<< Our Photo Pages >> St Andrew's Church (Bothal) - Ancient Cross in England in Northumberland
Submitted by Anne T on Thursday, 25 October 2018 Page Views: 1944
Early Medieval (Dark Age)Site Name: St Andrew's Church (Bothal)Country: England
NOTE: This site is 1.903 km away from the location you searched for.
County: Northumberland Type: Ancient Cross
Nearest Town: Morpeth Nearest Village: Bothal
Map Ref: NZ2398986621
Latitude: 55.173316N Longitude: 1.624913W
Condition:
5 | Perfect |
4 | Almost Perfect |
3 | Reasonable but with some damage |
2 | Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site |
1 | Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks |
0 | No data. |
-1 | Completely destroyed |
5 | Superb |
4 | Good |
3 | Ordinary |
2 | Not Good |
1 | Awful |
0 | No data. |
5 | Can be driven to, probably with disabled access |
4 | Short walk on a footpath |
3 | Requiring a bit more of a walk |
2 | A long walk |
1 | In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find |
0 | No data. |
5 | co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates |
4 | co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map |
3 | co-ordinates scaled from a bad map |
2 | co-ordinates of the nearest village |
1 | co-ordinates of the nearest town |
0 | no data |
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Anne T visited on 24th Oct 2018 - their rating: Cond: 3 Amb: 4 Access: 5 Anglo Saxon Cross Shaft Fragment, St Andrew's Church, Bothal: I had arranged to collect the key to the church from the Reverend John Parks, who lives in Pegswood. The church in Bothal is very easy to find, and in a very scenic place, with a nearby footpath running down to the River Wansbeck.
The narrow west end of the church faces the road, and is largely hidden by tall, dense trees. My first thought was “how am I going to photograph the outside?” This did prove to be a little bit of a challenge, but in the end, walking into the much larger and spacious churchyard, I managed a couple of shots.
There are a number of entries on HE for St. Andrew’s Church, and whilst we spent about an hour and a half here, I felt I wanted to stay longer to explore all the elements in the guide book and the architectural assessments, but Andrew was getting bored and a cup of tea in Morpeth then holy wells beckoned.
There are several really interesting ‘cut outs’ of the wooden panel in the chancel that give viewing access to a remnant of medieval plasterwork, an old tombstone reused as a lintel, and an old wooden door. The cut outs were quite small, which made photographing these features a little tricky. At one point, I thought I was going to drop the camera down the small window on the south wall of the chancel, in an attempt to photograph the bottom of the lintel above! Photographing the remnant of medieval plasterwork was interesting, as Andrew had to shine the torch (kindly provided by the church in a neat holder next to the grille) whilst I manually focussed the camera. Not a great photo by any means, but I had fun trying!
On the eastern and northern external walls of the church there are musket ball holes.
The church guide tells us there has been a church on the site of St Andrew's Church in Bothal for over 1,000 years, evidence having been found in the form of a number of Anglo Saxon stone fragments which have been incorporated into the present building. Six of these fragments, AS Corpus Bothal 01 to AS Corpus Bothal 06 can be found in the Great North Museum in Newcastle upon Tyne. The latter was on display in May 2018 - see our photograph for the Great North Museum (Anglo Saxon Stones), Bothal.
An archaeological assessment of the church, dated March 2006, produced by Peter Ryder, Historic Buildings Consultant, can be found at the Diocese of Newcastle website - see their entry for St Andrew's, Bothal.
In addition to the one remaining Anglo Saxon cross shaft fragment built into the north wall of the chancel, there are two fragments of chevron-decorated stones (popular in Norman times), some very old gravestones and a small fragment of medieval plasterwork. The plaster and a couple of the gravestones have been cleverly left 'on view' by holes cut in the wooden panelling of the chancel.
For those interested in churches, there is some 14th century stained glass fragments which make up part of the current windows, and the wooden roof of the nave is a rare survival from the 14th century.
For more information see:
Historic England List ID 1371383, Church of St Andrew;
Historic England List ID 1041363, group of 3 stone coffins and font bowl; and
Pastscape Monument 25369, Anglo Saxon cross (please note, Pastscape says it may have been removed during renovations in 1910, but it is still there!)
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