishman and William of Sens in charge of the great works of the eastern arm from 1175. Very few early ‘Norman’ central crossing towers survive: A. Clapham, English Romanesque Architecture ii, After the Conquest (CUP, 1934, 1159-60, etc.). Architecture was much better in the fifteenth-century proliferation of parish church towers (‘Perpendicular’), often given bells. 6 E.g. Benedictine (abbey of) Gloucester; Fernie, pl. 32; on defects, p. 295; F. Bond 1903, pp. 224- 5, cites chiefly nineteenth-century ‘restorers’, to whom we owe the survival of many earlier great monastic churches after the Dissolution. 7 In his two-volume version (1913) of his 1903 Gothic Architecture in England, Francis Bond spelled out the weaknesses they often found (curiously indexing only ‘mortar’ to a section devoted largely to ‘foundations’). ‘In many cases ‘there is nothing ... by way of support in a Norman wall but the ... facings of ashlar (cut stone). Excellent mortar was employed at Romsey Abbey (Hants.) … but the cores of Norman piers are frequently rotten … so both walls and piers had to be thick’ (Bond 1913, OUP), pp. 984 (Index), 419-22 (text); Bond (1903, Batsford), pp. 24-5. In his 1903 book, Francis Bond instanced the discovery in 1843 at Hereford Cathedral that ‘the core of the piers of the central tower was composed of broken stones, loam and lime grouting … so that the fourteenth century tower … had for support nothing but the thin shells of ashlar which enclosed the core’. CHARLES COULSON † 222 8 ‘Atrium’ seems a fit term for the majestic hall down the steps from the doorway. 9 G. Cobb, English Cathedrals: the Forgotten Centuries (London, 1980) gives an exhaustively illustrated and referenced refutation, referring to ten great churches, most trenchantly regarding Peterborough, pp. 92-107. Cobb provides revealing details e.g. of G.G. Scott’s work (index), also pp. 124-39. At Hereford the ashlar of the piers, Bond says, ‘not being well bonded and deeply headed (i.e. tied) into the rubble cores, has split and bulged’ (when refacing bond was usually sacrificed). Under the downward pressure, insufficient lime in the mortar has caused the central infill to contract, subside and press outwards, often in semi-liquid state as dust, and to gush out when a facing stone was taken out to inspect the interior. Buildings were frequently heightened but foundations were very seldom investigated. Pumping in liquid grout under pressure with mortared fine ash or gravel would be the modern remedy: as was done recently at Eastry and historically with the Nave piers of Winchester Cathedral beneath William of Wykeham’s shallow Perpendicular refacing in the later fourteenth century. J. Harvey, The Perpendicular Style (London, 1978), p. 84, on ‘Gothicising the Nave’. 10 John Newman on Eastry in Kent: North East and East (Yale UP, 2014, Pevsner), e.g. pp. 171-9. 11 For example, at Westminster Abbey the western two-thirds of the Nave are sympathetic in style but not faithful copies of Henry III’s work of about a century and a half earlier. More often styles clash quite brutally (e.g. the north Nave Arcade in Rochester Cathedral). 12 Knoop, D. and Jones G.P., The Medieval Mason (Manchester UP, 1933); Salzman, L.F., Building in England (OUP, 1952; repr. 1967), e.g. Index of Subjects, ‘lime’, ‘lime-kilns’, ‘masons’, ‘masonry’, ‘stone’, etc. 13 D. Kahn, Canterbury Cathedral and its Romanesque Sculpture (Texas UP 1991), p. 79. William the Englishman after 1179 built the Crypt substructure to support the eastern termination with unique load-bearing heavy ‘moulded’ capitals (minimal oversail; wide band above the astragal) the evident pattern of Eastry’s Nave pillars (p. 143). The c.1225 ‘slype’, passages from the Aisles to the Chancel, were a refinement with plain chamfered arches (fig. 34). R.A.L. Smith, e.g. ch.7, ‘Manorial Administration’ has little of relevance and nothing on the churches. The Monk-Warden of the East Kent ‘Custody’ in 1225 spent £22 9s. 8d. on ‘improvement’ (p. 101) of the manors, but by ‘consultation with the prior and brothers’. His duty was rent-collection chiefly. 14 Lime mortar is conspicuously light in colour in ‘pointing’ of joints in the stone, as on the exterior, (e.g. East End) due to not replacing the medieval plaster. Unlike cement, lime ‘putty’ is flexible, not causing cracking (of brick or stone) owing to rigidity. 15 Compare e.g. the fat Nave columns at Durham cathedral with the elegant slender drum shafts of St Mary’s church, Nonington, of the earlier thirteenth century. 16 Information from Mr Derek Pilcher, former Church officer at Eastry. 17 John Camp, Discovering Bells and Bellringing (Shire Publications, 1987, new edn): diagrams and photographs pp. 5, 8, 12, 16, 17, etc. A good social and technical survey. 18 It was on viewing this south-east pillar that the structural engineer advised ‘if I were you, I’d use the small tell-tale here. It would be less alarming to the congregation’. 19 Camp, ‘Mishaps and Dangers’ (p. 38) instances an event ‘at Liverpool in 1810 when during Sunday morning ringing the tower, belfry and spire began to disintegrate and the ringers only just escaped before the whole steeple collapsed in a heap of dust and rubble, bringing the bells with it’. 20 Ibid., p. 149. Bond (1912, p. 887): ‘Peals don’t occur till after the Reformation, five bells being usual. Horham supposed made up to eight 1672-3’. Viollet-le-Duc’s exhaustive article Cloches has nothing on the Medieval hanging of bells (Dictionnaire Raisonné de L’Architecture). Head Stocks were later. 21 Tentative and important bell-cage for ground floor ringing with belfry above was put into the weak early twelfth-century tower at Nonington. The timber frame is free-standing, not relying on the masonry. One part-circle bell-mount survives. 22 Expertise permeates D. Sayers The Nine Tailors crime novel (1934). Towers added were exceedingly common e.g. Parish Churches, ed. J. Betjeman (London, 1980). John Harvey called The Perpendicular Style (1978) England’s ‘National style’. 23 ‘Moulding’ (Fr. moulure) is misleading; chisels, etc., shaped the Nave shafts. Both lathe-shaped capitals and ‘water-holding’ bases were soon discontinued. 24 Shadows, rather nullified by electric lighting, were the raison d’étre of ‘mouldings’ of all sorts. PRIOR HENRY (1285-1331): RESCUER OF EASTRY CHURCH 223 25 Nomenclature devised by Thomas Rickman, Styles of Architecture in England (1819; many editions); no satisfactory substitute, but ‘Gothic’ is a post-medieval epithet, meaning ‘barbaric’ or non-Classical before the Romantic Movement sanitised the term as we now have it. 26 Knowledge systematised and practised by E.E. Viollet-le-Duc (1814-79); his restorations and repair of secular (e.g. Carcassonne) and religious (e.g. Notre Dame, Paris) buildings, after some disparagement, later recognised as vital if ‘Victorian’. 27 The summary item (see Note 1) of Prior Henry’s works (Knowles, p. 324) covers agricultural ‘plant’ (e.g. sheepfold, barn, dove-cots, stable, a hall with upper storey, kitchen). Eastry and 6 named manors (total £3,739 4s. 6d.) but churches were evidently purely ecclesiastical. Costs not mentioned by R.A.L. Smith. Kahn, Canterbury Cathedral, p. 19 states that (in the twelfth century) ‘The upkeep of the (Claustral) buildings was normally the Prior’s responsibility’. Prior Henry had a new Chapter House built, large and rectangular. Aisle arcades often replaced blank walls as churches were expanded. Prior Henry himself had the Choir Screen in the Cathedral, put in c.1180 substantially renovated in 1304-5 (Kahn, p. 150, citing G.G. Scott in Archaeological Journal, 32, pp. 86-8, 1875.) His screen remains although hidden behind the choir stalls. It was a modest work, not bombastic but practical as pilgrim numbers grew. Architectural self-effacement was quite unusual but characteristically Prior Henry. 28 Usually dated 1327. Hugh II Despenser’s modifications to the Great Hall at Caerphilly Castle have decorative similarities giving a date of c.1325-6. Edward II’s master mason advised. 29 The memorials have been meticulously described by the scholars of NADFAS (see two blue files). 30 Poor stone risked splitting, as often seen in the mullions of multi-light windows. Rough stone (‘rubble’) masonry, especially if not scrupulously coursed was often laid according to shape not to the bedding. The stone used throughout was imported from limestone quarries (probably those near Boulogne), brought by barge via Fordwich. 31 Knowles, p. 52, n. 4. Henry was a strict disciplinarian quite equal to giving peremptory advice to three archbishops. Mepham, on more than one occasion, found himself the recipient of a ‘snub from old Eastry’: p. 52, n. 5.