Blakeney Chapel
Encyclopedia
Blakeney Chapel is a scheduled monument and Grade II listed building on the Norfolk
coast. Despite its name, it is in the parish
of Cley next the Sea
, not the adjoining village of Blakeney
, and was probably not a chapel
. Only the foundations and a ruined wall remain, the ruins indicating that the original building consisted of two rectangular rooms of unequal size. The chapel stands on a raised mound or "eye" on the seaward end of the coastal marshes. The original building appears to be intact in a 1586 map, but is shown as ruins in later charts. Although it is described as a chapel on the maps, there is no documentary or archaeological
evidence to suggest that it had any religious function. The ruins are protected as a scheduled monument and Grade II listed building because of their historical importance, but there is no active management. The ever-present threat from the encroaching sea will accelerate and lead inevitably to the loss of the ruins following realignment of the River Glaven's
course through the marshes.
es situated inside the sea wall at the point where the River Glaven
turns westward towards the sheltered inlet of Blakeney Haven
. Cley Eye is a similar raised area on the east bank of the river. Despite the name, Blakeney Eye, like most of the northern part of the marshes in this area, is actually part of the parish of Cley next the Sea.
The land on which the building stands was in the possession of the Calthorpe family
until its purchase by banker Charles Rothschild
in 1912. Rothschild gave the property to the National Trust
, which has managed it since. There is no public access to the site.
The ruins are protected as a scheduled monument and Grade II listed building because of their historical importance. These listings do not cover the land around them, but the whole of the marsh forms part of the 7,700 ha (19,027 acre) North Norfolk Coast Site of Special Scientific Interest
(SSSI) because of its internationally important wildlife value. The SSSI is now additionally protected through Natura 2000
, Special Protection Area
(SPA) and RAMSAR
listings, and is part of the Norfolk Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty
(AONB).
", the outcome of which is unknown. The original map disappeared in the 19th century, but a number of copies still exist. In this map, the building on the Eye is shown as intact and roofed, but has no name. A map by the Cranefields from 1769 has the building as "Eye House", but by 1797 Faden shows the "chapel ruins", a description that was then consistently used from the 19th century onwards. Some maps, including Faden's, show a second ruined chapel across the river on Cley Eye, but no other documentation exists for the Cley building.
The medieval churches of St Nicholas, Blakeney
and St Margarets, Cley
, and the now ruined friary
in Blakeney were not the first religious buildings in the area. An early church was recorded in the 1086 Domesday Book at Esnuterle; Snitterley was a former name for Blakeney, the current name first appearing in 1340), but the 11th century church's location is unknown.
An anonymous booklet on Blakeney published in 1929 states that there was a "chapel of ease" on the marshes, served by a friar
from the Convent, but the document on which this seems to be based, a Calendar of Patent Rolls dated 20 April 1343, simply notes that a local hermit has been given permission to seek alms
in "divers parts of the realms". There is no known evidence of a dedication of any religious building on the marshes, and no mention of a chapel in any surviving medieval documents.
(resistivity
, and magnetometry
) and molehill
sampling. The ruins are on the highest point of the Eye, about 2 m (6 ft) above sea level, and the area surveyed was 100 mm long and 40 m wide (109 yd by 44 yd).
The magnetometry failed to detect the subterranean features of the chapel, but did show an unexpected linear anomaly, resulting from buried ironwork from wartime defences. The resistivity survey showed the larger room strongly, but barely detected the smaller, suggesting that it had less substantial foundations; it may have been less well constructed and possibly later in date. There was no sign of a western wall to the main building, but the steep slope where the wall should be suggests that it may have been lost to the sea. The smaller building shows signs of a later brick division across its middle, and a gap in the southern wall where a wartime fence ran through.
There are no molehills within the smaller building, which suggest that, unlike its neighbor, it has a buried solid floor. Elsewhere, finds recovered from the molehills showed that stone and slate were concentrated close to the known buildings, particularly where the west wall should have been. A few seashells were recovered, with a distribution suggesting that they were once part of the fabric of the building as strengthening for the mortar used to strengthen the mortar. there was no evidence of any other stone buildings, and the limited findings of building materials suggested that much was carried away for reuse. The survey concluded that the east-west orientation, substantial foundations of the larger building and the prestigious slate roof supported the possibility of religious use. However, there was no medieval pottery or other finds from that period. If the building is medieval, any habitation must have been very limited in numbers of people and time.
outside the buildings, each 50 m long and 1.80 m wide (194 by 5.9 ft), and six trenches of varying dimensions were created inside the chapel. The latter equated in area to two of the standard trenches. The geology was investigated with eight borehole
s, and geophysics (magnetometry and metal detection
were used to locate subsurface anomalies.
The evaluation showed the main periods of occupation on the Eye to be Neolithic
and late medieval, with fewer finds from Saxon, Roman or post 16th century dates, although a gold bracteate
was a rare and significant 6th century find. Most of the pottery found within the larger room was 15th or 16th century, nearly a third of which was imported from the continent, reflecting the Glaven ports' importance in international trade at this time. Most of the pottery appeared to be domestic in nature, such as jugs and cooking vessels. Animal and plant finds showed that both domesticated species, like goat
s, and locally available prey such as curlews
were eaten; rabbit and canid
remains may reflect the use of fur from these mammals. Evidence of cereal
processing and storage is difficult to date, but may be medieval.
The main building seems to have been suffered a major fire at some stage. As expected, the survey confirmed that materials from the larger room were reused in the later erection. The roofing is uncertain since tiles and imported slates were both present. Although the slate was mainly found in the newer section, it could have been salvaged from its neighbour. There is no archaeological evidence to suggest that the building had a religious function.
A ridge of shingle runs west from Weybourne along the Norfolk coast, before becoming a spit extending into the sea at Blakeney. Saltmarshes can develop behind the ridge, but the sea attacks the spit through tidal and storm action. The amount of shingle moved by a single storm can be "spectacular"; the spit has sometimes been breached, becoming an island for a time, and this may happen again. The northernmost part of Snitterley village was lost to the sea in the early Middle Ages, probably due to a storm.
In the last two hundred years, the maps have been accurate enough for the distance from the ruins to the sea to be measured. The 400 m (1,310 ft) in 1817 had become 320 m (1,050 ft) by 1835, 275 m (900 ft) in 1907, and 195 m (640 ft) by the end of the twentieth century. The spit is moving towards the land at about 1 m (3 ft) per year; and several raised islands or "eyes" have already been lost to the sea as the beach rolled over the saltmarsh. Landward movement of the shingle means that the current channel of the Glaven, itself excavated in 1922 because an earlier, more northerly course was overwhelmeds between Blakeney and Cley, was becoming blocked increasingly often. This led to flooding of Cley village and the environmentally important freshwater marshes.
The Environment Agency
considered a number of remedial options. Attempting to hold back the shingle, or breaching the spit to create a new outlet for the Glaven were likely to be expensive and ineffective, and doing nothing would b environmentally damaging. the Agency decided to create a new route for the river to the south of its original line. The ruins are now to the north of the river embankment, and essentially unprotected. They will be buried by shingle as the spit continues to move south, and then lost to the sea, perhaps within 20–30 years. Managed retreat is likely to be the long-term solution to rising sea levels along much of the North Norfolk coast, and has already been implemented at other important sites like Titchwell Marsh.
Norfolk
Norfolk is a low-lying county in the East of England. It has borders with Lincolnshire to the west, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the North Sea coast and to the north-west the county is bordered by The Wash. The county...
coast. Despite its name, it is in the parish
Parish
A parish is a territorial unit historically under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of one parish priest, who might be assisted in his pastoral duties by a curate or curates - also priests but not the parish priest - from a more or less central parish church with its associated organization...
of Cley next the Sea
Cley next the Sea
Cley next the Sea is a village on the River Glaven in Norfolk, England, 4 miles north-west of Holt and east of Blakeney. The main A149 coast road runs through the centre of the village, causing congestion in the summer months due to the tight, narrow streets. It lies within the Norfolk Coast AONB...
, not the adjoining village of Blakeney
Blakeney, Norfolk
Blakeney is a coastal village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. Blakeney lies within the Norfolk Coast AONB and the North Norfolk Heritage Coast. The North Norfolk Coastal Path passes through the village...
, and was probably not a chapel
Chapel
A chapel is a building used by Christians as a place of fellowship and worship. It may be part of a larger structure or complex, such as a church, college, hospital, palace, prison or funeral home, located on board a military or commercial ship, or it may be an entirely free-standing building,...
. Only the foundations and a ruined wall remain, the ruins indicating that the original building consisted of two rectangular rooms of unequal size. The chapel stands on a raised mound or "eye" on the seaward end of the coastal marshes. The original building appears to be intact in a 1586 map, but is shown as ruins in later charts. Although it is described as a chapel on the maps, there is no documentary or archaeological
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
evidence to suggest that it had any religious function. The ruins are protected as a scheduled monument and Grade II listed building because of their historical importance, but there is no active management. The ever-present threat from the encroaching sea will accelerate and lead inevitably to the loss of the ruins following realignment of the River Glaven's
River Glaven
The River Glaven is 10½ miles long and flows through picturesque North Norfolk countryside. Rising from a tiny headwater in Bodham the river starts just 2 miles before Selbrigg Pond where three streams combine at the outfall...
course through the marshes.
Description
The Blakeney Chapel ruins consist of an east-west rectangular structure 18 x 7 m (59 x 23 ft) in size with a smaller rectangular building, 13 x 5 m (43 x 16 ft) built onto the southern side of the main room. There is no indication that either room was subdivided. Most of the structure is buried, only a 6 m (20 ft) length of a flint and mortar wall being exposed to a height of 0.3 m(1 ft). The ruins are on Blakeney Eye, a sandy mound in the marshMarsh
In geography, a marsh, or morass, is a type of wetland that is subject to frequent or continuous flood. Typically the water is shallow and features grasses, rushes, reeds, typhas, sedges, other herbaceous plants, and moss....
es situated inside the sea wall at the point where the River Glaven
River Glaven
The River Glaven is 10½ miles long and flows through picturesque North Norfolk countryside. Rising from a tiny headwater in Bodham the river starts just 2 miles before Selbrigg Pond where three streams combine at the outfall...
turns westward towards the sheltered inlet of Blakeney Haven
Blakeney Haven
Blakeney Haven was a inlet on the north coast of Norfolk into which the River Glaven flowed. Sheltered behind Blakeney Point, it was a major shipping area in the Middle Ages, with important ports at Wiveton, Cley next the Sea and Blakeney. Cley and Wiveton silted up in the 17th century, but...
. Cley Eye is a similar raised area on the east bank of the river. Despite the name, Blakeney Eye, like most of the northern part of the marshes in this area, is actually part of the parish of Cley next the Sea.
The land on which the building stands was in the possession of the Calthorpe family
Baron Calthorpe
Baron Calthorpe, of Calthorpe in the County of Norfolk, was a title in the Peerage of Great Britain. It was created in 1796 for Sir Henry Gough-Calthorpe, 2nd Baronet, who had previously represented Bramber in Parliament. Born Henry Gough, he had assumed the additional surname of Calthorpe upon...
until its purchase by banker Charles Rothschild
Charles Rothschild
Nathaniel Charles Rothschild , known as "Charles", was an English banker and entomologist and a member of the Rothschild family.-Family:...
in 1912. Rothschild gave the property to the National Trust
National Trust
National Trust most commonly refers to an organization dedicated to preserving the cultural or environmental treasures of a particular geographic region. They generally operate as private non-profit organizations, although some receive considerable support from their national government...
, which has managed it since. There is no public access to the site.
The ruins are protected as a scheduled monument and Grade II listed building because of their historical importance. These listings do not cover the land around them, but the whole of the marsh forms part of the 7,700 ha (19,027 acre) North Norfolk Coast Site of Special Scientific Interest
Site of Special Scientific Interest
A Site of Special Scientific Interest is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom. SSSIs are the basic building block of site-based nature conservation legislation and most other legal nature/geological conservation designations in Great Britain are based upon...
(SSSI) because of its internationally important wildlife value. The SSSI is now additionally protected through Natura 2000
Natura 2000
Natura 2000 is an ecological network of protected areas in the territory of the European Union.-Origins:In May 1992, the governments of the European Communities adopted legislation designed to protect the most seriously threatened habitats and species across Europe. This legislation is called the...
, Special Protection Area
Special Protection Area
A Special Protection Area or SPA is a designation under the European Union Directive on the Conservation of Wild Birds.Under the Directive, Member States of the European Union have a duty to safeguard the habitats of migratory birds and certain particularly threatened birds.Together with Special...
(SPA) and RAMSAR
Ramsar Convention
The Ramsar Convention is an international treaty for the conservation and sustainable utilization of wetlands, i.e., to stem the progressive encroachment on and loss of wetlands now and in the future, recognizing the fundamental ecological functions of wetlands and their economic, cultural,...
listings, and is part of the Norfolk Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty
Norfolk Coast AONB
The Norfolk Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty covers over 450 km2 of coastal and agricultural land from the The Wash in the west through coastal marshes and cliffs to the sand dunes at Winterton in the east....
(AONB).
History
The building was first shown on a 1586 map of the Blakeney and Cley area, apparently drawn to be used in evidence in a legal case regarding the rights to "wreck and salvageMarine salvage
Marine salvage is the process of rescuing a ship, its cargo, or other property from peril. Salvage encompasses rescue towing, refloating a sunken or grounded vessel, or patching or repairing a ship...
", the outcome of which is unknown. The original map disappeared in the 19th century, but a number of copies still exist. In this map, the building on the Eye is shown as intact and roofed, but has no name. A map by the Cranefields from 1769 has the building as "Eye House", but by 1797 Faden shows the "chapel ruins", a description that was then consistently used from the 19th century onwards. Some maps, including Faden's, show a second ruined chapel across the river on Cley Eye, but no other documentation exists for the Cley building.
The medieval churches of St Nicholas, Blakeney
St Nicholas, Blakeney
St Nicholas is the Anglican parish church of Blakeney, Norfolk in the deanery of Holt and the Diocese of Norwich. It stands just inland of and about 30 m above the small port. Of the original 13th-century building only the chancel remains, the rest having been rebuilt in the prosperous 15th...
and St Margarets, Cley
St Margarets, Cley
St Margarets is the Anglican parish church of Cley next the Sea, Norfolk in the deanery of Holt and the Diocese of Norwich. It is the largest church in the Blakeney Haven area, with a nave to match, and dates from 1320–1340. Before the end of the 14th century, a large south porch was added. The...
, and the now ruined friary
Monastery
Monastery denotes the building, or complex of buildings, that houses a room reserved for prayer as well as the domestic quarters and workplace of monastics, whether monks or nuns, and whether living in community or alone .Monasteries may vary greatly in size – a small dwelling accommodating only...
in Blakeney were not the first religious buildings in the area. An early church was recorded in the 1086 Domesday Book at Esnuterle; Snitterley was a former name for Blakeney, the current name first appearing in 1340), but the 11th century church's location is unknown.
An anonymous booklet on Blakeney published in 1929 states that there was a "chapel of ease" on the marshes, served by a friar
Friar
A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders.-Friars and monks:...
from the Convent, but the document on which this seems to be based, a Calendar of Patent Rolls dated 20 April 1343, simply notes that a local hermit has been given permission to seek alms
Alms
Alms or almsgiving is a religious rite which, in general, involves giving materially to another as an act of religious virtue.It exists in a number of religions. In Philippine Regions, alms are given as charity to benefit the poor. In Buddhism, alms are given by lay people to monks and nuns to...
in "divers parts of the realms". There is no known evidence of a dedication of any religious building on the marshes, and no mention of a chapel in any surviving medieval documents.
1998/99 survey
The first investigation of the chapel ruins, supported by the National Trust, was conducted by the local history group in the winter of 1998/99. This survey was conducted under a licence from English Heritage which allowed access but did not permit excavation, so it relied on height measurements, geophysicsGeophysics
Geophysics is the physics of the Earth and its environment in space; also the study of the Earth using quantitative physical methods. The term geophysics sometimes refers only to the geological applications: Earth's shape; its gravitational and magnetic fields; its internal structure and...
(resistivity
Electrical resistivity and conductivity
Electrical resistivity is a measure of how strongly a material opposes the flow of electric current. A low resistivity indicates a material that readily allows the movement of electric charge. The SI unit of electrical resistivity is the ohm metre...
, and magnetometry
Magnetometer
A magnetometer is a measuring instrument used to measure the strength or direction of a magnetic field either produced in the laboratory or existing in nature...
) and molehill
Molehill
A molehill is a conical mound of loose soil raised by small burrowing mammals, including moles, but also similar animals such as mole-rats, marsupial moles and voles...
sampling. The ruins are on the highest point of the Eye, about 2 m (6 ft) above sea level, and the area surveyed was 100 mm long and 40 m wide (109 yd by 44 yd).
The magnetometry failed to detect the subterranean features of the chapel, but did show an unexpected linear anomaly, resulting from buried ironwork from wartime defences. The resistivity survey showed the larger room strongly, but barely detected the smaller, suggesting that it had less substantial foundations; it may have been less well constructed and possibly later in date. There was no sign of a western wall to the main building, but the steep slope where the wall should be suggests that it may have been lost to the sea. The smaller building shows signs of a later brick division across its middle, and a gap in the southern wall where a wartime fence ran through.
There are no molehills within the smaller building, which suggest that, unlike its neighbor, it has a buried solid floor. Elsewhere, finds recovered from the molehills showed that stone and slate were concentrated close to the known buildings, particularly where the west wall should have been. A few seashells were recovered, with a distribution suggesting that they were once part of the fabric of the building as strengthening for the mortar used to strengthen the mortar. there was no evidence of any other stone buildings, and the limited findings of building materials suggested that much was carried away for reuse. The survey concluded that the east-west orientation, substantial foundations of the larger building and the prestigious slate roof supported the possibility of religious use. However, there was no medieval pottery or other finds from that period. If the building is medieval, any habitation must have been very limited in numbers of people and time.
2003 evaluation
Plans for a realignment of the Glaven channel meant that the Eye would be left unprotected and would be destroyed by coastal change. Following a preliminary evaluation in 2003, it was decided that the only practical course of action was to investigate the site while it still existed, and an extensive survey took place in the winter of 200/05. The area investigate covered 10 ha (25 acre) compared to 0.4 ha (1 acre) of the 1998 investigations. 50 trenches were excavated in a herringbone patternHerringbone pattern
The herringbone pattern is an arrangement of rectangles used for floor tilings and road pavement.The blocks can be rectangles or parallelograms...
outside the buildings, each 50 m long and 1.80 m wide (194 by 5.9 ft), and six trenches of varying dimensions were created inside the chapel. The latter equated in area to two of the standard trenches. The geology was investigated with eight borehole
Borehole
A borehole is the generalized term for any narrow shaft bored in the ground, either vertically or horizontally. A borehole may be constructed for many different purposes, including the extraction of water or other liquid or gases , as part of a geotechnical investigation, environmental site...
s, and geophysics (magnetometry and metal detection
Metal detector
A metal detector is a device which responds to metal that may not be readily apparent.The simplest form of a metal detector consists of an oscillator producing an alternating current that passes through a coil producing an alternating magnetic field...
were used to locate subsurface anomalies.
The evaluation showed the main periods of occupation on the Eye to be Neolithic
Neolithic
The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...
and late medieval, with fewer finds from Saxon, Roman or post 16th century dates, although a gold bracteate
Bracteate
A bracteate is a flat, thin, single-sided gold medal worn as jewelry that was produced in Northern Europe predominantly during the Migration Period of the Germanic Iron Age...
was a rare and significant 6th century find. Most of the pottery found within the larger room was 15th or 16th century, nearly a third of which was imported from the continent, reflecting the Glaven ports' importance in international trade at this time. Most of the pottery appeared to be domestic in nature, such as jugs and cooking vessels. Animal and plant finds showed that both domesticated species, like goat
Goat
The domestic goat is a subspecies of goat domesticated from the wild goat of southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the Bovidae family and is closely related to the sheep as both are in the goat-antelope subfamily Caprinae. There are over three hundred distinct breeds of...
s, and locally available prey such as curlews
Eurasian Curlew
The Eurasian Curlew, Numenius arquata, is a wader in the large family Scolopacidae. It is one of the most widespread of the curlews, breeding across temperate Europe and Asia...
were eaten; rabbit and canid
Canidae
Canidae is the biological family of carnivorous and omnivorous mammals that includes wolves, foxes, jackals, coyotes, and domestic dogs. A member of this family is called a canid . The Canidae family is divided into two tribes: Canini and Vulpini...
remains may reflect the use of fur from these mammals. Evidence of cereal
Cereal
Cereals are grasses cultivated for the edible components of their grain , composed of the endosperm, germ, and bran...
processing and storage is difficult to date, but may be medieval.
The main building seems to have been suffered a major fire at some stage. As expected, the survey confirmed that materials from the larger room were reused in the later erection. The roofing is uncertain since tiles and imported slates were both present. Although the slate was mainly found in the newer section, it could have been salvaged from its neighbour. There is no archaeological evidence to suggest that the building had a religious function.
The future
In the last two hundred years, the maps have been accurate enough for the distance from the ruins to the sea to be measured. The 400 m (1,310 ft) in 1817 had become 320 m (1,050 ft) by 1835, 275 m (900 ft) in 1907, and 195 m (640 ft) by the end of the twentieth century. The spit is moving towards the land at about 1 m (3 ft) per year; and several raised islands or "eyes" have already been lost to the sea as the beach rolled over the saltmarsh. Landward movement of the shingle means that the current channel of the Glaven, itself excavated in 1922 because an earlier, more northerly course was overwhelmeds between Blakeney and Cley, was becoming blocked increasingly often. This led to flooding of Cley village and the environmentally important freshwater marshes.
The Environment Agency
Environment Agency
The Environment Agency is a British non-departmental public body of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and an Assembly Government Sponsored Body of the Welsh Assembly Government that serves England and Wales.-Purpose:...
considered a number of remedial options. Attempting to hold back the shingle, or breaching the spit to create a new outlet for the Glaven were likely to be expensive and ineffective, and doing nothing would b environmentally damaging. the Agency decided to create a new route for the river to the south of its original line. The ruins are now to the north of the river embankment, and essentially unprotected. They will be buried by shingle as the spit continues to move south, and then lost to the sea, perhaps within 20–30 years. Managed retreat is likely to be the long-term solution to rising sea levels along much of the North Norfolk coast, and has already been implemented at other important sites like Titchwell Marsh.
External links
- Bird's eye view on Bing maps