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<< Our Photo Pages >> St Mary's Church (Chesham) - Natural Stone / Erratic / Other Natural Feature in England in Buckinghamshire

Submitted by NickyD on Friday, 30 October 2015  Page Views: 3961

Early Medieval (Dark Age)Site Name: St Mary's Church (Chesham)
Country: England
NOTE: This site is 4.333 km away from the location you searched for.

County: Buckinghamshire Type: Natural Stone / Erratic / Other Natural Feature
Nearest Town: Chesham
Map Ref: SP9566801521
Latitude: 51.704284N  Longitude: 0.616962W
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
2 Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
3 Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
5 Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
5

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willowman1 visited on 20th Sep 2017 - their rating: Cond: 5 Amb: 3 Access: 4

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St Mary's Church (Chesham)
St Mary's Church (Chesham) submitted by NickyD : Stone 1 (South) (NickyD) - Image copyright: stonesearcher, hosted on Flickr and displayed under the terms of their API. (Vote or comment on this photo)
Possible Bronze Age Stone Circle in Buckinghamshire

St Mary's Church in Chesham has puddingstones built into it's foundations, a semi circle of Yew trees (fairly old), all of which are built on a mound. The information provided inside St Mary's is that it's been built on a "Bronze Age stone circle of puddingstones".
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St Mary's Church (Chesham)
St Mary's Church (Chesham) submitted by NickyD : St Mary''s Church on a mound (NickyD) - Image copyright: stonesearcher, hosted on Flickr and displayed under the terms of their API. (Vote or comment on this photo)

St Mary's Church (Chesham)
St Mary's Church (Chesham) submitted by willowman1 : A more detailed plan of the puddingstones and their positions around St. Mary's church, Chesham. (Vote or comment on this photo)

St Mary's Church (Chesham)
St Mary's Church (Chesham) submitted by willowman1 : The idea for this church being built on a stone circle was instigated in 1952 by Dr. Ernest Rudge, who thought it was a key site on his supposed prehistoric 'Puddingstone Track'. Unfortunately, his notions on the cruciform nature of St. Mary's and the positions of the stones leave much to be desired. He and his wife thought there were "at least 19 stones of huge size" under the buttresse... (Vote or comment on this photo)

St Mary's Church (Chesham)
St Mary's Church (Chesham) submitted by NickyD : Stone 6 (North) (NickyD) - Image copyright: stonesearcher, hosted on Flickr and displayed under the terms of their API. (Vote or comment on this photo)

St Mary's Church (Chesham)
St Mary's Church (Chesham) submitted by NickyD : Stone 5 plus other small stones! (North West) (NickyD) - Image copyright: stonesearcher, hosted on Flickr and displayed under the terms of their API. (Vote or comment on this photo)

St Mary's Church (Chesham)
St Mary's Church (Chesham) submitted by NickyD : Stone 4 (SouthWest) (NickyD) - Image copyright: stonesearcher, hosted on Flickr and displayed under the terms of their API.

St Mary's Church (Chesham)
St Mary's Church (Chesham) submitted by NickyD : Stone 3 (South) (NickyD) - Image copyright: stonesearcher, hosted on Flickr and displayed under the terms of their API.

St Mary's Church (Chesham)
St Mary's Church (Chesham) submitted by NickyD : Stone 2 (South) (NickyD) - Image copyright: stonesearcher, hosted on Flickr and displayed under the terms of their API.

St Mary's Church (Chesham)
St Mary's Church (Chesham) submitted by NickyD : Google Street View showing a couple of the puddingstones in the foundations of the Church (1 comment)

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 2.7km ENE 75° Botley Puddingstones Natural Stone / Erratic / Other Natural Feature (SP983023)
 4.3km W 260° Great Missenden Puddingstone* Natural Stone / Erratic / Other Natural Feature (SP9142700686)
 4.7km ENE 60° Whelpley Hill* Hillfort (SP99680397)
 6.3km NNW 336° Cholesbury Camp* Hillfort (SP930072)
 8.0km E 85° Towerhill (Herts) Puddingstone* Natural Stone / Erratic / Other Natural Feature (TL0363802375)
 8.1km NNW 348° Grim’s Ditch (Hertfordshire) Misc. Earthwork (SP93850938)
 8.8km ESE 112° Church Hill puddingstones Natural Stone / Erratic / Other Natural Feature (TQ03899840)
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 9.1km W 265° Stonygreen Puddingstone Natural Stone / Erratic / Other Natural Feature (SP866005)
 9.9km NW 312° Boddington Camp* Hillfort (SP882080)
 10.0km W 274° Grim's Ditch Barrows Round Barrow(s) (SP857020)
 10.1km W 261° Denner Hill Puddingstone Natural Stone / Erratic / Other Natural Feature (SU857998)
 10.1km ENE 74° Kings Langley Cursus Cursus (TL0535804425)
 10.6km S 182° The Mount (Beaconsfield)* Round Barrow(s) (SU95549089)
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 11.6km N 8° Moneybury Hill Round Barrow(s) (SP97031309)
 11.7km N 358° Aldbury Nowers Round Barrow(s) (SP95071324)
 12.1km NE 38° Great Gaddesden Puddingstone* Natural Stone / Erratic / Other Natural Feature (TL029112)
 12.1km NE 37° Great Gaddesden church puddingstones* Natural Stone / Erratic / Other Natural Feature (TL02871127)
 12.2km N 8° Moneybury Hill Bell Barrow* Round Barrow(s) (SP97111361)
 12.6km SW 222° Keep Hill Hillfort (SU87379205)
 12.7km N 358° Pitstone Hill Causewayed Enclosure (SP949142)
 12.8km WSW 256° Chilterns Grims Ditch* Misc. Earthwork (SU833982)
 12.8km N 355° Northfield Settlement Ancient Village or Settlement (SP944143)
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"St Mary's Church (Chesham)" | Login/Create an Account | 2 News and Comments
  
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Re: St Mary's Church (Chesham) by willowman1 on Wednesday, 11 October 2017
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Although the presence of puddingstones in the church fabric had been noted in 1912, it was Dr. Ernest Rudge in 1952 who first claimed that the church was in fact built upon a stone circle. He believed that Chesham was the 'cultural centre' of the people that had built his proposed 'Puddingstone Track'. Where the idea of it being Bronze Age has come from, I don't know. Dr. Rudge thought his Track had been used in the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods. According to the archaeological records, there have been no finds in the churchyard or immediate area older than Medieval.

Dr. Rudge's wife Lilian, his constant companion in the search for his Track, wrote in 1957: "Here we found the church at Chesham built upon a mound, with a total of at least 19 puddingstones of huge size under the foundations of the buttresses. Apart from those on the north wall, which had been heaped together when the north wall was rebuilt in the C15th, these stones when plotted lay in a large circle in their original positions..."

And Dr. Rudge in his posthumously-published 'The Lost Trackway' (1994, edited by John Cooper), said: "under every corner and every buttress was a large puddingstone, resting in the now familiar position on the foundation layers. It is a cruciform building, and the stones were under the quoins of the transepts, making in all an almost complete stone circle..."

Unfortunately, this is all rather wrong. Firstly, St. Mary's church isn't actually built on a mound. It stands on the lower slopes of a hill that rises steadily from Church Street, and continues rising as it goes north-west, becoming the ridge on which the little village of Chartridge sits, a few miles away.

Chesham church has 19 buttresses, and there are large puddingstones under only 6 of them. There are no stones under any of the other corners, and the only quoin on any of the transepts has no stone beneath it. The two buttresses on the north transept have puddingstones beneath them, but Rudge dismissed them, as they are a mix of multiple smaller puddingstones, flint-work and other rocks, which he believed had been heaped together when the north wall was rebuilt. This leaves only 4 major stones. Smaller chunks of puddingstone, all about the same size, have been inset into the south walls just above ground level, clearly for decorative purposes.

I've photographed, measured and plotted every puddingstone at St. Mary's, and I can find no evidence that they are part of a circle about 100 feet (30.5m) across (as Rudge thought), certainly not "in their original positions". The oldest part of the church is a fragment of a 12th century window between the north transept and the north aisle, from which it's thought probable that the transepts themselves date from the same period - yet there are no original 'huge' puddingstones beneath them. Nor are there any beneath the chancel, which was rebuilt in about 1350. The stones beneath the buttresses of the south aisle are a problem, as the walls of both aisles weren't even added until the 13th century. And as for the south porch, that wasn't added until the 15th century, yet there are massive puddingstones beneath both of its buttresses.

The fact that the earliest known name for Chesham is the Anglo-Saxon 'Cæstæleshamm' - 'the water-meadow by the heap of stones' - surely mitigates against the idea of a prehistoric stone circle. If the Saxons had arrived and found an actual circle, they would have called it something like 'Hringa-hamm'. And as the earliest Saxon church would have been of timber, all these large puddingstones could not have been incorporated into the fabric.

I could write much more on this subject, but in summary, I'm certain that these stones were simply a natural feature of the location, perhaps dragged from the bed of the nearby River Chess. As such, they served no function until an early stone church was built there, and were used not only decoratively, but as practical, cost-free and remarkably sturdy maso

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Re: St Mary's Church (Chesham) by NickyD on Tuesday, 05 January 2016
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From http://www.lowndespark.org.uk/uploads/Park_Leaflet_2010[1].pdf

"In the Middle Ages, Saxon settlers named their new hamlet Caesteles-hamm, meaning ‘the water meadow by the stone heap’, which has evolved into modern-day Chesham. Pudding stones were used in the Chilterns by Neolithic man to mark routes and important meeting places. They also form the foundations of the nearby 12th Century parish church of St. Mary"
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