Summary

Eastbridge Church 250m north-west of Paddock Cottage.

Source: Historic England

Details

This record was the subject of a minor enhancement on 30 July 2014. The record has been generated from an "old county number" (OCN) scheduling record. These are monuments that were not reviewed under the Monuments Protection Programme and are some of our oldest designation records.

The monument includes a medieval parish church surviving as upstanding and buried remains. It is situated on level ground ENE of Newchurch on Romney Marsh.

A drainage ditch surrounds the church, forming an island with an entrance, denoted by a break in the ditch, on the south side onto Chapel Lane. The stone walls and footings of the church include the west tower, north porch, nave and chancel. The upstanding remains are best preserved at the west wall of the nave and the north and south walls of the tower, which are up to 8.5m high. The church walls contain masonry work dating from the 12th century to the 14th century. The chancel has an irregular plan and is thought to be of the 14th century. It contains the remains of a brick altar.

Eastbridge Church was built in about the 12th century. In the 13th century a new west front is thought to have been built onto the nave. The tower is also likely to have been a later addition, and incorporates re-used 12th century material in its fabric. According to Edward Hasted’s ‘History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent’ of 1799, the church was an appendage to the manor of Eastbridge, which was given to the hospital of St Mary in Dover during the 13th century. A record of roofing works is documented in 1452, although soon after the church fell into disrepair. At the Dissolution of the Monasteries, it passed to Henry VIII. In 1547, King Edward VI granted it to Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury. It was still in possession of the see of Canterbury in 1799. The parish of Eastbridge was partitioned between Burmarsh and Newchurch parishes in 1934. The chancel of the church was partially excavated in 1933. Consolidation work was carried out to the walls in the early 1990s. The standing remains of the church are Grade II listed.

Source: Historic England

Reasons for Scheduling

A parish church is a building, usually of roughly rectangular outline and containing a range of furnishings and fittings appropriate to its use for Christian worship by a secular community, whose members gather in it on Sundays and on the occasion of religious festivals. Children are initiated into the Christian religion at the church's font and the dead are buried in its churchyard. Parish churches were designed for congregational worship and are generally divided into two main parts: the nave, which provides accommodation for the laity, and the chancel, which is the main domain of the priest and contains the principal altar. Either or both parts are sometimes provided with aisles, giving additional accommodation or spaces for additional altars. Most parish churches also possess towers, generally at the west end, but central towers at the crossing of nave and chancel are not uncommon and some churches have a free-standing or irregularly sited tower. Many parish churches also possess transepts at the crossing of chancel and nave, and south or north porches are also common. The main periods of parish church foundation were in the 10th to 11th and 19th centuries. Most medieval churches were rebuilt and modified on a number of occasions and hence the visible fabric of the church will be of several different dates, with in some cases little fabric of the first church being still easily visible.

Eastbridge church survives relatively well; the upstanding remains of the tower forming a visible feature in the landscape. It is recorded in documentary sources and provides a significant testament to the medieval history of the parish of Eastbridge. The site will contain archaeological information and environmental evidence relating to the construction, use and history of the church and the landscape in which it was constructed.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Websites
'Parishes: Eastbridge', The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent, Vol 8 (1799), 276-280 , accessed from http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=63485
Other
HER TR 03 SE 4. NMR TR 03 SE 4. PastScape 462964. LBS 175506,

Source: Historic England