Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

On the north side of Market Square, in the Medieval period, stood Dover’s parish church of St. Peter. Its churchyard is believed to have covered the ground from the east of present day Cannon Street to Castle Street and along Church Street to St. Mary’s churchyard. Present day Dickens corner is approximatly the site of the Church’s altar. The foundations of this Medieval church have been located during various works at the site, one excavation revealed an inscribed stone slab within the Church's foundations (location accurate to the nearest 10m based on available information).

Monument Types

• INSCRIBED STONE (INSCRIBED STONE, Early Medieval or Anglo-Saxon - 410 AD? to 1065 AD?)
• CHURCH (CHURCH, Medieval - 1066 AD to 1539 AD)
• CHURCH (CHURCH, Post Medieval - 1540 AD to 1599 AD)

Full description

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(taken from source) On the north side of Market Square, in medieval times, stood Dover’s parish church of St. Peter. Its churchyard is believed to have covered the ground from the east of present day Cannon Street to Castle Street and along Church Street to St. Mary’s churchyard. Present day Dickens corner is approximate the site of the Church’s altar.

It was probably erected towards the end of the 11th century, soon after the monastery of St Martin-le-Grand’s magnificent church was completed. The first reference of St Peter’s is dated 26 April 1342 and refers to the Church using the dedicated name. In the 16th year of Edward III’s reign (1327-1377), court records show that the forge of William Kenartone adjoined the churchyard. By 1367, the Church had superseded St Martin’s as the centre of civic life with the elections for both Mayors of Dover and Members of Parliament being held there.

From the Church tower the curfew bell, which gave order to the town life, was rung. The bell summoned residents to work in the morning, to their mid-day meal and to their beds at night. A different peal was rung for the hailing the election of a new mayor or representatives to Parliament and yet another announced the assembling of the magistrates. Ringing of the bell bringing order lasted until the 19th century (though it would have been rung from a different location after the demolition of St. Peters Church in the early 17th century) although fishermen were exempt from the outset.

Of interest is the proximity of the sea and the River Dour to the location of St Peter’s Church – St Peter was a fisherman. The church at Temple Ewell, near the source of the Dour, is dedicated to St Peter, so is the church at River.

During the Reformation (1529-1536), except for St Peter’s church, Dover’s churches were sealed by order of Henry VIII (1509-1547). The town’s folk successfully petitioned for St Mary’s to be reopened and used as a parish church. In 1555, the Curfew bell was moved there. The last recorded burial there was in 1572. Elections were officially transferred to St Mary’s in 1581 and the last one was reported to have taken place in St Peter’s in 1585.The Mayor and Jurats successfully petitioned Elizabeth I (1558-1603) to sell lead from St Peter’s roof and use the money to improve the harbour.

Dover archives tell us that Elizabeth I, in 1590, gave authority for the sale of St Peter’s together with its land and again the money was to be used for harbour repairs. This time the money was to augment a national tax on shipping that had been instituted to pay for extensive new harbour works. Mostly completed by 1595.

The last rector of St Peter’s church was Rev John Grey and he is listed as holding the incumbency in 1611. A Master Golder eventually demolished the Church and Church Street was extended to Market Square. The present day path from Church Street to Cannon Street, by St Mary’s Church, roughly defines the boundary between what were St Peter’s and St Mary’s churchyards. The latter came into use as a burial ground after St Peter’s ceased to exist.

Excavations in 1810, 1893, 1905-08 of the area where St. Peter’s Church once stood, all revealed foundations of the old church and it is probably from one of these digs that the tile above the present day Torchlight doorway in Church Street, was found. The building is set back between 5 and 8 Church Street where two shield shaped plaques can be seen. One has what appears to be a fleur-de-lis and is inscribed with the initials ‘R’ and ‘B’. The other, badly corroded, may have had the initials ‘E’ and ‘R’ inscribed.

During the 1810 excavations, a chalk casket was found, inside which was a skull believed to have belonged to the ill-fated Duke of Suffolk – William de la Pole. On 2 May 1450, he was decapitated off Dover and his headless body dumped on Dover beach. The body was taken to Wingfield, Suffolk to be buried and it was said that his head was brought to St Peter‘s Church.

The major excavations took place between 1905-1908 in order to build Lloyds Bank and adjacent buildings. A small pillar was unearthed that these days form the capital of the Font in St Mary’s Church. The excavations also uncovered large quantity bones. Amongst them were the remains of an antler, possibly belonging to a red deer. There were also the bones of about 26 individuals, more male than female. This was possibly because in the Middle Ages, Dover was an active seaport as well as a religious centre and therefore there was likely to be more men than women.

Most of the human skulls had white, sound, and regular teeth but were greatly worn, possibly, due to eating coarsely ground grain and tough, badly cooked, meat. The bones showed that, overall, the people had died in the prime of life without long standing ailments. This Dr Parsons’ suggested, was because the time between when infections where caught and death was short – which would explain why in St Peter’s church, St Roch was venerated.

Another reason given by Dr Parson, was that, ‘old records show that there were few more turbulent places than the Cinque Ports, and probably many of these men were killed in some brawl or another.’ The exhumed skeletons were first buried in St Martin’s Cemetery that stood at the top of Market Street until 1970. They were then re-interred in Charlton Cemetery. (1)

The foundations of St Peter’s church were also revealed during the excavations associated with alterations to the Antwerp inn before 1832, and the base of a pillar resting on two large fragments of stone, one on top of the other was found. After removal, when the two pieces formed an entire monumental slab, with a cross and an Anglo-Saxon or runic inscription, This has been translated as ‘Gisilheard‘ and the stone is now on display in Dover Museum. It has been mounted such that the runes are the right way round. It is probably a coffin lid, the form of the cross is a development of the fan shaped arm in which the uppermost member is exaggerated. Of interest, although runes are hardly found in Kent some dating before AD650 were found in Dover on the back of one the disc brooches during the excavations of the Buckland Anglo-Saxon cemetery. (2-3)

A number of early post medieval maps depict the location of this church on the northern side of Market Square, this includes two by Thomas Digges dating to 1581 (4) and 1595 (5) and another by Thomas Miles dating to 1580 (6)

<1> Lorraine Sencicle, 2014, The Dover Historian -St Peters Church (Website). SKE32118.

<2> VCH Kent 1 1908 384 (RA Smith) (OS Card Reference). SKE50869.

<2> Page, W. (ed), 1908, The Victoria History of the Counties of England: Kent Volumne I, VCH Kent 1 1908 384 (RA Smith) (Monograph). SKE7882.

<3> William Gershom Collingwood, 1927, Northumbrian Crosses of the Pre-Norman Age (Monograph). SKE31973.

<4> Thomas Digges, 1581, The State of Dover Haven (Map). SKE31984.

<5> Thomas Digges, 1595, The state of Dover Haven with the New workes (Map). SKE31987.

<6> Thomas Miles, 1580, Proposal for Dover Harbour (Map). SKE31983.

Sources and further reading

Related records