BRIXWORTH ARCHAEOLOGICAL COMMITTEE
How the church took its present shape
Drawing of All Saints' Church , Brixworth, from the north-west, by E Roberts (1863),
and published in the Spring Gardens Sketchbook, vol. 3, pl.18 ( reproduced by
courtesy of the Society of Antiquaries of London from their library copy)
The Committee was founded in 1972, initially to consider the archaeology of the village as a whole. As time went on it increasingly focused its attention on All Saints' Church and for just over thirty years has been carrying out an archaeological investigation of the fabric of the church itself. During the last two years or so, Dr David Parsons (archaeologist) Dr Diana Sutherland (geologist) have been busy writing text for the book in which our Committee is proposing to publish the results of this long running programme of research. Other members of the Committee and colleagues elswhere, both active and retired, are contributing specialist reports or revaluations of work we did when the technology was in its infancy. For example, Professor Ian Bailiff at Durham University has made a new laboratory study of samples of brick taken from the church fabric in the 1970s, so that we have scientific evidence now to back up the interpretation, which has been around since long before our Committee was founded, that the bricks were salvaged from disused buildings of the Roman period and built into the church fabric. It is still not entirely clear where these Roman buildings were, nor whether they were robbed on more than one occasion - but we are still working on it. At least we have Professor Bailiff's report, ready to go in to the book.
We also have Diana Sutherland's chapters describing all the building materials and David Parsons's describing the 'vertical' archaeology of the building and beginning to interpret the computer-generated colour-coded diagrams that we presented to the Friends' AGM in 2007. At the time of writing (November 2008) we have about 75000 words of text ready in draft, this is rather more than half the size the finished book will turn out to be. David Parsons has written a consolidated account of various excavations that have taken place in and around the church, especially those of the last half-century, and has also completed the first draft of a chapter on the observations of antiquarians and artist-draughtsmen in the 19th century, including in particular the work of the first Reverend Mr Watkins, Vicar of Brixworth 1832-73, who was responsible for the major restorations that lead to the shape of the church we are familiar with. This has been a very interesting chapter to write, as things lying hidden for up to two hundred years have begun to take on new significance. It turns out, for example, that there were at least three early photographs taken of the church before the 1855-66 work was done. One of these, taken in or after 1865, but before 1863, holds some very important information about the north-east corner of the church as it once was, and in particular shows the medieval chancel, most of which was demolished in the course of restoration.
Some of the early drawings are not only informative, but delightful pictures in their own right. We are all familiar with the colour wash drawing by George Clarke of Scaldwell, which dates from about 1820, but an equally attractive view of the north side of the church (less often drawn and photographed than the south side) was drawn by E Roberts and published as one of six plates showing different aspects of the church in the Spring Gardens Sketchbook. This sounds rather like a club for ladies in flowery hats who spend warm, sunny afternoons drawing little pictures of obvious subjects, like the local parish church, just for fun. Not a bit of it! This was a serious enterprise, run by that famous Victorian architect Sir G G Scott - whose office was in Spring Gardens in London. His so-called 'Sketching club' was in fact a training ground for his young men (and they were all men in those days), who were sent out to learn how to do measured drawings of important buildings. That sounds a bit dull, and most of the results are technical drawings rather than artistic products: informative, but hardly exciting. Mr Roberts's Plate 18, however, is a much more interesting view of the church from the north-west (see accompanying illustration). Among other things, it shows men excavating in the churchyard - grave diggers or archaeologists? We know that when the British Archaeological Association visited the church in August 1862, the year before Roberts's drawings, the vanished north aisle had been 'laid open' (the Rev C F Watkins's words) for them to view. Perhaps the drawing shows workmen backfilling the excavation.
We have been able to have copied by scanning about thirty such drawings, thanks to some generous grant aid. The Committee is supported by outside bodies, and no financial burden falls either on the Friends or on the Parish. We are grateful for further generous grants in 2008 from the Society of Antiquaries of London, from the Society for Medieval Archaeology and most recently from the Aurelius Charitable Trust. One of these has been specifically earmarked for carrying out a ground-penetrating radar survey in and around the church by Dr Sarah Semple of Durham University. This work was carried out in late September and the analysis of the results is eagerly awaited. We anticipate evidence for early buildings long since disappeared: before the Norman Conquest this was a monastery, and there must have been other buildings around the church; later in the Middle Ages we know that there was a free-standing Chapel of St Mary somewhere in the churchyard: it would be good to know where it was, and what it was like. If possible the results will be posted on this website: watch this space!