St Mary in Castro, Dover Castle, Dover, Kent

With the orchid season now well under way, probably the final four church uploads for a few months.

I started the year with the intention of doing more Kent churches, and I think I have delivered thus far with six new Kent Churches before the end of March!

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At some point, I had to push my knee further.

So it was on Saturday we agreed to go to Dover Castle, not too far if I became "lame".

Up at six, with it being not just light outside, but the sun rose just gone six, and it felt like it was going to be a great spring day.

I went to Tesco, we didn't need much, and with Jools only working three days next week, we have enough frozen meals for her lunches.

Tesco was pretty empty, so I rush round getting the stuff we needed, and some stuff not on the list, then back home for quarter to eight to pack away the gatherings and have breakfast of fruit. Spanish strawberries have now appeared, and some are tasty as well as juicy, so we have a big bowl of fruit and more coffee before it was time to go to the castle for when it opened.

What we didn't know was that this weekend is where folks who play the lottery or scratchcards could use an old lottery ticket to gain free entry to English Heritage or National Trust properties as a thanks for for grants from the lottery fund.

This would mean it would be crazy crowded.

This we found when we arrived at the turn off on Castle Hill to the castle, the queue of traffic leading all the way down, waiting for the ten o'clock opening.

More joined the queue behind us, this did not feel normal.

But once we were allowed in, we all took a parking slot, then walked to the entrance, we flashed our new membership cards, and walked up the slope to the Keep and the church.

St Mary in Castro looks quite modern, and inside is mostly Victorian, but there are signs it is older. In fact it is Saxon, though until the middle of the 19th century was ruinous, so was repaired as to how it now appears.

The arches and windows are clearly Saxon, though little else remains.

I took shots of the windows, arches and some fittings with the big lens, but by then others had arrived at the church, so having got my shots, we left.

And further decided to go back to the castle a less busy day, so walked down to the main area in front of the Keep and then back down to the car park, where all spaces were now full, and more cars arriving every minute.

It only takes five minutes to drive home, where it was time for a brew, and a day of relaxing ahead, with the strong possibility for me of 10 (ten) hours of sport, though in the end I bailed on the late England v France rugby match as Ireland won the Grand Slam.

At three, Norwich played Stoke, on a sunny afternoon, and romped to a fine 3-0 win, thus strengthening our claim to sixth place in the table, but a long way to go yet.

On the tellybox then was Fulham v Spurs, in which Spurs went all Spursy and lost 3-0, but it could have been worse.

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St Mary in Castro, or St Mary de Castro, is a church in the grounds of Dover Castle, Kent, south-east England. It is a heavily restored Saxon structure, built next to a Roman lighthouse which became the church bell-tower. St Mary serves the local population and the army, and is the church of the Dover Garrison.

There are records of a church being built 'within the castle' (Latin 'in castra') by Eadbald of Kent in the 630s. However, it is unclear whether this means within the Saxon burgh (usually dated to later than 630) on the Eastern Heights, or within the ruins of old Roman fortifications in the valley. The large, late-Saxon cemetery around the present church does suggest the existence of a c.600 church,[4] but not definitively.

Whether or not it had a predecessor, the present Saxon church was built on the Eastern Heights around AD1000. It is immediately adjacent to the surviving eastern pharos, which was used as a source of spolia: Roman tiles can be still be seen in the church fabric, particularly in the window arches (usually of stone), and flint and tile from the pharos is used throughout the church's walls.[4] The plinth that projects out from beneath the church and on which it stands, however, is of new stone. The church is cruciform with a central tower the same width as the nave but broader than the chancel and transepts.[4] The nave has no aisles. The door arch is the earliest to survive in any standing church in England.

The Early English vault and the altar recess in the southeast corner of the nave were probably both added to the existing church at the end of the twelfth century. As part of his building works at the castle, in 1226 Henry III of England instructed that the church be repaired and twenty-one years later ordered the making of three altars and images, for and of St. Edmund, St. Adrian and St. Edward, along with an image of St. John the Evangelist.

A new stage was added to the four surviving Roman stages (out of a possible original eight) of the pharos to turn it into a bell tower, along with a short passage to connect it to the church. In 1252, three bells were cast at Canterbury to be hung in the pharos. In 1342–3, three bells were sold out of St Mary in Castro to another St Mary's church, in the nearby village of Lower Hardres, for at least £4.[5] They were replaced in 1345 by two newly cast bells, weighing 4266 lb and 1078 lb, and costing £15 18s. 5¼d.[3] Between 1426 and 1437, works on the pharos cost £176 11s. 11½d and included five new stone windows in the medieval stage, which may have been rebuilt.[3]

Other works on the church included repainting between 1324 and 1334 by "John of Maidstone", and over £36 spent on church and keep in 1494, although the proportion spent on the church is unknown. The latter work was by Sir Edward Poynings, who may well have been deputising for Prince Henry, then the Castle's Constable.

From 1555 to 1557 the church was walled up as it was felt unsafe due to lack of repairs, though nineteen years later recommendations were made to repair the chancel in stone, glaze (or reglaze) the windows and provide seats for men to hear divine service. It took another six years, but in 1582 fourteen small chairs were at last bought. Public worship then lasted to 1690, though burials of troops from the garrison in the surrounding churchyard continued for some time after that.

The remaining ruin was turned into a storehouse and cooperage in 1780, but a further collapse in 1801 led to its becoming a coal store by 1808, and thus it remained until 1860. That year began the first of two Victorian restorations. The first lasted until 1862 and was carried out by George Gilbert Scott, and the second restoration for only a year in 1888, by William Butterfield. Butterfield's restoration completed the tower and added mosaic work in the nave and a vestry, but was generally held to be less sympathetic than the first by Scott.

The 28-feet-high arches at the east and west ends of the crossing appear to be original, and their west faces are outlined by strip work of projecting tiles. A tall round-headed, stone-faced doorway (now blocked and with not much left of its original stripwork outline, but with its typically Saxon alternating horizontal and vertical slabs) gave access to the nave from the south. Unusual double splayed round-headed windows pierce the nave's north and south walls, and Scott (who found them during his restoration) suggested there were another pair near the west end of the nave's side walls. He saw this pair of windows, and putlog holes in the walls for supporting timbers, as evidence for a west gallery, for which space needed to be left between that pair of windows and the west wall.

The church is a Grade I listed building.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Mary_in_Castro,_Dover

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The church of St Mary-in-Castro, or St Mary-in-the-Castle, stands on a raised earthwork thought to date from pre-Roman times. This picture, taken from the Sea Front, shows it illuminated by a winter sunset. A section of the Castle walls with one of the towers can be seen on the left of the picture, while on the far right you can see one of the chain of beacons that were built in 1988 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the defeat of the Armada.
"It is said to be the oldest church in the country, and it certainly was the first built in Dover. When it was founded, about the year 180 the whole of the population of Dover occupied this hill top. During a long lapse into heathenism this Church fell into ruin, but it was reconstructed under Augustine, the first Bishop of Canterbury, about A.D. 600, and King Eadbald, A.D. 620 established a college of Secular Canons, who served this church until they were removed to their new house and church of St. Martin beside the River Dour A.D. 700. After that date the services of the Castle Church were continued by three Chaplains, supported out of the Manor of Cocklescombe in the Parish of Lydden; but, after the Reformation their number was reduced to one. There was a regular succession of chaplains until A.D. 1690, when, owing to the ruinous state of the church, public worship therein was discontinued. After that the stipend, amounting to between thirty and forty pounds continued to be paid for more than a century, but the recipient never did duty. This church was used by the Castle Garrison for about 600 years, and during that time many distinguished persons were buried within it, while for the soldiers and their families there was a burial ground on the south and east sides of the church, within the limits of the Roman entrenchment. After the discontinuance of the services in 1690 the burials in the Castle Churchyard ceased, the Castle Garrison interments, which were few, taking place mostly at St. James's Church." (JBJ 1916)

The church fell into ruins in the Stuart period and was restored by Sir Gilbert Scott in 1860. Apparently, the bells of the church were originally hung in the Pharos tower, which was extended for the purpose; when they ceased to be used, they were given to a church in Portsmouth. This gave rise to the saying that the bells of Dover Castle could be heard in Portsmouth.

The church plate was lent to the clergy of St. James's, which was then used by the garrison.

"In 1780 the ruins of the Castle Church were converted into a cooperage and storehouse, and in 1794 it was transformed into a barrack room, but, on Christmas Day, 1801, the south-west corner of the nave collapsed, and large portions of the south and west walls fell. The interior was then choked up with debris, but in 1808 it was cleared out and used as a coal store. Having been reduced to these base uses for a period of 170 years, in 1860 its restoration was taken hand by Sir Gilbert Scott, on behalf of the War Department, and in 1862, the edifice with its ancient architectural features carefully preserved, was re-opened as the Castle Garrison Church, and placed in charge of the Senior Chaplain of the Forces at Dover." (JBJ 1916)

"The Rev. Canon Puckle, who very minutely examined the structure during its restoration in 1860, and Mr. Loftus Brock, Secretary of the Royal Archaeological Institute, both regarded this church as of Roman period; and the Rev. S. P. H. Statham, who appears to have very carefully considered all that has been written about it, came to the conclusion that the church was originally built as a Roman fortress, probably in the first century of the Christian era, and converted into a church during the last century of the Roman occupation of Britain." (J.B.J. 1907)

It would seem that Bavington Jones did not read what Canon Puckle had to say in his description of the building:
"... the plainest argument is furnished by the consideration of the materials themselves. Without dwelling on the absence of any recorded testimony, wee see, I think, internal evidence enough against any pure Roman origin of this building. There is no tufa to be found in it, while tufa may be called almost the staple material of the Roman tower adjoining. So very characteristic a sign of Roman building must indicate by its absence that Roman builders were not the workmen here. And the interval must probably have been considerable between the time when this material was so freely employed, and when it had passed so entirely into disuse.

"Again, neither of the two descriptions of concrete, or mortar, found in the Tower, can be identified with that which occurs uniformly in all parts of the Church. The difference might not be thought great; but it is peculiar and well-defined. The former was a more simple concrete, consisting mostly of red brick coarsely ground up, and lime; in the latter the use of pounded brick no longer remained, but ingredients and proportions more like those now in common use, of small gravel, lime, and sand. And though there is nothing in this to indicate the limits of any interval, it clearly assists in pointing to some considerable difference between the respective periods of the Pharos and the Church." (Rev. J. P. 1864)

After considering the quality of the architecture, which he suggests is influenced by the Romans and of a much higher standard in both design and construction than that of the Anglo-Saxon period, Puckle concludes that the likely date for the founding of the church is the early part of the 4th century.

The Parish Records for St. Mary-in-Castro can be found with those of Guston, in which parish the church was originally situated. They are deposited at the Canterbury Cathedral Archives.

www.dover.freeuk.com/church/smcastro.htm

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From the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries this atmospheric church was a roofless ruin. This goes some way to explaining its Victorian character today. The main walls date from the tenth century when the church was built adjacent to the Roman Pharos within the earthworks of Dover Castle. In 1860 Sir George Gilbert Scott brought the church back into use and his are the roof, windows and doors. Where the rubble stonework and re-used Roman tile had decayed Scott replaced it with uncompromising brick. The window surrounds were designed as before - to such an extent that if we did not have access to early photographs we would assume they were original. In 1889 another architect of national repute, William Butterfield, covered the inside walls with a series of mosaics that give the church the appearance of a huge bathroom. Some earlier features still manage to peep through the Victorian veil, especially the blocked south doorway of tall Saxon proportions and the thirteenth-century two-seater sedilia and double piscina in the chancel. The church is open to visitors to Dover Castle.

www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Dover+2

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Out of the remains of part of the above-mentioned Roman buildings here, a Christian church was erected, as most historians write, by Lucius, king of Britain, about the year 161; but it is much to be doubted whether there ever was such a king in Britain; if there was, he was only a tributary chief to the Roman emperor, under whose peculiar government Britain was then accounted. This church was built, no doubt, for the use of that part of the garrison in particular, who were at that time believers of the gospel, and afterwards during the different changes of the Christian and Pagan religions in these parts, was made use of accordingly, till St. Augustine, soon after the year 597, at the request of king Ethelbert, reconsecrated it, and dedicated it anew, in honour of the blessed Virgin Mary.

His son and successor Eadbald, king of Kent, founded a college of secular canons and a provost in this church, whose habitations, undoubtedly near it, there are not the least traces of. These continued here till after the year 691; when Widred, king of Kent, having increated the fortifications, and finding the residence of the religious within them an incumbrance, removed them from hence into the town of Dover, to the antient church of St. Martin; in the description of which hereafter, a further account of them will be given.

On the removal of these canons it seems probable, that king Widred immediately pulled down their college, but the church remained as such for the use of the garrison; and in later times, as appears by the wills in the prerogative-office, in Canterbury, it came to be esteemed a parochial church, having the district of the castle as a parish to it, by the name of the parish of the blessed Virgin Mary, within the castle of Dover. This church had afterwards three chaplains allotted for the service in it, who were permitted to wear the habit of canons, on account of the antient foundation of such within it; and it continued in that state till the reformation in king Henry VIII.'s reign, when they were removed, and one chaplain only was appointed in their room, who officiated in it till about the end of king Charles I.'s reign, and then the church seems to have been disused, (fn. 3) and afterwards fell to ruin; the tower between the body and chancel, and part of the walls, are the only remains of it at this time. The chaplain is still appointed, who enjoys the antient salary; but as he never performs any duty, or even resides here, his appointment is made more to answer political than religious purposes; and the inhabitants of the castle know little further of him than by name.

There have been several persons of eminence buried in this church, particularly Sir Robert Asheton, constable and warden of the cinque ports, who died in 1384; but the stone, having his effigies and inscription in brass, has been long since broken to pieces, and the brass stolen. Sir Richard Malmains, his lieutenant, beside him; but his stone is gone. John Copeldike, lieutenant of this castle in king Henry VIII.'s reign, having had a monument erected to his memory, now gone. On the right-hand side of the south chapel, was buried in a marble coffin, Henry Howard, earl of Northampton, constable and warden, who died in 1614. A noble monument was erected over him of great cost and beauty; but by reason of the ruinous condition of this church, the earl's body, as well as the monument, was moved by the mercer's company in 1696, to the chapel of the hospital at Greenwich, founded by him. A stone remains, with the marks of the effigies of a religious, mitred; the brass long since torn away. William Crispe, lieutenant of the castle, who died in 1576; and afterwards Sir James Wake in 1632, were both buried in this church. Besides which, in the wills in the prerogative-office, Canterbury, mention is made of several more persons buried here.

www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol9/pp475-548

Taken on: March 16, 2024

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