Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

Once the original church of SS Peter & Paul was completed within St. Augustine's Monastery, King Eadbald (son of King Ethlebert) was responsible for adding a second church to the complex, this new church was dedicated to the Virgin Mary between c. 619-624.

Monument Types

• CHURCH (Early Medieval or Anglo-Saxon to Medieval - 621 AD? to 1070 AD?)

Full description

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Once the original church of SS Peter & Paul was completed within St. Augustine's Monastery, King Eadbald (son of King Ethlebert) was responsible for adding a second church to the complex, this new church was dedicated to the Virgin Mary between c. 619-624. This new church stood immediately to the east of the first church, but nothing of it, except a small base of the west wall, survives today. Little is thus known about its structural elements other than it was rectangular in shape with an apsidal east end, measuring overal about 70 feet in length E-W and about 26 feet in width N-S. The small portion walling that remains is part of the west wall of the church showing the position of a western doorway, the wall itself shows that the church was built of re-used Roman red brick/tiles bonded in a pink (opus signinum type) mortar.

St. Mary's Church was pulled down in the 1070's to make way for the construction of the new great Norman Abbey Church built by Abbot Scotland. The site of the church is in effect the outline of the crypt of the Norman church at its eastern end.

Gem, R., 1997, St. Augustine's Abbey Canterbury, English Heritage (Monograph). SKE30335.

Roebuck, J., 2002, St. Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury (Monograph). SKE30293.

Sources and further reading