All Saints'  Church,  Brixworth ,  Northamptonshire

     Brief Description and History

The village of Brixworth is c. 7 miles north of Northampton, situated on the old Northampton – Market Harborough road. The church stands on the high ground north-west of the village.

Today, the church consists of a west tower with a half-round stair-turret, an aisleless nave, a square presbytery with a late medieval chapel to the south, and an apsidal chancel, which was partly rebuilt in the 19th century. Encircling the chancel are the remains of a ring-crypt.

The Peterborough Chronicle of Hugh Candidus relates that a monastery was founded at Brixworth by Cuthbald in 675, when he became abbot of Peterborough. What remains of the original church is consistent with a late 7th century date.

The main fabric of the church consists of stone rubble from a number of different sources, together with Roman tile and brick. In the later Anglo-Saxon period, tufa was used for the vault of the stair-turret and for other alterations. Later medieval and modern alterations have tended to use dressed stone. A detailed examination of the stonework has been carried out, see Sutherland & Parsons, 1985.

The original (probably late 7th century) monastic church consisted of a two-story west porch with two side chambers to the north and south, forming a narthex of five en suite compartments; a rectangular nave with four porticus to the north and to the south and an almost square presbytery with a north porticus (and possibly one to the south, although the evidence for this disappeared with the construction of the 14th century Verdun chapel). The nature of the original chancel is uncertain. The plan and section to the right – taken from Fernie 1983 - does not show the porticus to the north of the presbytery, although it does show the doorway that leads to it.

Subsequent to this, a ring crypt was built with doorways entering through the east wall of the presbytery (now blocked). Taylor((Taylor & Taylor, 1965, p. 109) suggests in the late 8th century for this addition; Crook (Crook, 2000, p. 104) points out that "the crypt is best related to Carolingian developments of the late eighth or early ninth century". The ambulatory of the crypt was originally vaulted, but is now open to the elements.

It appears that the monastery may have suffered badly during the Viking raids of the 9th century. In the 10th century the church was restored, or altered. The narthex flanking the porch, and the porticus flanking the nave and presbytery were demolished and their arches blocked. The chancel was rebuilt as a polygonal apse and the west porch was extended into a tower. The original west door to the porch was partially blocked and a smaller doorway set off centre to the south led into a newly constructed half-round stair-turret with a tunnel vault built of tufa. At some subsequent date the original north door to the porch was blocked.

The Domesday Book mentions a priest:

Brixworth 9½ hides. Land for 35 ploughs. In lordship 2;
    14 villagers with a priest and 15 small holders who have
      15 ploughs.
2 mills at 33s 4d; meadow, 8 acres.
To this manor belongs 1 woodland which paid 100s a year;
it is now in the King’s Forest.

     Illustrated Notes

The two-storeyed porch formed the original western entry to the church. On the ground floor were four doorways: the western entry door (now partially blocked and with an off-centre 10th century door to the stair-turret inserted); the eastern door leading into the church, which is still in existence, and the north and south doors which originally led into the north and south chambers of the narthex. The north door is now blocked and the south door forms the present-day entry to the tower.

At the first-floor level of the porch, a similar door in the eastern wall opened into the church, presumably giving access to an upper gallery. This doorway was blocked in the late Saxon period when the porch was converted into a tower.

Excavations in 1981-2 produced evidence of

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