St Laurence's Church,
Bradford-on-Avon
Bradford-on-Avon (sometimes Bradford on Avon or Bradford upon Avon) is a town and civil parish in west Wiltshire, England, near the border with Somerset, which had a population of 9,402 at the 2011 census. The town's canal, historic buildings, s ...
, Wiltshire, is one of very few surviving
Anglo-Saxon
The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...
churches in England that does not show later medieval alteration or rebuilding.
The church is dedicated to
St Laurence and documentary sources suggest it may have been founded by Saint
Aldhelm
Aldhelm ( ang, Ealdhelm, la, Aldhelmus Malmesberiensis) (c. 63925 May 709), Abbot of Malmesbury Abbey, Bishop of Sherborne, and a writer and scholar of Latin poetry, was born before the middle of the 7th century. He is said to have been the so ...
around 700, although the architectural style suggests a 10th- or 11th-century date. St. Laurence's stands on rising ground close to the larger
Norman
Norman or Normans may refer to:
Ethnic and cultural identity
* The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries
** People or things connected with the Norm ...
parish church of the Holy
Trinity
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the central dogma concerning the nature of God in most Christian churches, which defines one God existing in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons: God the F ...
.
The building was used as a combined school (nave) and cottage (chancel) for many years, both on more than one storey.
[Pevsner & Cherry, 1975, pp.129-131] It was rediscovered in 1856 by
William Jones, rector of Holy Trinity, and restored between 1870 and 1880.
In 1952 the church was designated as
Grade I listed
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
.
![St Laurence Bradford 02](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/St_Laurence_Bradford_02.JPG)
The date of the building has been much debated.
H. M. Taylor stated some 50 years ago that he believed the main fabric of the walls to their full height belongs to Aldhelm's time, after discussions with Dr Edward Gilbert. Most recent sources give a later date for all or most of the structure. It has been suggested it was built after 1001, when King
Æthelred the Unready
Æthelred II ( ang, Æþelræd, ;Different spellings of this king’s name most commonly found in modern texts are "Ethelred" and "Æthelred" (or "Aethelred"), the latter being closer to the original Old English form . Compare the modern diale ...
gave the site to the nuns of
Shaftesbury Abbey
Shaftesbury Abbey was an abbey that housed nuns in Shaftesbury, Dorset. It was founded in about 888, and dissolved in 1539 during the English Reformation by the order of Thomas Cromwell, minister to King Henry VIII. At the time it was the second ...
, refugees from the Vikings.
[Backhouse, Turner, & Webster, 139-141] They were the custodians of the body of King
Edward the Martyr
Edward ( ang, Eadweard, ; 18 March 978), often called the Martyr, was King of the English from 975 until he was murdered in 978. Edward was the eldest son of King Edgar, but was not his father's acknowledged heir. On Edgar's death, the leade ...
, Æthelred's half-brother and already regarded as a saint, and it may have served as a mortuary chapel for him for a period, which might help explain why such a small but elaborate building was created.
It is the most complete Anglo-Saxon survival from this period, and follows what seems to have been a typical monastic plan at the time, though in miniature. In particular the decoration including fragments of large reliefs gives a hint of richness which documentary remains record in monastic churches.
Although the existing church seems all or almost all Anglo-Saxon, it has clearly been altered in a number of ways, apart from the modern restoration, which included removing the stairs inside and filling in windows. For its small size, with the nave only some long and a little over wide, the height of the building (around inside the nave) is notable. A
porticus
A porticus, in church architecture and archaeology, is usually a small room in a church. Commonly, porticus form extensions to the north and south sides of a church, giving the building a cruciform plan. They may function as chapels, rudimentary ...
to the south has been lost, but otherwise the structure of the building seems complete in its final Anglo-Saxon state.
The pair of angels flying horizontally, in
relief
Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the ...
at about half life-size, probably flanked a large sculptural group of the Crucifixion, perhaps over the
chancel
In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse.
Ove ...
arch.
The arcading on the exterior walls is produced, not by incision (as thought by Jackson and Fletcher),
[noted architectural historians: Fletcher (Eric George Molyneux) and Jackson (Edward Dudley Colquhoun)] but by setting the massive stone
pilaster
In classical architecture
Classical architecture usually denotes architecture which is more or less consciously derived from the principles of Greek and Roman architecture of classical antiquity, or sometimes even more specifically, from the ...
-strips forward from the wall-face. In this they are similar to
Great Dunham
Great Dunham is a village situated in the Breckland District of Norfolk and covers an area of 818 hectares (3.16 square miles) with an estimated population of 325, including Kempstone and increasing to a measured population of 344 at the 2011 Ce ...
and the tower of
Tasburgh
Tasburgh ( ) is a civil parish and a village in the south of Norfolk, England, located approximately 8 miles south of Norwich. It lies on the A140 road, north of Long Stratton and south of Newton Flotman. The River Tas flows nearby and Tasburgh ...
parish church in Norfolk, and also to the parish churches at
Earls Barton
Earls Barton is a village and civil parish in Northamptonshire, notable for its Anglo-Saxon church and shoe-making heritage. The village is in North Northamptonshire and was previously in the Borough of Wellingborough until 2021. At the time of t ...
and
Barton-upon-Humber
Barton-upon-Humber () or Barton is a town and civil parish in North Lincolnshire, England. The population at the 2011 census was 11,066. It is situated on the south bank of the Humber Estuary at the southern end of the Humber Bridge. It is s ...
.
References
Sources
*
Backhouse, Janet,
Turner, D.H., and
Webster, Leslie, eds.; ''The Golden Age of Anglo-Saxon Art, 966–1066'', pp. 130, 139–141, 1984, British Museum Publications Ltd,
*
*
PDF account from "Anglo-Saxon Churches"*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bradford on Avon, Saint Laurence
Standing Anglo-Saxon churches
8th-century church buildings in England
Church of England church buildings in Wiltshire
Grade I listed churches in Wiltshire
Saint Laurence's Church