Hs-fe Ofrri cm upper-room
n^-^tv^HajM'Jgg^^f;
MW3 No?mon - undercroft" C
D u n g e o n
we*r e-nM »f church .
K. VERTICAL SECTION «»d E LEV AT/ON.
Mote: T>« ^ ' ' k l '»a s S^»*vM Ww. sec/Ton of /fie Si"o MPpeY-~i*oom ^ ^ S
. ^ — , _ C 7 C J C . • ^ V S ^ J S Z " : * ! * * \ , < f t v ' » v v v » >
sa-eiMhir "'-* *w/>
^^^g^^g^st.
E l e v a t i o n
11, Kn T e n o r
E-/\RI_Y-NORMAN REMAINS
MAIDSTONE.
( 91 )
EARLY-NORMAN MASONRY AT MAIDSTONE.
BY THE BEV. G. M. LIVETT,
VICAE OF WAtEKTNGBUKY.
TEE accompanying photo of rough sketches (plans
and elevations) is intended to illustrate the remains
of an early-Norman building recently discovered at
Maidstone. The remains consist of portions of the
two side-walls of a building of indeterminate length
running north and south, situated in the grounds of
the Archbishop's Palace immediately west of All
Saints' Church. One of the walls forms the western
boundary of the churchyard, 2L| feet from the west
front of the church and parallel thereto. The other
wall, 23.j feet from its fellow, forms tbe east end of a
fourteenth-century building called The Dungeon. The
open space between the two walls is enclosed to the
north and south by two fourteenth-century cross-walls,
built at the same time apparently as the dungeon, and
in continuous line with the dungeon's side-walls.
Before these alterations were made in the fourteenth
century, the early-Norman building probably stood in
its original form. Its side-walls certainly ran further
north and south than their remains at present indicate
; and it seems to have been a building of large
dimensions, and, for the time when it was erected,
one of considerable importance.
A glance at the vertical section (No. II.) of the
building shews that it had an undercroft or groundfloor
apartment about 7 \ feet in height from floor to
the under-surface of tbe beams which carried the floor
of the main or upper apartment. These beams, which
9 2 EARLY-NORMAN MASONRY AT MAIDSTONE.
have been removed, were very massive, measuring
nearly 16 inches by 12 inches, as shewn by tbe boles
in the side-walls into which tbey were inserted.
Sketches Nos. I. and III. shew these boles in plan and
elevation, and No. II. shews them in vertical section.
They have been filled with masonry. It will be
noticed that the joists rested also on the offsets or wallfootings
of 12-incli projection. The upper apartment
was wider than the undercroft by the sum of tbese
projections, and measured 25-J feet. Its height cannot
be determined.
The present ground-level of the undercroft is
slightly higher probably than was the original level,
and the original level is so"me four feet lower than tbe
present level of tbe churchyard ;* but tbe latter must
now be considerably higher than it was when the
Norman building was erected. The undercroft was
lighted and ventilated by narrow vertical openings in
the walls, immediately under the footings. One such
opening, now blocked, may be seen from the churchyard,
just above the ground, and behind a tombstone.
I t is sketched in the elevation (No. IV.) of the
churchyard-wall, f In the western face of the same
wall,! near the angle formed by this wall and the
* See the vertical section, No. II. Tbese measurements are
only approximate.
t When this sketch was made it was difficult to eome close
to the wall at that point. The railings which enclosed it have
since been removed. The opening should be shewn in No. IV.
a few inches further north. Be-examination of the elevation in
No. III. has revealed the signs of this opening on the inner side
of the undercroft wall, and the elevation has been re-drawn
to shew them. Here we may notice four corbels, about 16 inches
below the offset, which must have been inserted in the Norman
wall at the time of the fourteenth-century alterations.
X See Elevation III.
EARLY-NORMAN MASONRY AT MAIDSTONE. 93
abutting fourteenth-century cross-wall, there remains
one of the quoins—the northernmost quoin of an original
opening—about 1-| feet above the floor-level of the
upper room. This opening was blocked (with tufa)
at some time before the fourteenth-century wall was
built up against it, for between the wall and the
blocking masomy there still remams some of the
plaster with which the latter was faced.
The sides of the opening were square, not splayed,
and the side that remains exposed by the removal of
some of the blocking masonry has upon it portions of
its original plaster. The opening is too low to have
been a window of the upper room ; the remains of
plaster seem to negative the idea that it may have
been a fire-place, and unless it was a mere recess in
the wall it must have been a doorway. It is difficult
to imagine what purpose can have been served by a
doorway in this peculiar position, several feet above
the ground on the outside. It might be hazardous to
suggest that it opened on to a wooden bridge, affording
communication between the early-Norman upper
room and an early-Norman church. That an early-
Norman church existed, probably on the site, or on
part of the site of the existing church, is inferred from
the mention of a church here in Doomsday (1086).
The term early-Norman may be applied to any
building erected during the second half of the eleventh
century, or in the early years of the twelfth century.
In previous Papers published in Archceologia Cantiana
the writer bas remarked that before the introduction of
Caen stone the Norman builders used calcareous tufa,
found in the neighbourhood, for all cut and squared
stone in buildings in the Medway valley and some
other parts of Kent. The quoin of the doorway (?)
9 4 EARLY-NORMAN MASONRY AT MAIDSTONE.
described in the previous paragraph is composed of
Caen stone, and it has the wide joints which are characteristic
of early-Norman masonry; the date of
the building may therefore be fixed approximately at
1100 A.D.
Parts of the churchyard-wall are evidently post-
Norman in date, and the rough walling is composed
of materials of different kinds, some apparently being
the materials of some earlier buildings which had
been pulled down. Here and there the wall contains
cut and well-squared blocks of tufa, which, since Caen
stone was the material used in the building which
this Paper describes, must have come from some other
and earlier building. It is not fanciful to recognize in
these blocks of tufa the evidence and the remains—
the only remains above ground—of the early-Norman
church mentioned in Doomsday.
The face of the early-Norman wall on the churchyard
side has undergone so much patching, pointing,
and general repairing that very little of its original
facing remains. * The facing on the other side of the
wall, however, remains unaltered, except for the wear
and tear of time. It shews all the characteristics of
the masonry of the early-Norman parts of the Castlewall
at Rochester, f
Below tbe offset or footing the face is composed
chiefly of large Kentish-rag stones, rough hewn, and
* One bit of original facing is very distinct. It is sketched in
the Plate (No. IV.). It may be interesting to note that it was this
hit of early-Norman masonry which attracted the writer's attention,
when walking through the churchyard with the Vicar of All Saints'
and Miss Joy, and led to the immediate discovery of the rest of the
early-Norman remains.
t The plates illustrating a Paper on " Mediseval Rochester " in
Vol. XXI. of Archceologia Oantiana shew these characteristics,
EARLY-NORMAN MASONRY AT MAIDSTONE. 95
laid in courses on their proper bed. Above the offset
the more characteristic herring-bone facing is seen.
The stones are laid in fairly even courses : large stones
on their bed, smaller stones being tilted up sufficiently
to make them fill the width of the course. The
material is chiefly Kentish-rag, but there is also a
quantity of tufa. The mortar-joints are all rough,
and very large.
In the remains of the western wall of the building
—the wall that now forms the eastern wall of the
dungeon—the characteristic masonry can be recognized,
though in parts it bas undergone patching and
repairing, and it has been cut through for the insertion
of a window to light the dungeon. The signs of the
offset have thus been obliterated, and above the line
of offset later masonry has been added to make tbe
wall rise flush in one plane from the ground upwards.
"Within the dungeon the outer face of tbe undercroft
wall can be seen above the level of the caps of
the vaulting-shafts of the dungeon. Below that level
the masonry is all of the date of the dungeon. A
glance at the section of the wall (No. II. in the
Plate) will make this plain to the reader, the floor of
the dungeon being nearly six feet lower than the floor
of the undercroft, and the latter being on a level with
the springing of the ribs of the vault of the dungeon.
What purpose the early-Norman building served
is at present unknown, and may always remain a
matter of conjecture. The interest of the discovery
lies in the fact that no masonry of so early a date is
known to exist elsewhere in Maidstone, and that it
forms the starting-point of the study of the history of
the interesting site now occupied by tbe Church,
College, and Archbishop's Palace.
