Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

Parish church first constructed during the first half of the 8th century and may have been part of a monastery or minster. The church was destroyed by fire in 1246. The South wall and part of West wall of nave, along with a small section of the South wall of the chancel are visibly Saxon and the shell of the nave and probably the whole of the chancel are of this date. Most of the rest of the building dates from the mid 13th century with late 15th century additions. Additions were also carried out in 1512. The tower was demolished in 1836. The building is of flint and rubble with a tile roof. Five bay nave, two bay chancel, North aisle, the east end of the aisle and North-East chapel refurbished as vestries and church room following a late 1970s fire; North-East vestry roofed at right angles to the chapel; South-East chapel; North porch. North tower demolished in 1836.

Monument Types

• ARCHITECTURAL FRAGMENT (ARCHITECTURAL FRAGMENT, Roman - 43 AD to 409 AD)
• CHURCH (Early Medieval or Anglo-Saxon to Modern - 700 AD to 2050 AD)

Full description

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Listing Text:

856/11/185 CHURCH LANE
03-DEC-1949 ST MILDRED'S
CHURCH OF ST MILDRED

(Formerly listed as:
CHURCH LANE
ST MILDRED'S
CHURCH OF ST MILDRED WITH ST MARY IN C
ASTRO)

GV I
Parish Church.

DATE: S wall and part of W wall of nave, along with a small section of the S wall of the chancel are visibly Saxon and the shell of the nave and probably the whole of the chancel are of this date. C13 NE chapel; C14 south windows to nave; C15 N aisle; 1512 SE chapel. In 1861 Butterfield restored the church and the west gallery with organ was replaced on the north side of the choir. A N porch was added in 1900. There was a 1920s restoration and also restoration following a 1973 fire.

MATERIALS: Mostly flint with tiled roofs and freestone dressings of Kentish ragstone and Caen stone, with evidence of former render on the N side. The Saxon walling is a mixture of flint, tile and stone with very large quoins. The SE chapel is chequered flint and freestone; the gable of the N aisle is rebuilt in brick.

PLAN: Five bay nave, two bay chancel, N aisle, the east end of the aisle and NE chapel refurbished as vestries and church room following a late 1970s fire; NE vestry roofed at right angles to the chapel; SE chapel; N porch. N tower demolished in 1836.

EXTERIOR: The north side has five renewed lancets, two of which originally lit the N tower built over the aisle, and a C19 gabled porch. The west end of the aisle is Perpendicular with a stringcourse, brick gable and 2-light C19 W window with W doorway below. The NW quoins of the nave are concealed by a buttress. The NE vestry also has a stringcourse and a timber-framed north gable, depressed segmental arched doorway on the west side with a stack with a tall brick chimneyshaft. 5-light Perpendicular style traceried E window to chancel, 3-light Perpendicular W window to nave. The south side of the nave has a single buttress and massive quoins at the east and west corners. 3 two-light C14 Decorated windows, one with renewed masonry. The south wall of the Saxon chancel is truncated by the 1512 chapel which has 3-light uncusped windows on its south and west sides and a C19 3-light Perpendicular style window to the east. The chapel has a probably later parapet and east and west gables with freestone crosses in the flintwork and a north-west stack with a flint and freestone chimneyshaft.

INTERIOR: The main entrance through the north-east porch has a medieval four-centred Caen stone arch with arched wooden door with blank shields and linenfold panelling. The aisle roof is of common rafter design with tie beams. Perpendicular N arcade with octagonal piers with concave sides. Crownpost nave roof with 4 trusses with moulded arched braces to short posts in the walls carried on moulded stone corbels. Late-C15 octagonal font, the bowl with quatrefoils and the stem decorated with blind tracery. Original ogival font cover with crocketed angles, finial and pulley cable. C19 stone drum pulpit with blind traceried panels and a brattished (battlemented) cornice, painted to match the late C19/early C20 timber tester. Probably C16 fine timber eagle lectern. C19 nave benches, the ends with simple shouldered profile. The SE chapel was built as a chantry chapel for the Atwood family and is thought to have been built in 1512. It has a C16 Tudor arched stone fireplace and a small C15 figure of St Mildred, perhaps assembled from various medieval fragments. A good quality C15 doorway into the vestry from the former NE chapel has carved spandrels and an original door with vertical mouldings. The chancel arch forms a tie beam with arched braces with a crownpost and two outer posts with timber panels between the outer posts and roofline. This is probably a 1920s arrangement, contemporary with the rood beam and figures below. The chancel has two C14 arches of unequal size on the north-east and a wide late Perpendicular double-chamfered arch on the south into the S chapel. Two, probably medieval,Perpendicular crownposts and tie beam trusses to the chancel, the crown posts with moulded bases and capitals and 4-way braces. Crenellated wall-plate. Late-C19 or early-C20 boarded and panelled ceilure to the sanctuary. The chancel has 1920s panelling but its furnishings incorporate probable C15 or C16 carved Poppy-head bench ends originating from another church.

Stained glass includes medieval fragments of stained glass of St Mildred in the SE chapel, the E window by Ward and Hughes of 1897, the W window by Burlisson and Grylls (re-used from St. Paul's Church, Ramsgate after bomb damage) two lancet windows by Lavers, Barnard and Westlake and stained glass of St Helena and St Mildred in the west window of the north chapel by Kempe studios.

Monuments include various wall tablets of the C17 and C18. In the nave are an alabaster monument to Thomas Cranmer, nephew of the archbishop d. 1604, a monument to Sir William Cranmer d.1691 and black and white marble tomb chest to Sir Francis Head d. 1716 with panels on the sides of sunflowers and on the front arms and emblems of death. There are also a number of black basalt floor slabs. The chancel has a 1789 monument by Bacon to William Jackson d.1789. The parish room contains a monument by J F Mooore to Winefred Bridger d. 1776 with palm trees, Roman sarcophagus and winged victory and adjoining wall tablet to William Smith d.1699. Over the N porch are tablets with benefactions, a Royal Coat of Arms in the N aisle and the N aisle and nave contain 8 hatchments.

HISTORY: The dedication is to St Mildred (d. 732), the daughter of Merewald, King of Mercia, and Ermenburga, a Princess of Kent. After an education at Chelles in France she joined her mother in the convent at Minster-in-Thanet and later succeeded her as abbess. The church was probably built in the mid-C11, soon after the relics of St Mildred had been brought from Minster to St Augustine's Abbey. The church was in the ownership of St Augustine's Abbey until 1538 and then the crown. It was united with All Saints in 1684 but had been united with St Mary-de-Castro earlier.

REASON FOR DESIGNATION: The Church of St Mildred is designated for the following principal reasons:

The Church of St Mildred should be regraded to Grade I for the following principal reasons:

* It is of exceptional importance for the survival of Saxon walling reusing Roman fabric, indicating a large Saxon church, plus a wealth of medieval fabric of various dates, including medieval roofs and an early-C16 chantry chapel with heating;
* It contains fine quality fittings including C15 and C16 woodwork, C17 and C18 wall monuments and stained glass by notable firms;
* It is one of only a handful of Anglo-Saxon churches surviving in Kent.

SOURCES:
Pevsner and Newman, North East and East Kent, 1983 edn., 242-243.
The church has been recorded in detail by NADFAS.
(20)


Previous information:

[TR 14505752] Church of St Mildred with St Mary de Castro [NAT]. (1) St Mildred's Church, Church Lane, Canterbury, is 13th to 15thc. with pre Conquest remains (probably 10thc) in the south and west walls of the nave. The Church is now of the united parishes of St Mildred, St John the Poor, and St Mary de Castro. (2-3) In normal use. (4) Church of St Mildred with St Mary in Castro, Church Lane. The original church on the site was erected in the first half of the C8. This was destroyed by fire in 1246 but the south and west wall of the Nave still retain Roman tiles and quoins of Roman oolite. The rest of the Church is C13 to C15 built of flint and rubble with a modern tiled roof. (5) The only Anglo Saxon detail to be seen in the fabric of St Mildred's Church, Canterbury, is the quoins in the south wall, both of which are of decidedly megalithic character. Nothing now remains visible to enable any other part of the church to be claimed as pre-Conquest. The dimensions of the south wall indicate a church originally of some importance. (6) St Mildred's. Said to have been an early Saxon Monastery (7a). Records indicate the existence, as early as the 8th century, of a church, probably a minster on or near their present site. (7-8) Nave and chancel are late Saxon. East end of south aisle and of chancel built 13th century. Late 15th century vestry and west end of north aisle. South chapel of 1512. Tower demolished 1836. (9) St Mildred's Church was in existence by 1089. (10) Additional bibliography. (11-18)

The shell of the nave (and probably of the whole of the chancel) almost certainly date from just before the Norman conquest. The church was perhaps built here in the mid-11th century, soon after the relics (body) of St Mildred had been brought from Minster-in-Thanet to St Augustine's Abbey. The south-west and south-east quoins of the nave are made of very large blocks of Marquise Oolite (with some Hythe stone) that are almost certainly reused Roman (see Hussey 1858). The nave and south-west chancel walls also contain many reused Roman bricks. No original windows or doors survive, even in fragmentary form, as much of the south wall of the nave was refaced when new larger windows were inserted in the early 14th century.

The first addition to the original nave and chancel was probably the tower added to the north side of the nave in the 13th century. It was demolished in 1836, but earlier drawings show it as a low structure only just projecting above the nave-ridge. The lower north wall of the tower still survives with two lancets in it (both totally restored in Bathstone externally). Three further lancets (also heavily restored externally) in a north wall, running east from the tower north wall, suggest that a north-east chapel may also have been built in the 13th century. (A blocked forth lancet is partly obscured by the later west wall of the vestry).

The next alterations were the insertion in the early 14th century of the 3 fine tall square-headed windows with hood-moulds in the south wall of the nave and one in the south-west wall of the chancel. At the same time the nave wall was refaced in much of its upper sections and a buttress was added. Of these four windows, that at the east end of the nave (which was originally all made out of Ragstone) is perhaps a little earlier with its simpler trefoiled heads to the main lights and elongated quatrefoils above. The other windows have a hexafoil in the centre and half hexafoils on either side, all above two ogee-headed cinquefoils at the top of the main lights. (These windows can be roughly compared with those inserted into the south wall of the nave of Fordwich church).

In the later 14th or earlier part of the 15th century the north-east chapel seems to have been rebuilt (and enlarged to the east with a new three-light perp. east window (unfortunately all of this work has been renewed externally in Bathstone and with new flint facing). A new five light east window may also have been built at this time, but it too is almost entirely 19th century work externally, as is the surrounding flint face, the high plinth and the flanking buttresses. The three-light perpendicular window at the west end of the nave is also of about the same date. The enlarged north-east chapel, which was probably dedicated to St John-the-Baptist (from the evidence of wills) is connected with the chapel by two arches on the south. That to the east is now almost entirely 19th century, while that on the west has semi-octagonal responds and an arch over of c.14th century date. All of this chapel area is now taken up with modern vestries. In the chancel were some 15th century stalls, of which some of the Poppy-head ends are now at the extreme west end of the chancel (they have an eagle with a scroll - the symbol of St John-the-Evangelist).

Both the nave and chancel have separate 15th century crown-post roofs; that in the nave is on moulded tie-beams which are mostly on wall-posts with braces. The chancel roof has a crenellated wall-plate.

A 1486 will tells us that reparations were going on in the nave at that time, and that a new vestry was being built. This must relate to the building of the surviving vestry on the north-east and probably to the construction of the new north-west aisle. The vestry has a single round-headed light (with square hood) on the north (with 5 surviving original glazing bars) and a two light window on the east. The vestry has a plinth all around and an external door on the north-west. The buttress at the north-east corner of the earlier chapel was probably added at the same time, and the southern ends of the two vestry walls are continued up as north buttresses to the chapel. There is a fine original doorway (in Caen) and door from this vestry into the north-east chapel. The north-gable of the vestry displays the end of a queen-strut truss with clasping side-purlins. This may be the original roof, but it is perhaps a little later (16th century). There is a fine moulded string course around the upper vestry wall which perhaps marks the original wall top (this vestry was badly burnt in a fire in December 1972).

The north-west aisle also has a continuous plinth around it, and the buttress at the north-west corner of the nave seems to be of the same date. All the quoins (and on the vestry) are of large side alternate blocks of Hythe store. The two buttresses on the north side of the north aisle are both 19th century. The north-west aisle is lit from the north by a 3-light window with round heads under a square hood-mould. There are fine carved heads externally in the spandrels. The west window to this aisle now has 19th century perpendicular tracery in it but Petrie (1801) just shows a ?18th century wooden frame while Jewitt (c.1857) shows Y-tracery. The gable above this window is entirely of red-brick (behind peeling plaster), and may just possibly be late 15th-century work. It is more likely to be later, however. The north doorway into the new north-west aisle is a fine four-centred one made of Caenstone. It still contains its original pair of doors (though repaired at the bottom). Connecting the new north-west aisle with the nave are a pair of late 15th century 4-centred arches. They sit on finely carved ragstone octagonal and semi-octagonal piers with concave faces. (Compare the arcade in St Alphege, Canterbury). On the west face of the central octagonal pier, at the top, is an original canopied niche (now containing a c.1910 figure of St Mildred). Under the east side of the eastern arch is a fine late 15th-century font with its original oak cover with crocketed angles and finial (and pulley cable). (Late Medieval font covers also have survived at Holy Cross, St Alphege and St Dunstan's churches in Canterbury). The font, which stands on a decorated pedestal with moulded plinth has quatrefoils with rosettes on its upper faces. Glynne records an aperture for the rood-loft between the nave and channel (Glynne, 20).

On the south-east side of the chancel is a fine Chantry chapel for the local Atwood family, said to have been built in 1512. It has much fine chequer work externally of knapped flint and Caenstone with an original consecration cross on a panel on the south-east side (another cross may have been on the now-worn-away panel above the south-west doorway into the chapel. The south and west windows of this chapel are of three lights with round heads under square hood-moulds. The east window is of three lights with perpendicular tracery, and to the north of this the base of an earlier buttress (a plinth block of ? reused Marquise store) to the south-corner of the chancel can be seen. The upper west gable of this chapel has been rebuilt with a cross in it. It also contains the chimney for the 19th century fireplace in the west wall of the chapel. The wide 4 centred arch from the chancel into this chapel was reopened when the chapel was restored in 1905. The chapel has a five-canted ceiling below its ?original roof. The major restoration of the church was carried out by Butterfield in 1861 when the west gallery (with organ) was removed. It was put on the north side of the choir. The north porch was added in c.1900. Another restoration was done in 1973 after a major fire. (19)

Description from record TR 15 NW 1454:
The following text is from the original listed building designation:
1. 944 CHURCH LANE ST MILDRED'S
Church of St Mildred with St Mary in Castro TR 15 NW 11/185 3.12.49.
B
2. The original church on the site was erected in the first half of the C8. This was destroyed by fire in 1246 but the south and west wall of the Nave still retain Roman tiles and quoins of Roman oolite. The rest of the Church is C13 to C15 built of flint and rubble with a modern tiled roof. The windows are double and triple traceried windows. The interior has a 3 bay nave and north aisle only. Crown post roof. All Saints Chapel, on the south side, which has a diaper pattern in flint and rubble, was erected in 1512 by Thomas Attwood Lord Mayor of Canterbury and has a Tudor hearth with Sussex fireback. The tower was destroyed in 1836. C15 font. Monument to Thomas Cranmer 1604, the nephew of the Archbishop.
Listing NGR: TR1571957759 (20)

Historic England archive material: BF052982 CHURCH OF ST MILDRED WITH ST MARY DE CASTRO, CANTERBURY File of material relating to a site or building. This material has not yet been fully catalogued. Copyright, date, and quantity information for this record may be incomplete or inaccurate.

<1> OS 1:1250 1956 (OS Card Reference). SKE48174.

<2> MHLG (944/11/A Mar 1962) 19 (OS Card Reference). SKE47031.

<3> Arch J 86 1930 247 (AW Clapham) (OS Card Reference). SKE36733.

<4> F1 FGA 01-FEB-65 (OS Card Reference). SKE42878.

<5> DOE (HHR) City of Canterbury Kent 1973 Sept 76 (OS Card Reference). SKE39974.

<6> AS Architecture 1 1965 145-46 (HM Taylor and J Taylor) (OS Card Reference). SKE37376.

<7> MRH 1971 469 (D Knowles & RN Hadcock) (OS Card Reference). SKE47432.

<8> Arch J 126 1969 237 (CA Ralegh-Radford) (OS Card Reference). SKE36544.

<9> Hist Builds Survey Cant City Council/RCHME 57022 9 of 12 (OS Card Reference). SKE43851.

<10> Canterbury under the Angevin Kings 1967 208 (W Urry) (OS Card Reference). SKE38559.

<11> Arch Cant 1 1858 143-46 (R Hussey) (OS Card Reference). SKE34500.

<12> Arch Cant 54 1941 62-68 (G Ward) (OS Card Reference). SKE35284.

<13> Arch Cant 56 1943 19-22 (RU Potts) (OS Card Reference). SKE35292.

<14> BOE NE and E Kent 1983 242-43 (J Newman) (OS Card Reference). SKE38223.

<15> The Arts in Early Eng 2 1925 447 (G Baldwin-Brown) (OS Card Reference). SKE50086.

<16> Biblio Topo Brit 1 1870-90 XXX (OS Card Reference). SKE37649.

<17> Tanner's "Notitia Monastica" 1787 Kent XII 5 (Naismith) (OS Card Reference). SKE49800.

<18> CBA Churches Comm Bull 25 1989 - compiled 1984 - 10 11 (T Tatton Brown) (OS Card Reference). SKE38770.

<19> Diocese of Canterbury (Tim Tatton-Brown), 1992, Church Report - St Mildred with St Mary de Castro (Unpublished document). SKE7549.

<20> English Heritage, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest (Map). SKE16160.

Sources and further reading