Historic doors
/Dr. Jane Geddes explores some of the historic doors of Rochester Cathedral. Featured in The Friends of Rochester Cathedral Annual Report for 1989/90.
Hidden in a dark corner of the north-east transept is a very obscure little door whose antiquity and importance deserve some recognition. It was brought to my attention by the Cathedral archaeologist Tim Tatton-Brown and meticulously drawn by John Bowen. I am very grateful to both of them for their help, and to the Friends of the Cathedral for funding the illustration.
The door leads into the north-east turret stair, rising up to the present stone store and the triforium passage. On the outside, the crude cross boarding conceals carpentry and ironwork which were clearly made before the eastern arm of the church, c. 1200-15 (Hope, 1898, 194-328). The door was made in three stages: (Fig 1).
Fig. 1. Door in N.E. choir transept stair turret. Inner face. 3D model of Gundulf’s Door in 2013. Laser scan produced by Dr Ben Edwards (Director, AS&C, and Manchester Metropolitan University) and Dr Andrew Wilson (Director, AS&C, and Bangor University), commissioned by Keevill Heritage. Drawn by J. Bowen.
The original door, now only visible on the back of the present door, was made for a narrow flat topped doorway (189×82 cm). It was four boards wide. The boards have rebated edges. They would have been held by strap hinges on the back because the whole original front surface is covered by a geometric pattern in iron. When this little door was fitted into its present opening, the wood on the top right corner had to be trimmed and the iron folded over to make it fit. There are traces of dark blue paint on the top right side. The original ironwork pattern consisted of an edging band across the top and bottom, and down the right side. Three St. Andrew's crosses are placed one above the other and three circles are placed centrally over them. In the top and bottom right corners are the remains of short scrolls. There are several nail holes on the door, some of which might produce a significant pattern on closer scrutiny. In particular the top and bottom circles each have two conspicuous holes on their vertical axis, and the centre circle has two holes near its centre.
The boards on the two vertical edges and the segment across the top were added to the originally square topped door (present size 195×99 cm). These pieces were added to make it fit its present round-topped doorway, constructed in the early thirteenth century. At that time it must still have hung from strap hinges across the back (a surface no longer visible after the cross boarding was applied). The fragments of iron on the left side, between the bottom two circles, may have been added at this point. They are attached with flat headed nails, different from the round headed nails used on the rest of the door.
(Fig. 2) The door was subsequently reversed so that the face with the decorative ironwork hung on the rear, and hinges were attached to the original opening edge, above and below the keyholes. Plain horizontal cross boarding was applied to the new exterior of the door. There is a grid of faintly scored diagonal lines all over this face of the door, joining up the rows of nail heads. This kind of pattern was used in the fifteenth century, e.g. at Brooke, Leices. but could have continued later. The carpentry is very crude and was obviously applied when the original framing of the door was no longer viable. When the door was reversed two enormous box locks were installed and the two crude plain strap hinges added on the back.
Fig. 2. Door in N.E. choir transept stair turret. Outer face. Model produced 2020. Drawn by J. Bowen.
There is no evidence whatsoever where the original door came from. One can only deduce that it was sufficienly esteemed in the early thirteenth century to be reused. It could have been made at any time previously, in the late eleventh or twelfth century, that is, in Gundulph's cathedral of the late eleventh century, or the rebuilt and enlarged cathedral of the mid twelfth century. In Canterbury Cathedral the ironwork of the little door in the north choir aisle was saved from the fire in 1175 and clearly reused when the door was remade shortly afterwards (Fletcher 1980, 45-8). The closest parallels for the Rochester iron come from the mid twelfth century, although a date for Phase 1 after the fire of 1179 should not be ruled out. The two fires mentioned by Gervase, of 1137 and 1179, are both possible occasions for the construction of the earliest wood and iron (Hope 1898, 277). Phase 2, when the door was altered to fit its present doorway was presumably in the early thirteenth when the east end was added to the church. Phase 3, when the door was reversed and crudely cross boarded could have been 1400-1600 though the locks could be later.
In 2002 the Gundulf Door was tree-ring dated, read more:
Dating the Gundulf Door, c.1080
Tim Tatton-Brown and Dr. Jane Geddes investigate the remarkable ‘Gundulf Door’, dendrochronologically dated as one of the oldest doors in the country.
On the doors, the pattern of three St. Andrew's crosses on top of each other is very ancient. It is illustrated on the Carolingian bible of St. Paul's without the Walls, from the ninth century (Bible of San Paolo fuor le Mura, Rome, f.50. Made in Reims c.870). In Sweden, circles are combined with St. Andrew's crosses in slightly different proportions at Perstorp and Hammesjö (Karlsson 1988 II, 199, 378).
The design of St. Andrew's crosses may be of significance for Rochester Cathedral dedicated to that saint. The same pattern is found on the original thirteenth-century floor tiles in the south-east choir transept. The ironwork on many church doors makes reference to the patron saint. St. Clement's Steniese in Denmark has an inscription invoking the saint's protection and illustrates a sea horse, dolphin and fish, referring to St. Clement's death by drowning. Saints whose lives were connected with horses are commemorated by figures of horses at St. Leonard's Noblat, France, and by horseshoes at St. Martin Chablis (Karisson 19881, 125-189). The Virgin Mary is represented by a lily on the doors of Worksop Priory, Abbey Dore and Beaulieu Abbey. St. Helen, the discoverer of the Holy Cross, is said to have sent parts of the cross to the four corners of the world. Hence at St. Helen's churches of Stillingfleet and Skipwith, Yorkshire, the crosses on the doors have a four-fold shape. (Addyman 1979, 74-104; Bradley 1984, 84-100).
Very few Romanesque doors are covered with geometric patterns. The most common design was the C hinge: examples not far from Rochester are at Canterbury Cathedral (N choir aisle), Hartley and Staplehurst. The design of intersecting circles at Little Hormead, Herts. (Fig. 5), is perhaps the closest parallel to the Rochester door. It is mid twelfth century. At Durham Cathedral the iron for the south-west doors was probably made c. 1 175-1200. It retains the traditional C shaped hinge but has, in addition to the palmette leaves, a pattern of diagonal crosses intersecting with diamonds. The door at Skipwith, originally designed in the 1160's, was drawn in a state of decay by J. Buckler in 1813 (BL Add 36395 f182a). The drawing confirms that J. F. Pearson's restoration of 1876 is reasonably accurate (Borthwick Institute of Historical Research. Skipwith FAC 1876/8a). Pearson clearly took his inspiration from Skipwith when he came to design the west doors for Rochester in 1888 (Newman 1969, 435). He may well have known the circle pattern on the little tower door and tried to develop it into a more imposing but authentic design for a major entrance. The mediaval west doors of Rochester Cathedral have sadly disappeared. Daniel King drew some rather schematic scrolled hinges on them in the mid seventeenth century (King 1672, pl. 9).
When Samuel Pepys visited on April 10, 1661 he observed the great doors of the church, as they say, covered with the skins of Danes' (Pepys I1, 701). What he probably saw was leather under the ironwork. This was quite a common covering for doors in the middle ages, It was often coloured red to enhance the appearance of the ironwork. Theophilus, the writer of a twelfth century treatise on art, recommended using the hide of a horse, ass or cow (Hawthorne and Smith 26-9). However Pepy's reference to the skins of Danes, presumably excoriated for sacrilege, is the very earliest record of the supposed use of human skin. Later antiquarians in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, found more examples but they have only recently received scientific attention. Dr. Reed has examined the skins from Hadstock and Copford, Essex, and says they 'correspond closely to human skin', but the fragment from Westminster Abbey is pigskin (Swanton 21-8; Geddes 1978, 41-5).
Dr. Jane Geddes
University of Aberdeen.
Featured in The Friends of Rochester Cathedral Annual Report for 2019.
Friends of Rochester Cathedral Annual Reports
The Friends of Rochester Cathedral were founded to help finance the maintenance of the fabric and grounds. The Friends’ annual reports have become a trove of articles on the fabric and history of the cathedral.
Bibliography
Addyman P. 1979, The Norman church and door at Stillingfleet', Archaologia, CVI. 74-104.
Bradley S. 1984, The Norman door at Stillingfleet and the Legend of the Holy Rood Tree', in Archæological Papers presented to M. W. Barley, ed. P. Addyman and V. Black, York, 84-100.
Fletcher J. 1980, 'A door, 800 years, not 900 years old', Canterbury Cathedral Chronicle, 74, 45-8.
Geddes J. 1978, Mediaval Decorative Ironwork 1100-1350, unpub. PhD thesis, London University.
Hawthorne J. G. and C. S. Smith (eds.), Theophilus, On Divers Arts. New York 1979.
Hope W. St. John 1898, 'The architectural history of the Cathedral Church and Monastery of St. Andrew at Rochester' Archaologia Cantiana, 23, 194-328.
Karlsson L. 1988, Mediaval Ironwork in Sweden, Stockholm 1988.
King D. 1672, The Cathedral and conventual churches of England and Wales.
Newman J. 1969, West Kent and the Weald, Buildings of England, ed. N. Pevsner.
Pepys S. 1970, The Diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. R. Latham and W. Matthews.
Swanton M. J. 1976, 'Daneskins: excoriation in Early England' Folklore I, 21-8.
