England’s pre-Norman churches are our most precious buildings. Visit while you still can

St Martin’s, Canterbury

England’s oldest church (c580)

When Saxon King Ethelbert of Kent married Christian Princess Bertha from France in 580 he converted a second-century Roman church outside Canterbury into a chapel for his new bride using bricks, tiles and rubble from the Roman building.

In 597, St Augustine arrived from Rome on his mission to convert the Saxons and set up his ministry in Bertha’s chapel to which he added a nave, the first ever Anglo-Saxon structure made of mortared brick and stone rather than wood.

The huge west wall of St Augustine’s nave survives, as does an archway and a section of wall from the Roman church in the chancel. Today you can still worship within the same walls that looked on as Ethelbert was baptised at the dawn of Christianity in England.

Open 11am-3pm, Wednesday to Sunday (North Holmes Rd, Canterbury CT1 1PW)

St Peter-on-the-Wall, Bradwell, Essex

England’s largest surviving Anglo-Celtic building (654)

In 653, Cedd, a Lindisfarne monk, landed on the remote Essex coast near the abandoned Roman fort of Othona to begin his mission to convert the Saxons of East Anglia. He put up a wooden church on the spot which was rebuilt in stone the following year, using materials from the fort.

That lonely, barn-like church, tall and wide with bare, rugged walls, is pretty much the church we see today. To stand inside that empty, ancient space while shafts of pale sunlight play through the two Saxon windows and the sea winds howl outside, brings you as close to the Celtic saints as you can get.

Open daily 8am-9pm (East End Road, Bradwell-on-Sea, Essex CM0 7PN)

St John’s, Escomb, County Durham

England’s best-preserved Anglo-Celtic church (c660)

No fuss surrounds the jewel that is St John’s, just a ring of green trees and a housing estate. Collect the key (see below) and step back undisturbed into Celtic England.

The circular churchyard suggests St John’s was built by Celtic monks before the Synod of Whitby established the primacy of the Roman church in 664, and is the most perfect example of a small Anglo-Celtic church in existence. Apart from some “modern” windows and a 13th-century porch it remains essentially unaltered.

The nave is narrow and immensely tall, as is the small chancel, the two connected by a high, thin arch taken from a nearby Roman fort. High up in the outside wall above the porch sits England’s oldest sundial.

Collect a key from 28 Saxon Green during daylight hours (Saxon Green, Escomb, Bishop Auckland DL14 7SY)

St Peter’s Monkwearmouth, Sunderland

Birthplace of the Venerable Bede and the English language (674)

St Peter’s was founded by a Northumbrian Saxon noble turned monk called Benedict Biscop, who returned from pilgrimage to Rome determined to promote Christianity in Northumbria. Since there were then no stonemasons or glassmakers in Saxon England, Biscop imported them from France and the church had the first stained glass windows known in England.

Not much is left of Biscop’s seventh-century church except for the west wall, tower and porch. The porch has some rare early Saxon carvings and is vaulted, the only Saxon vaulting above ground in Britain.

Standing in the porch it is spine-tingling to think that the Venerable Bede, first person to write extensively in English, walked through it, for he was born here in 673 and began his monastic life at St Peter’s.

Open 10.30am-2.30pm, Monday, Wednesday & Friday (St Peter’s Way, Sunderland SR6 0DY)

All Saints, Brixworth, Northamptonshire

Largest Saxon church in the world (675)

As one of only three Romanesque Anglo-Saxon churches in existence, All Saints, standing resplendent on a hill overlooking the old village, is the most important building of its kind in the world. It was built to awe and to herald the arrival of Roman Christianity in Mercia, the last of the pagan Saxon kingdoms.

The main body of the church remains substantially unaltered and the round heads of the numerous arches inside and out are constructed of red tiles from a nearby Roman villa. The lower part of the west tower formed the original two-tier porch of the seventh-century church, while the external stair turret – one of only four in Britain – was added during the 10th century.

Open daily during daylight hours (Church Street, Brixworth, Northampton NN6 9BZ)

St Paul’s, Jarrow, Tyne and Wear

Foremost centre of Christian scholarship and art in the Saxon world (685)

Founded by Benedict Biscop in 682 as a twin to his monastery at Monkwearmouth, St Paul’s was dedicated in 685. The original dedication stone, the oldest in England, is still in place above the chancel arch, which has survived, along with much of the chancel, from Biscop’s seventh-century church.

The Venerable Bede lived here for 50 years and from here produced his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, the first written English history, which tells of the beginnings of Christianity in Britain up to the Synod of Whitby in 664. A roundel in one of the windows in the south wall was produced in the monastery’s workshop in the seventh century and is the oldest stained glass in the world.

Winter opening hours: Monday to Saturday 11am-3pm and Sunday’s 2pm-3.30pm (Church Bank, Jarrow, NE32 3DZ)

All Saints, Earls Barton, Northamptonshire

Finest Saxon tower in the world (c970)

Here is the most remarkable church tower in England, one adorned with stone crosses, arcades, diamonds and columns that appears to be half-timbered, the effect created by stone pilaster strips that decorate the walls from top to bottom. These are not merely for show but are formed from the outer edges of stone blocks inserted into the walls to help reinforce the structure.

When it was built the tower stood alone, the ground floor forming the nave with a small chancel off it. It is also believed to be a place of refuge against the Danes, with pointed windows in each tower face serving as observation points, while a doorway high up on the south face could only be reached by a ladder that was pulled up in the event of an attack.

Each face of the tower has a belfry opening made up of rugged, five-light arcades, common enough on Saxon church towers but Earls’ Barton is the only one in the world to have such belfry openings on all four faces.

Open daily, 10am-4pm (High Street, Earls Barton, Northampton NN6 0JG)

St Nicholas, Worth, West Sussex

England’s best preserved cruciform Saxon church (c975)

St Nicholas is an extraordinary treasure to find in what was the middle of a forest but is now the edge of Crawley. Apart from the Victorian tower and spire added in 1871, St Nicholas is pure Saxon, the grandest Saxon church in existence after All Saints, Brixworth.

Here is the finest Saxon apse in England and three of England’s four surviving Saxon double-headed nave windows along with a rare tall, thin “Knight’s Door”, designed to allow entry to a man on horseback.

Best of all is the most beautiful set of arches left to us by the Saxon world. The chancel arch is immense, 22 feet high and 14 feet wide, the earliest, simplest and least-spoiled Saxon arch of size that survives, while the arches either side, although smaller, are equally superb.

Open daily, 9.30am-4.30pm (Church Road, Worth RH10 7RT)

St Laurence, Bradford-on-Avon

England’s most complete Saxon church (c1001)

St Laurence is the Saxon version of the Celtic church at Escomb, tall and narrow, with the smallest and narrowest chancel and chancel arch of any church in England.

It was built in the late 10th century, possibly to house the bones of Edward the Martyr, which explains the unique and elaborate arcading on the exterior. Rather than rebuild St Laurence, the Normans put up a new church nearby and left St Laurence alone, hence it survives as an almost entirely unaltered Saxon church.

The bare interior, lit only by small high up windows, is magical, with a series of high, thin arches and two astonishing carvings of flying angels that are amongst the oldest carvings in England.

Open daily, 10am-4pm (12 Church St, Bradford-on-Avon BA15 1LW)

St Andrew, Greensted, Essex

Oldest wooden church in the world (1060)

St Andrew sits in a sylvan glade, and for some is the prettiest church in England.

The walls of the nave, sandwiched between a Tudor weatherboarded tower and brick chancel, and resting beneath Tudor dormer windows, are the oldest wooden walls in England, made up of 51 oak trees split down the middle with the rounded parts on the outside and the flat parts inside.

Beneath the present timbers, which are dated to c1060, are the remnants of a wooden church from the sixth century, built when St Cedd was at work in the area converting the East Saxons.

Open daily, 10am-4pm (Church Lane, Greensted, Essex CM5 9LD)

[Source: Daily Telegraph]