Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

Chapel of St James (unlocated).

Monument Types

• CHAPEL (Demolished 1805, Post Roman - 410 AD to 1900 AD)

Full description

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(TR2269 sited to locality only) Chapel of St James, Reculver. Destroyed. (1) Additional bibliography-not consulted. (2) Probably the early Kentish church mentioned in (3): pulled down in 1805; remains excavated in 1927 and more closely in 1969. Floor was made of opus signinum, and is related to the eight century extension to the church. Chancel arch had triple arcade form similar to that of second phase at Reculver.

Note: This record appears to confuse the Chapel of St James with the Church of St Mary. According to the above record, the chapel of St James was demolished in '1805': however, the demolition of the church of St Mary began in 1805 (or 'September 1809', depending on whom you believe: Kelly, S. (2008), "Reculver Minster and its early Charters", in Barrow, J.; Wareham, A., Myth, Rulership, Church and Charters Essays in Honour of Nicholas Brooks, Aldershot, Surrey: Ashgate, p. 67 gives 1805, but a correspondent to The Gentleman's Magazine, vol. 201, 1856, p. 315 has 'September 1809'); whereas the chapel of St James 'collapsed' in 1802, owing to 'crumbling of the cliffs', according to Kelly, S. (2008), pp. 67, 70. The chapel of St James had certainly been washed away by the sea by 1927, when the above record says that its remains were 'excavated in 1927 and more closely in 1969': 1927 is when excavation of the church of St Mary was described in Peers, C.R. (1927), 'Reculver: its Saxon church and Cross', in Archaeologia vol. 77, pp. 241–56, and 1969 is when the church of St Mary was, I believe, further excavated, according to this:
http://cka.moon-demon.co.uk/KAR017/KAR017_Reculver.htm where planned excavation is mentioned, and according to Philp, B. (2005), The Excavation of the Roman Fort at Reculver, Kent, Dover, Kent: Kent Archaeological Rescue Unit, p. 92. The record for the chapel of St James also says that its floor was of opus signinum, but, while the foregoing establishes that this can hardly have been found in modern archaeology, this material is well established as having been used for the floor of the church of St Mary (e.g. in Philp, B. (2005), p. 92). This record also says that the 'chancel arch' of the chapel of St James 'had triple arcade form similar to that of second phase at Reculver', by which the church of St Mary is presumably intended, but the same objections may apply. I understand the 'second phase' at St Mary's to be a reference to the extension of the outer walls of the porticus westwards to enclose the nave in the 8th century, but nowhere have I seen the triple arch confidently attributed to this phase as it is here: I've previously only seen it attributed to the original, 7th century phase (e.g. in Jessup, R.F. (1936), "Reculver", in Antiquity vol. 10, p. 183), but I might well have missed something more recent than e.g. Wilson, D.M. (ed.), The Archaeology of Anglo-Saxon England, Cambridge University Press, 1976, p. 163, where the triple arch is mentioned, but the 'phase' to which it belongs is not mentioned. (4)

Canterbury Archaeological Trust, Canterbury Sites and Monuments Record (Index)

1976, Photograph (Photograph (Print))

1976, Photograph (Photograph (Print))

<1> OS Card / NAR index entry (Unpublished document)

<2> OS Card / NAR index entry (Unpublished document)

<3> Drewett, P, Rudling, D & Gardiner, M, The South-East to AD1000 (Monograph)

<4> Colin Peterson, 2012, Information from Colin Peterson (Verbal communication)

Sources and further reading