GET TO GRIPS WITH TIME

Want to know the age of a church building?

Look at the shape of the windows in an old church, they might give you a clue about how old it is.

Heritage detectives should try to start their detective work by looking at the doorways and window openings of a church building. This can be done from the outside but if you have the chance to go inside go and have a look at from the inside.  When Arthur was a boy all the windows in churches were the round headed windows of the Norman (Romanesque) style.  They were quite small and built high up in the thick walls, they didn't give out much light.  If you look at theses windows from the inside of the building you will see how the builders splayed out the stone to use the light as effectively as possible.

As a teenager and a squire to Stephen de Holt Arthur started to travel around the country.  He would have seen churches with wooden scaffolding and workmen replacing the window, they made the openings in the walls bigger and put in new windows with pointed arches. Look for that shape on the windows timeline and then look for the next shape the builders would use and think about the difference that would make to the building.

Sometimes if you look very carefully at the stone work you may see the remnants of the old tiny windows, many openings were probably blocked up when the new windows were inserted in the walls somewhere else. 

Take a look at the windows timeline below to see how things developed right up to Tudor times but do take care - in the 19th century many churches were restored. The fashion at the time was often to return them to what was considered to be the medieval style, the ‘correct’ architecture for a church! This can be confusing for young heritage detectives but if you find yourself in this position it might be worth looking more closely at the state of the stonework.  The Victorians had the technology to cut the stonework by machine so the resulting edges tend to be crisper than their medieval counterparts.Again take care because sandstone deteriorates more quickly than some other stone work and may look very old when it is not! (take a look at St. Leonard's Bridgnorth it was almost completely restored in Victorian times but looks very much older)