Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

Grade I listed building. Main construction periods 1000 to 1911. St Martin, dates from the 12th century, the tall west tower with rich ornamentations on the west front was under construction circa 1507-47. The crowning battlements came only in 1911. Saxo-Norman evidence in the nave and chancel, first the tall, narrow doorway to the nave, secondly the blocked chancel window. The original north-east chancel quoin, not of dressed stones, provides evidence that the chancel has been lengthened, this happened in the 13th century. The extremely thick walls of the south-west vestry has lead to a belief that it is the stump of an 11th century tower.

Monument Types

• MINSTER (Early Medieval or Anglo-Saxon - 700 AD to 966 AD)
• CHURCH (Early Medieval or Anglo-Saxon to Modern - 1000 AD to 2050 AD)

Full description

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Description from record TR 03 NE 1 :
(TR 07503618) St. Martin's Church (NAT) (1)

Aldington Church is C12th with a south aisle and south chapel both C13th. The tower is C16th on a Norman base. (2)

In normal use. (3)

Church of St. Martin. 22/1 Chancel with south chapel, nave sith south aisle and base of a former tower (now the vestry) at the west end ot it, south porch and tall west tower. The nave is Norman; the chancel, the south chapel and the south aisle C13; the tower was built between 1528 and 1547; the porch is modern C15 choir stalls. (4)

Upgraded to A. (5)

St Martin, dates from the 12th century, the tall west tower with rich ornamentations on the west front (6) was under construction circa 1507-47. The crowning battlements came only in 1911. Saxo-Norman evidence in the nave and chancel, first the tall, narrow doorway to the nave, secondly the blocked chancel window. The original north-east chancel quoin, not of dressed stones, provides evidence that the chancel has been lengthened, this happened in the 13th century. The extremely thick walls of the south-west vestry has lead to a belief that it is the stump of an 11th century tower (a). (6,7)

Additional bibliography. (10)

The following text is from the original listed building designation:
TR 03 NE ALDINGTON CHURCH LANE (east side) 4/9 Church of St. Martin GV I Parish church. C11 (Saxo-Norman). Chancel extended C13, chapel and aisles C13/14. Tower 1507-1557 (evidence of wills), battlements 1911. Restored 1876 (with later work) by Sir Arthur Blomfield. Ragstone, squared and hammer-dressed to tower. Plain tiled roofs. Chancel with south chapel, nave and south aisle with south porch and western tower. Large western tower of 3 stages with string courses and offset buttresses rising to full height of tower to battlements. Octagonal north-eastern angle vice. Triple, 2 tier belfry openings, single lights on 2nd stage, and deep set restored 3 light Perpendicular style west window, flanked by canopied niches, with cusped quatrefoil panels and ogee headed niche below, with four centred arched doorway with label hood, waterstoup and flanking quatrefoil panels. Nave with separately roofed south aisle with projecting vestry. C19 fenestration and timbered south porch. North nave wall with buttresses &- exposed jambs of round headed C11 windows, now blocked, as is north door; Cl9 fenestration. Cl9 fenestration to chancel, with restored perpendicular 5 light east window, with the jambs of C13 lancets. South chapel, projecting, with lancets. Interior: fine, tall tower arch, with continuous wave moulding and attached inner piers with octagonal capitals. Four centred arched door to north to stair vice. Late.C13 2 bay arcade to south aisle with round pier and octagonal responds. Nave roof with scissor- braced rafters in 2 levels, partly with tie-beams. South aisle with vestry at west end with blocked lancet to aisle and with massive walls and re-used timber ceiling, identified as base of C11 south-western tower. Lancet in gable to south chapel, with double chamfered arch below on corbels. Tenoned purlin roof. Rood passage door to south, and at gallery level to nave. Restored double chamfered chancel arch on octagonal corbels with carved heads. Exposed jambs of lancet east windows, with shafts and capitals, and also exposed jambs of east end of C11 chancel, before C13 extension. C19 scissor-braced roof. Fittings: C14 priest's door and 3 sedilia in chancel with cusped ogee heads, roses in cusped spandrels with rose, oak leaf and heraldic enrichments and embattled top. Iron twist turned altar rails with moulded top rail. Choir stalls, inserted probably for use by Archbishop of Canterbury's entourage while resident in his adjacent hunting lodge. C15, partly restored, with poppy head bench ends, arcaded panels to front of benches; south range incorporates open screen to south chapel, with 4 bays with ogee tracery, brattished top rail and four centred arched doorway. Western range incorporates base of nave rood screen, north range with simple boarded panelling. Misericords mainly with foliage decoration, on south with foliage and castles. South chapel with C17 arcaded panelling with mannerist pilasters, with strapwork frieze and enrichment, with a separate panel with lozenge and guilloche decorations and inscribed AN 1617 , with yet a 3rd different WK . RA . WF . C section to west wall. All introduced late C19, and possibly from the demolished Scott's Hall, Smeeth. Nave with 2 pulpits, with panelled walls behind, C17 with strapwork, geometric panels, and foliate enrichment, that to north of 2 tiers, probably made up from domestic panels, and incorporating a wooden relief panel of a Pelican in her piety, said to have come from Pattison's Farmhouse, Aldington. C12 square font bowl on 5 piers, with C17 wooden cover, with arcaded base with detached Ionic colonettes with modillion cornice and finial with ogee scrolled lantern with finial. Wrought iron gate and screen to tower, dated 1891, removed from Olantigh Towers, Wye, and set up here by Sir Reginald Blomfield. Monuments: brasses; small inscription in south chapel to Margaret Blechynden, d.1596, John Weddcot, d.1475; 19 inch brasses of armoured knight and Lady. The reverse records George Sibley of Boston (d.1474). John Blechynden, d1607; black and white marble wall plaque, with scrolled and enriched base, simple aedicule with Arms Cartouche over. Latin hexameter inscription. Glass: fragments in chancel north window. The Reverend George Blomfield (Rector from 1868) was brother-in-law of Sir Arthur Blomfield (restored the church 1876) and father of Sir Reginald Blomfield, who embellished the church and designed the lychgate. The quality of medieval work is linked to the church's use as a chapel to the adjacent hunting lodge of the Archbishops of Canterbury (see Court Lodge), who also appointed Thomas Linacre Rector 1509 (founder of Royal College of Surgeons) and Desiderius Erasmus, briefly in 1511. (See Church Guide; see also B.O.C. Kent I 126-7). Listing NGR: TR0751436350 (11)

<1> OS 6" 1961 (OS Card Reference). SKE48369.

<2> Arch Cant 41 1929 143-9 plan illusts (F C Elliston Erwood) (OS Card Reference). SKE35095.

<3> F1 ASP 30-NOV-1962 (OS Card Reference). SKE42358.

<4> DOE(HHR) Boro of East Ashford Kent July 1955 3 (OS Card Reference). SKE40829.

<5> DOE(HHR) Corrigenda to auth 4 Dec 1976 (OS Card Reference). SKE40880.

<6> Recologea Papers 1 Nos 1 & 2 1964 9 (OS Card Reference). SKE49101.

<7> Bldgs of Eng W Kent & the Weald 1980 126-7 (J Newman) (OS Card Reference). SKE37843.

<8> Inf. Elliston Erwood (OS Card Reference). SKE44373.

<9> Field report for monument TR 03 NE 1 - November, 1962 (Bibliographic reference). SKE5071.

<10> Tim Tatton-Brown, 2005, Church of St. Martin Aldington: Historical and Archaeological Survey (Unpublished document). SKE16564.

<11> English Heritage, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest (Map). SKE16160.

Sources and further reading