C. F. Routledge

“ The building of this tower has probably destroyed some interesting feature, that stood at the west end of the original church. This may have been a western apse (so common in early basilicas) or perhaps a baptistery, or a chamber with an arch on each of its four sides. Whatever it be, is at present a matter of conjecture, but further explorations may solve the mystery; and wise men will forbear to dogmatise, when their positive theories may at any moment be overthrown. ”

“ There is, indeed, one story which we are very loath to surrender—viz. the story that St. Joseph of Arimathea was sent, with twelve companions, to Britain by the Apostle St. Philip (about 63 A.D.) settled in the Isle of Avalon or Glastonbury, and founded there a monastery, striking his staff into the earth, and making it burst, like Aaron's rod, into leaf, and bloom with the blossom of the Holy Thorn. This legend, indeed, is not actually recorded in writing before William of Malmesbury in the twelfth century, but it may have rested on earlier local tradition. ”

“ Those who argue against its Roman date bid us be content with the assurance that it is undoubtedly the oldest church in England, and tell us that, when St. Augustine knew it, it was small, but quite large enough for the small body of Christians who came over here with Queen Bertha, that it was probably built for her and them, though [92] it may have been on the site of a British church. This gives us a continuous record of 1300 years and more. But we are not content! for we believe that it is the oldest existing church in Europe. ”

“ And we give for what it is worth the opinion of Mr Roach Smith, an experienced antiquary, who gave special attention to Roman work, and who states in a letter written on January 6, 1883: "There are many examples of churches being built upon the remains of Roman buildings, no doubt often temples, and not unfrequently of a small size. Some instances are very remarkable, as that of Britford, near Salisbury, at old Verulam, etc. I have ever had a belief that St. Martin's Church is founded upon, or built upon, or built into, a Roman temple." ”

“ With regard to the comparative antiquity of the nave and chancel, no positive judgment has yet been arrived at. Hasted, indeed, ventured on the opinion that the latter was the more ancient, but he also believed that the chancel was built about the year 200 A.D., and had not the benefit of the recent explorations, so that his opinion is, in itself, of little value. But it has been adopted on scientific and architectural grounds by the Rev. G. M. Livett (who has paid careful attention to the architecture and masonry of the church) and by other distinguished antiquaries. ”

“ Martin's seems to us to agree pretty closely with the technical description of Roman masonry in this country as "chiefly constructed of stone or flint, according to the part of the country in which one or the other material prevailed, embedded in mortar, and bonded at certain intervals throughout with regular courses or layers of large flat bricks or tiles, which, from the inequality of thickness and size, do not appear to have been shaped in any regular mould." ”

“ Martin's was the oldest church in England; but the proofs of antiquity were not obvious at a casual glance, and the Early English chancel arch presented itself most obtrusively to the view, the walls of the nave, too, being covered with a [63] thick layer of modern-looking yellowish plaster. It is rather amusing, sometimes, to hear the comments and to observe the behaviour of casual visitors. Many of them are from the United States of America, where the church is placed on the "list of sights" to be seen during their European tour. ”

“ The whole controversy as to the existence of an Eastern apse is so interesting and important, but at the same time so technical for the ordinary reader, that we have placed, in Appendix C, a contribution which Mr Livett has kindly sent to us, with the hope that it may be extensively read and pondered by all those, whether antiquaries or otherwise, who desire to weigh every point connected with the architecture and plan of the church. ”

“ Imagination would picture to itself the reverence felt for so sacred and venerable a spot, yet the fact remains, that up to a recent date the present church was regarded simply as a memorial of the past, a monument erected on the site of the ancient edifice, and reproducing some of its characteristic materials. ”

“ Just as there is good and bad Saxon work, good and bad Norman work, so must there have been good and bad Roman work. We are told in an account of the Roman excavations at Silchester that "examination showed that the rubble masonry of the whole western range (of the basilica) was of a very poor character." "The stones (in a part of the Roman wall of London) form a mere skin, between the tile bonding courses, to the thick irregular rubble core." ”

“ On either side of the arch, at a distance of 2 ft., are two windows (the upper 18 ins. of which, as they now appear, are an extension made in Saxon or Norman times) . The original windows (below this extension) have their jambs of chalk-blocks filled in with white mortar, while the arches are turned in Roman bricks and rough voussoirs of Kentish rag-stone, with interstices of bright pink mortar. These windows are certainly built more Romano, and no sufficient evidence has yet been brought forward to upset the opinion strongly held by many archæologists—that they are Roman. ”

“ It seems useless to multiply quotations for the purpose of establishing an obvious fact—viz. that granting a general idea and method pervading a building (as, we believe, there is clearly in St. Martin's nave) , it is quite possible that at a time of decadence, and in the hands of inferior (perhaps British) workmen, this idea should be somewhat roughly carried out. This would be eminently the case if we attribute the erection of the nave towards the close of the fourth century—not so very long before the Roman evacuation of Britain. ”

“ To account for the comparatively easy conquest of Britain in the middle of the fifth century, we are bidden to remember that the Roman rule, which had at first been of a civilising character, and had fostered commerce and the various arts, had in its latter period degenerated into corruption. ”

“ We can imagine it studded here and there with Roman villas, of which some remains in the shape of tesselated pavements were discovered two or three centuries ago—and crowned possibly by a small Roman encampment; while the church, situated only a few yards off the road to Richborough, would frequently have been seen and admired by soldiers on their march from the sea coast to the great fortress of London, or to the southern stations at Lympne and Dover. ”

“ Clemente cannot enter into the comparison, for they have been almost entirely rebuilt—and in France and Germany nothing has survived down to our own time, except a few fragments of the many large churches constructed during the Roman occupation. We all desire that truth should prevail; but that truth must be established by intimate acquaintance with every detail of the building and a knowledge of the latest explorations, and not depend on facts accepted from hearsay, or a desire to establish any preconceived theory. ”

“ If we take away the sketchy chiselling, for which we have suggested a possible reason, no one would consider the St. Martin's font to be of Norman workmanship. Moreover, the sides of the font internally are extremely rough, and it is unlike the Normans to bestow so little in the way of finish.
We may conclude (as I have said) with some confidence that Ethelbert was baptised in St. Martin's Church. No traces have been discovered there of a baptistery—nor, indeed, of any in England before that erected (about 750) by Cuthbert, Archbishop of Canterbury, to the east of the Cathedral. ”

“ Martin's is extremely well supplied, as (counting both ancient and modern ones) there are no less than six, though they were doubtless not all used at the same period. It would seem as if the architects of one age found a positive pleasure in blocking up and replacing doorways of preceding ages! At the south-west corner of the nave, immediately outside the font, is an Early English doorway or porch, seven feet wide, probably built in the thirteenth century, and now closed up with blocks of chalk, in the middle of which is inserted part of a two-light window. ”

“ We may be doubtful whether at so early an epoch, save perhaps in a few exceptional cases, they formed themselves into regular societies or congregations, and it is not likely that they erected for themselves permanent places of worship. No such antiquity as this can be claimed even for the remains of the Roman church found amid the ruins of Silchester; and church building, as it is generally understood, did not begin at Rome before the fourth century, and it would have taken a few years to spread thence to Gaul, and from Gaul to Britain. ”

“ The walls of the church form an interesting study, not only for their venerable aspect, but also for their irregularity. The brick courses in the Nave are pretty general throughout, sometimes at 9 inches apart, sometimes as much as 20 inches, [46] or even more. A great deal of old plaster is found externally in the middle of the south wall of the nave, and there are masses of Roman bricks congregated at the east and west ends of the same wall (the angles of the walls in public buildings being often composed entirely of bricks) ”

“ There is, however, one objection remaining which must be faced, because it is put forward with all the professional knowledge of a skilful architect. The nave of the church is described as "being built of old stuff used anyway just as it came to hand, and tells of a time when there were ruins near, at which the builders were free to help themselves—a state of things unlikely in Roman Kent, but likely enough after, the wars which accompanied the English occupation." ”

“ How far that masonry ran towards the north there is nothing to show. It is a significant fact—proved by the hole lately made through the twelfth-century wall, at its junction with the earlier work—that the end of the early-brick wall is in plane with the eastern face of the external buttress, and that no buttress ever existed on the eastern face of the angle. ”

“ Pancras, Reculver, Brixworth, Peterborough, Lympne, and Rochester there was a triple chancel-arch. In St. Martin's the space is too narrow to admit of any such arrangement. If we carry back the original building of St. Pancras to Roman times (and we must remember that King Ethelbert is said by Bede to have allowed the Italian Missionaries to build and repair churches in all places) we do away with the difficulty as "to the temple of the heathen god being built after the fashion of a Christian church." ”