Ship of Fools: Ripon Cathedral - the oldest Christian Church in the whole of England

Thread: Ripon Cathedral - the oldest Christian Church in the whole of England Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :

I keep on seeing a post from Flicr with a nice picture of the East End of Ripon Cathedral withthe weird comment: "I have spent so much time in this grand Cathedral, volunteering by giving tours. The oldest Christian Church in the whole of England."

Surely that can't be true? Shouldn't the Dean and Chapter of Ripon train their volunteer guides? Kent and Northumbria were evangelised before St Wilfred founded Ripon around 670.

Any candidates for teh oldest Christian Church in the whole of England?

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

Surely it is St. Martin's, Canterbury?

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

Off the top of my head, what about St Bride's in Fleet St (London) or St Albans?

(Do they have to be the original buildings or can it have been rebuilt on that site?)

Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :

What about St. Peter's (or St. Cedd's) at Bradwell? Allegedly built in 654 (?in wood) and rebuilt a few years later, using recycled Roman materials. Admittedly it hasn't been used continually for worship. It's a truly amazing place.

Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :

Yes, Bradwell was in my mind as well.

The silly poster doesn't say whether s/he means the foundation or the current structure.

OK Ripon has a tiny crypt dating from the time of St Wilfred, ie 670s, but St Cedd built Bradwell in the 650s.

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
Off the top of my head, what about St Bride's in Fleet St (London) or St Albans?

(Do they have to be the original buildings or can it have been rebuilt on that site?)

I'm not sure but is there anything in this that takes matters back well into the Roman occupation? I'm sure some of it is better than legend.

There were certainly priests and bishops before St Augustine set foot in Britain.

Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :

There's the remains of a chapel at Richborough Roman Fort but I think it's Saxon.

Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :

I've written to one of the Canons of Ripon for elucidation. I just can't work out the basis of the claim.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

Also from Kent, there is the worship room at Lullingstone villa - presumably a church in the sense of having a gathered community. And the isolated and now ruined chapel of Our Lady of Elwarton at Stone by Faversham which may or may not have been adapted from a Roman mausoleum early enough to count as Roman. Dating peculiar, but at least Anglo Saxon for first church use. Then there is whatever community led to the naming of Eccles in Aylesford. (And all the other Eccleses as well.)

Posted by Og, King of Bashan (# 9562) on :

quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
Shouldn't the Dean and Chapter of Ripon train their volunteer guides?

Former tour guide here. Let's just say that lots of tour guides like to spice things up a bit to make their tour a little more memorable. I used to work with a guy named Mark, who was a tour guide by day and town drunk by night. Really nice guy, actually. You could always tell when someone had taken his tour because they would come up to you when he was on his post-tour smoke break and ask about the ghost, the tree where they used to hang people, or some other completely made up story. To this day, if someone in my family goes on a tour and gets fed line after line of obvious crap, we call it "getting the Mark tour."

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

Ripon Cathedral certainly has some very early Anglo-Saxon work in it - from what is probably one of the earliest stone-built churches in Saxon England.

There is a good example of an early Saxon church at Bradford upon Avon near Bath, too.

As for church buildings in Romano-British times -- well, there are some possible candidates but their provenance is doubtful. There were certainly bishops in Britain before St Augustine's mission - three British bishops attended a council at Arles in 312AD if I remember rightly (without looking it up) -- and it's presumed that they were bishops of London, Lincoln (or possibly York) and Exeter.

Today we commemorate the martyrdom of St Alban - the first recorded Christian martyr in these islands. The date is disputed - with 209, 251 and 304 being suggested dates.

There were also early martyrs, possibly Roman soldiers, called Julius and Aaron who were killed outside 'The City of The Legions' - either Chester or Caerleon. There are churches dedicated to them not far from where you are, Sioni Sais and I think the suburb of St Julian's in Newport may be named after one of them ...

Nobody knows exactly when Christianity arrived in Roman Britain - St Gildas seems to suggest in his 5th century writings (one of the sources Bede used) that it didn't arrive until after the time of the Emperor Claudius - but the wording is ambiguous and some suggest he is saying that it arrived as early as that.

There is an early tradition that the brother of the Barnabas mentioned in Acts first brought Christianity here in the late 1st century - but this is very hazy and speculative.

A more likely date seems sometime in the 2nd or 3rd century, probably by soldiers or traders.

By the time St Augustine of Canterbury arrived in 597AD, Christianity had largely disappeared from what is now England - and was confined to what is now Wales, Cornwall, Ireland and Scotland. There may have been some scattered or individual believers in what is now England - I've an idea that the Anglo-Saxon King of Kent had a Christian wife at that time - through a dynastic marriage arrangement with a French chieftain or petty king.

As for Roman buildings that might have been churches -- there have been suggestions of such at Caerwent and other Roman civil settlements but there's no hard and fast evidence. The Roman villa at Lullingstone in Kent is the only one we know of with proven Christian iconography - the Chi-Rho monogram - and a pagan shrine there may have been converted into a Christian chapel.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lullingstone_Roman_Villa

Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:

As for Roman buildings that might have been churches -- there have been suggestions of such at Caerwent and other Roman civil settlements but there's no hard and fast evidence. The Roman villa at Lullingstone in Kent is the only one we know of with proven Christian iconography - the Chi-Rho monogram - and a pagan shrine there may have been converted into a Christian chapel.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lullingstone_Roman_Villa

That's not correct, the Chi-Rho was also found at Chedworth in Gloucestershire.

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

Ok - If I've got my villas mixed up ... so has Wikipedia.

I've been to Chedworth and although there are hints of early Christian activity there, I think you'll find that the Chi-Rho monograph is actually at Lullingstone.

There's a picture of it on the Wikipedia site and even though Wikipedia isn't known for accuracy at all times, no-one appears to have challenged it.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lullingstone_Roman_Villa

If I'm wrong, then so is the British Museum.

http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/pe_prb/p/wall_painting_from_roman_villa.aspx

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:

There were also early martyrs, possibly Roman soldiers, called Julius and Aaron who were killed outside 'The City of The Legions' - either Chester or Caerleon. There are churches dedicated to them not far from where you are, Sioni Sais and I think the suburb of St Julian's in Newport may be named after one of them ...

The St Julian's Church in Wales parish church is dedicated to SS Julius & Aaron, although the website admits little is known about them.

The Welsh bishops are also said to have met St Augustine in 597 at Aust, just over the River Severn in England.

Posted by Jengie jon (# 273) on :

It depends how you define oldest. I think there are some remains around St Albans that might make that claim.

Jengie

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

Sorry - I misread your post ... there was one at Chedworth too - scratched on the side of the spring-fed pool.

So yes, there was one there - but it wasn't as clear as the one at Lullingstone where it was an actual wall painting rather than something scratched crudely onto the stone as at Chedworth.

So there are only two extant examples of early Christian monograms known from Roman Britain - but of course, not a great deal of pictorial material has survived - unlike pottery and coins, household objects and so on.

It would seem to the case that there were 'house-churches' rather like those found in Roman Syria in villas and towns in Roman Britain.

There are hints, come to think of it, of ecclesial type structures/architecture at Viroconium - Wroxeter - and that of a fairly late date - it's thought that urban life continued there well into the 5th century.

Of course, so-called 'Celtic Christianity' - the continuation of Romano-British Christianity into the immediate post-Roman period, is mostly associated with monasteries and hermitages in remote spots -- but it's interesting that the 'power-house' of Christianity in post-Roman South Wales lay at Llantwit Major - Llanilltyd Fawr.

St Illtyd had some kind of seminary there and it was a fertile and well populated area in Roman times - with farms and villas etc. Loads of Saints emerged from there - St David, St Cadoc, St Tathan ...

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

Yes, Jengie, there are certainly suggestions that there was some kind of shrine at St Albans from a very early date. St Germanus of Auxerre is said to have visited it during one of his one - or possibly two- visits to Britain to combat the Pelagian heresy - the first around about 429AD.

Much of the earlier Roman and Saxon work was demolished by the Normans to make way for their Abbey - and stone and tiles from the Roman city were reused in the Abbey tower. So it's highly unlikely that any of the extant, visible remains of Roman Verulamium are connected with early Christianity - although some of the stone from earlier religious structures may well have found their way into the Abbey as we see it today.

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

Yes, the meeting at Aust comes from Bede's account, Sioni Sais - and as you're probably aware, the Welsh bishops are said to have walked out because Augustine remained seating when they came in and didn't rise to greet them -- a gesture that implied that he didn't recognise their orders.

I've seen the graves of early Christian 'bishops' or 'elders' in Dumfries and Galloway.

These date from the 5th or 6th century, I think:

http://www.dumfriesmuseum.demon.co.uk/kirkmadrine.html

Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on :

There is also a famous mosaic found in Hinton St Mary. https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hinton_St_Mary.jpg

I suspect there are actually more Roman Christian symbols in the UK than are generally suggested.

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

Right - thanks for that, mr cheesy - I'm familiar with that image but didn't know where it was. I'd assumed Lullingstone.

I'm sure there were a lot more around.

There used to be tendency to identify any oblong building with what looked like an apse at one end as an early Christian church. That's what happened at Caerwent, for instance, but the prevailing view today, from what I can gather, is that the jury's out.

It could have been a barn.

I noticed when I visited Chedworth that there were attempts to play-down the early Christian connections -- I wondered whether this was revisionism for revisionism's sake or some form of archaeological political correctness gone wrong ...

[Big Grin]

No doubt some Shipmates would be tempted to interpret it that way. 'Look, these revisionist historians are air-brushing out our Christian heritage!'

Perhaps the pendulum has swung too far the other way than it was swinging in Victorian and Edwardian times when almost any excavated Roman building whose purpose was unclear was proclaimed to be an early Christian church, it seems ...

Posted by kingsfold (# 1726) on :

St Amphibalus was the chap who was supposed to have converted St Alban and the aforementioned Julius and Aaron wasn't he? . If memory serves, there's a shrine in the Abbey at St Albans, and he's supposed to have died in the early 300s or something....

[ 22. June 2015, 21:49: Message edited by: kingsfold ]

Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on :

Surely Escomb in Durham diocese has to be a contender? Consensus seems to have the present building being built in the 670s, but that circular churchyard says Celtic to me.

Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Og, King of Bashan:

quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
Shouldn't the Dean and Chapter of Ripon train their volunteer guides?
Former tour guide here. Let's just say that lots of tour guides like to spice things up a bit to make their tour a little more memorable. I used to work with a guy named Mark, who was a tour guide by day and town drunk by night. Really nice guy, actually. You could always tell when someone had taken his tour because they would come up to you when he was on his post-tour smoke break and ask about the ghost, the tree where they used to hang people, or some other completely made up story. To this day, if someone in my family goes on a tour and gets fed line after line of obvious crap, we call it "getting the Mark tour."

As it happens I spent one year with two lectures a week plus a day of visits, followed by over a week's exams, written and mainly practical to become an Institute of Tourist Guiding Blue Badge London guide. If we had invented stories and failed to give accurate information, we would not have qualified.

It is irritates me deeply that the public are offered this sort of ignorant rubbish.

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Yes, the meeting at Aust comes from Bede's account, Sioni Sais - and as you're probably aware, the Welsh bishops are said to have walked out because Augustine remained seating when they came in and didn't rise to greet them -- a gesture that implied that he didn't recognise their orders.

Or so they interpreted it. I'm afraid I've always thought that there was something rather typical of a certain type of Welsh defensive sensitivity in this story: the kind of prickliness that would centuries later inform a particular flavour of 'respectable' Welsh Nonconformity.

Posted by Yangtze (# 4965) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I've an idea that the Anglo-Saxon King of Kent had a Christian wife at that time - through a dynastic marriage arrangement with a French chieftain or petty king.

Yes, Queen Bertha. Who worshipped at St Martin's which as someone said upthread, could lay a strong claim to be the oldest church in England.

There is a bricked up Anglo-Saxon gateway in the city wall still known as the Queningate which is purportedly where she walked through to get to the church. (Though the term Queningate is mainly known in the city now as there's a carpark alongside it named after it. What *is* it with English royalty and carparks?)

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

There's also Greenstead Church - built following St Cedd's mission to East Anglia, still used in regular worship. Excavations revealed wooden structures that date back to the 6th and 7th centuries.

That one I've visited, the next few are places I've worshipped, lacking links as the system doesn't like the apostrophes in the wiki links:

St Mary's Lindisfarne was founded by St Aidan in 635.

All Saints' Church, Brixworth (youtube link) - which is one of the churches I was looking for when finding churches for LeRoc a few weeks ago.

St Peter's Church, Monkwearmouth still has walls from Bede's time.

Posted by bib (# 13074) on :

Does it really matter which is the oldest? This all sounds like one-upmanship to me.

Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :

Someone is claiming Ripon Cathedral is "the oldest church" which is manifestly untrue. They've commented "St. Martin's is the oldest church building, but was for private use...Ripon has always been for everyone".

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

Helpful hint. Instead of posting a long url, perhaps you could give your hyperlink a practical, descriptive short name, and not potentially break the scroll lock?

Thanks!

Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on :

quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
Someone is claiming Ripon Cathedral is "the oldest church" which is manifestly untrue. They've commented "St. Martin's is the oldest church building, but was for private use...Ripon has always been for everyone".

Well, quite possibly - but given that there is a lot of misinformation about (as briefly indicated in this thread), I'm not sure it is that much of a surprise. In fact, further archaeological evidence may eventually show that one of these, or other locations, are actually the "oldest church building in the UK".

Lots of people make claims about being the "oldest" thing - there is a longstanding discussion in my family about the UK's oldest school, it turns out that all the protagonists making claims are wrong. The problem is that a) all the schools are very old and b) once a story is repeated enough times it sticks, even though there is little actual evidence for it. The fact that all the schools mentioned are very old seems to get lost in a pointless debate about which is oldest - as if age proves anything.

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

Yes, indeed, there are any number of contenders for the UK's oldest pub or the UK's highest pub - I know at least two which claim the latter and there are possibly up to half a dozen which claim the former ...

I think the safest thing we can say is that parts of Ripon Cathedral are among the oldest stone built ecclesiastical structures we know of in the UK.

The same might equally be true of several other places.

On VenBede's point about the rigour of official London Tour Guide training -- I have a friend who has done it and I can vouch for the rigour and accuracy of the training provided and insisted upon.

By and large, I think tour guides across the UK are better trained and informed than they were when I were a lad, as it were. Not just the official London ones but those at privately owned country houses and so on. I visited one such the other week with Mrs Gamaliel and I was very impressed by the accuracy and knowledge of the volunteer tour guide - as good as anything one could have found with a professional working at an English Heritage or National Trust site.

Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :

There are Blue Badge (Institute of Tourist Guiding) guides qualified for all areas of England, Wales and Northern Ireland, not just London.

There are two sides to guiding: the knowledge and the presentation skills. Now I'm trained I very much appreciate watching a guide with good skills even if they don't tell me anything I don't know.

I've known very good country house volunteer guides. I'm sorry to say I've been deeply unimpressed by volunteer cathedral guides. My quote confirms my suspicions.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

In North-West Kent, not many miles from Lullingstone, was found the curious Darenth Bowl (middle right and next page) with a Chi-Rho design (the text also refers to a Chi-Rho in plaster at Otford): the burial did not include the usual goods (spear etc) for a grave of this age, just the glass bowl and a cooking pot.

Posted by Bishops Finger (# 5430) on :

Whichever surviving church (or fragment) might or might not be the oldest, at least we are reminded in a salutary fashion that the Christian faith has been alive and kicking in these islands from a very early period.

Which IMHO is encouraging in these post-Christian and apostate times, coz many of these churches had their ups and downs, as we do in our own day.

Ian J.

Posted by HughWillRidmee (# 15614) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
There's also Greenstead Church - built following St Cedd's mission to East Anglia, still used in regular worship. Excavations revealed wooden structures that date back to the 6th and 7th centuries.

That one I've visited, the next few are places I've worshipped, lacking links as the system doesn't like the apostrophes in the wiki links:

St Mary's Lindisfarne was founded by St Aidan in 635.

All Saints' Church, Brixworth (youtube link) - which is one of the churches I was looking for when finding churches for LeRoc a few weeks ago.

St Peter's Church, Monkwearmouth still has walls from Bede's time.

Whether Brixworth is the oldest may be questionable, it was originally (pre-670CE?) a monastic foundation and the current church (which might be the original or could be as late as 750CE) incorporates tiles from a then nearby roman villa. It has been added to of course, one of the more modern parts being a tower with a stair turret which was only completed during the tenth century.

"perhaps the most imposing architectural monument of the 7th century yet surviving north of the Alps"
-- Sir Alfred Clapham

Whether or not you invest the building with sacred connotations it is a wonderful testimony to the skills of Saxon builders. I recommend a visit if you're ever in the area.

Just for a temporal balance, Brixworth also contains the site where 500 highly skilled people are employed developing and producing the Mercedes F1 engines.

Posted by Waw consecutivum (# 18120) on :

There is a 7th-century Church in Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire, built, so I'm informed, by St Aldhelm of Sherborne. It is tiny - about the size of a bus shelter.

It's dedicated to St. Lawrence.

http://www.eg.bucknell.edu/~hyde/England/PicsJan9a/13SaxonChurch.JPG

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Waw consecutivum:
There is a 7th-century Church in Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire, built, so I'm informed, by St Aldhelm of Sherborne. It is tiny - about the size of a bus shelter.

It's dedicated to St. Lawrence.

http://www.eg.bucknell.edu/~hyde/England/PicsJan9a/13SaxonChurch.JPG

And well worth a visit, as is the nearby parish church.

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