Two Timbered Mediaeval Churches of Cheshire: St. James and St. Paul at Marton and St. Oswald at Lower Peover

Abstract

Recent discovery of remains of timbered churches in the subsoil of bombed mediaeval church sites in Holland and northwestern Germany has made it clear that the aisled mediaeval timber church stems typologically not from the early Christian basilica, as did the mediaeval masonry church, but from a building type of even greater antiquity, which was originally associated with purely domestic functions.¹ In text fig. 1 are shown the plan and reconstruction of the Carolingian parish church of Breberen, near Aachen, the remains of which were excavated in 1948–1950 by J. P. Tholen.² Text fig. 2 shows the plan and reconstruction of a farmhouse of the fourth century b.c., excavated in 1934–1935 by Albert Egges van Giffen, in the Iron Age dwelling mound of Ezinge, Groningen province, Holland.³ The layout and constructional system of these two buildings are identical in all respects, and there can be no doubt that they belong to the same building tradition.