Foundations
By the 10th Century the English church had for some time been organised into dioceses (see map) each governed by a bishop who, although selected by the Archbishop of Canterbury (in consultation with the King), ultimately derived authority from the Pope in Rome as head of the Catholic Church.
Danish invasions in the 9th Century had caused much damage to the church in the midlands and north, but by the mid 10th Century the way was clear for Christianity to re-emerge along the Nene valley.
St. Andrew’s Geddington
Experts tell us that the original stone Geddington Church dates from sometime between AD850 and 970. The later date seems more likely since the parish system only became established in the 10th Century, before which most clergy were grouped in cathedrals and their offshoot minster churches.
We don’t know exactly how the original stone church came to be built in Geddington, but we do know that it was dedicated to St. Andrew – a name that it bore for more than 500 years. It may initially have been a ‘dependent’ church within the care of St. Andrew’s Brigstock, only becoming a separate parish at some point in the late Saxon or early Norman period. At this time, Geddington was part of the Dorchester Diocese.
A Royal Manor
Geddington was one of the principal manors of Edward the Confessor, who married Edith of Wessex (left) in 1045; and it was possessed by Edith until the Conquest. During the late Saxon period the crown increasingly enforced the payment of tithes – compulsory levies on arable production in support of the church. This greatly increased the resources available to support clergy and the church’s charitable works, but it also incentivised local landowners (the King being no exception) to found churches so as to retain tithe income within their estates rather than see it go elsewhere.
The Saxon Church Building
Geddington’s Saxon origins can be traced in the stonework of today’s church. The Nave we see today occupies roughly the same ‘footprint’ as the original Saxon Nave: confirmed by the exposure of Saxon foundations and burials when major structural and floor repairs were undertaken in 1990.
At Geddington we have excellent examples of ornamental Saxon triangle-headed tracery or ‘arcading’ in the North Aisle which suggests a fairly prestigious church. Both faces of a splayed window pierced in this wall can also be seen and these features, together with the roof scars high on the east wall of the Nave, and the relatively small Nave with ‘long-and-short’ quoins (corner-stones) visible at the north east and south-east corners of the Nave, are all strongly diagnostic of a Saxon church.
Formation of the southern arcade obliterated the Saxon arcading on the southern elevation of the Nave save for one small section remaining at the eastern end of that wall. There is also some ‘long and short’ stonework set within the end of the aisle’s north-eastern end indicating the south-east corner of the Saxon Nave.
We do not know whether the Saxon Chancel took the round-ended form of an apse or was rectangular in shape, but the steeply-pitched roof-line is still visible in the lower of two scars on the eastern face of the wall dividing the Chancel from the Nave. The original roofing material would probably have been thatch, although Collyweston slates (like those seen on the porch today) may have been used, either from the outset or later on.
There are also some signs that there may have been either a Saxon porticus, a side-chapel or the southern wing of a cruciform (cross-shaped plan) church. Unfortunately, this must remain conjecture because the Lady Chapel has been so much modified throughout the church’s history that virtually nothing remains of the early period other than these small, intriguing details.
Imagining the Saxon Church
The Saxon church’s walls were rather thinner than today and would have been very plain, with few window openings. Although different in some details, the pictures of St. Lawrence’s Church at Bradford-on-Avon in Oxfordshire, and of Escomb Church in County Durham give an impression of how the original Geddington Church might have looked and felt before the major changes of the 12th and 13th centuries.
There may also have been a Saxon tower, either between the Nave and Chancel as part of a ‘cruciform’ (cross-shaped) arrangement or - perhaps more likely - echoing the arrangement at the ‘mother’ church of St. Andrew at Brigstock - at the west end of the Nave
The exterior of St. Lawrence Church, Bradford-on-Avon
St. Lawrence Bradford-on-Avon: The Nave
Escomb Church, County Durham