The Unfinished Chapel at Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire, and Ecclesiastical Politics in The Early Eleventh Century

Abstract

An examination of the decorative elements on the structure of the Anglo-Saxon chapel of St Laurence at Bradford on Avon, Wilts., has suggested that the total decorative scheme, comprising different elements, was abandoned before completion. This hypothesis arises from an examination of the carved moulding on some of the internal and external pilasters, the external blind arcading, and the ‘unfinished’ rood on the eastern wall of the nave. A historical context for this is suggested in the abandonment of the nearly completed building on the death of King Æthelred, the sponsor of the construction of the chapel as a cult centre for Edward the Martyr from AD 1001. While his successor King Cnut would probably have been supportive of the continuation of the cult at Shaftesbury, the chapel was arguably soon abandoned because the underlying religious and political rationale for its construction no longer obtained in the circumstances of the new king's regime.