Odda's Chapel | |
---|---|
Chapel of the Holy Trinity | |
51°58′01″N2°11′32″W / 51.966879°N 2.1920845°W | |
OS grid reference | SO86902984 |
Location | Deerhurst, Gloucestershire |
Country | England, UK |
Denomination | Roman Catholic |
Website | Odda's Chapel |
History | |
Status | chantry |
Founder(s) | Earl Odda |
Dedication | Holy Trinity |
Consecrated | 12 April 1056 |
Associated people | Ælfric |
Architecture | |
Functional status | disused |
Heritage designation | Grade I listed |
Designated | 4 July 1960 |
Style | Anglo-Saxon |
Years built | 11th century |
Completed | 1056 |
Specifications | |
Materials | rubble masonry with squared quoins |
Odda's Chapel is a former chantry chapel at Deerhurst, Gloucestershire. It is an 11th-century late Anglo-Saxon building, completed a decade before the Norman Conquest of England.
In the 16th century the chapel ceased to be used for worship and by the 17th century it was part of a farmhouse. It was rediscovered and restored late in the 19th century, and further restored in the 20th century. It is now managed by English Heritage.
The chapel is the smaller of two Anglo-Saxon places of worship in Deerhurst. The larger and older is St Mary's Priory Church. Both buildings were part of a Benedictine priory, whose site is now a scheduled monument. [1]
The building has a nave and chancel, linked by a Romanesque chancel arch. A smaller Romanesque arch forms a doorway on the north side of the chapel. The nave has small windows high in the north and south walls. [2]
Earl Odda had the chapel built for the benefit of the soul of his brother Ælfric, who died on 22 December 1053. Ealdred, Bishop of Worcester consecrated it on 12 April 1056. [2] [3]
As a consequence of the English Reformation, it would have no longer been possible to use the building for its original purpose. In the 1540s Kings Henry VIII and Edward VI abolished chantries.
Late in the 16th or early in the 17th century the chapel building was re-used as part of a timber-framed farmhouse, Abbot's Court, which was built against its east wall. [4] The nave was converted into a kitchen. [3] A first floor was inserted in the chancel. Three- and four-light domestic windows were inserted in the north and south walls of the chancel. [2] In time the building's true age and its identity as a chapel were forgotten.
In 1675 Sir John Powell, a local landowner, discovered a stone slab near Deerhurst. Powell was a judge and would have been sufficiently educated to be able to decipher the slab's 11th-century Latin inscription concerning the dedication of the chapel. [5] However, the chapel itself remained unidentified.
The inscription translates:
"Earl Odda ordered this royal hall to be built and dedicated in honour of the Holy Trinity for the soul of his brother Ælfric, taken up from this place. Ealdred was the bishop who dedicated the building on the second day before Ides of April in the fourteenth year of the reign of Edward, king of the English". [5]
"Odda's Stone" is now in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, [5] and there is a replica in the chapel.
In 1865 the then Vicar of St Mary's parish church, Deerhurst, Rev. George Butterworth, deduced from a chronicle of Tewkesbury Abbey and from the existence of Odda's Stone that there had been a chantry chapel in Deerhurst. [5] In 1885 during repairs to Abbot's Court a blocked Anglo-Saxon window was discovered hidden behind plaster. [3]
In 1960 the Ministry of Works made the chapel a Grade I listed building. In 1965 the chapel was "disentangled" from Abbot's Court farmhouse [2] [3] and restoration of its roof was begun. Early photographs show that although the main part of the roof is 17th century there was an earlier design of 11th-12th century date which may be part of the original roof. [6]
There have been a number of archaeological excavations at Deerhurst since the 1970s. Items from the 1981 excavation led by Philip Rahtz are in Tewkesbury Museum. [7]
The Abbey Church of St Mary the Virgin, Tewkesbury, commonly known as Tewkesbury Abbey, is located in the town of Tewkesbury in the ceremonial county of Gloucestershire, England. A former Benedictine monastery, it is now a parish church. Considered one of the finest examples of Norman architecture in Britain, it has the largest Romanesque crossing tower in Europe.
Deerhurst is a village and civil parish in Gloucestershire, England, about 2 miles (3 km) southwest of Tewkesbury. The village is on the east bank of the River Severn. The parish includes the village of Apperley and the hamlet of Deerhurst Walton. The 2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 906, the majority of whom live in Apperley.
Pershore Abbey, at Pershore in Worcestershire, was an Anglo-Saxon abbey and is now an Anglican parish church, the Church of the Holy Cross.
Gloucester Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of St Peter and the Holy and Indivisible Trinity, in Gloucester, England, stands in the north of the city near the River Severn. It originated with the establishment of a minster, Gloucester Abbey, dedicated to Saint Peter and founded by Osric, King of the Hwicce, in around 679. The subsequent history of the church is complex; Osric's foundation came under the control of the Benedictine Order at the beginning of the 11th century and in around 1058, Ealdred, Bishop of Worcester, established a new abbey "a little further from the place where it had stood". The abbey appears not to have been an initial success, by 1072, the number of attendant monks had reduced to two. The present building was begun by Abbott Serlo in about 1089, following a major fire the previous year.
Anglo-Saxon architecture was a period in the history of architecture in England from the mid-5th century until the Norman Conquest of 1066. Anglo-Saxon secular buildings in Britain were generally simple, constructed mainly using timber with thatch for roofing. No universally accepted example survives above ground. Generally preferring not to settle within the old Roman cities, the Anglo-Saxons built small towns near their centres of agriculture, at fords in rivers or sited to serve as ports. In each town, a main hall was in the centre, provided with a central hearth.
A fan vault is a form of vault used in the Gothic style, in which the ribs are all of the same curve and spaced equidistantly, in a manner resembling a fan. The initiation and propagation of this design element is strongly associated with England.
Apperley is a village in Gloucestershire, England, about 3 miles (5 km) southwest of Tewkesbury, 1 mile (1.6 km) south of Deerhurst and 1⁄3 mile (0.5 km) east of the River Severn. It is the largest settlement in Deerhurst civil parish. In 2020 it had an estimated population of 625.
Prescott is a settlement and civil parish in the Cotswolds within the English county of Gloucestershire. There are scattered farms and houses. There may once have been a settlement around the chapel.
Stanton is a village and civil parish in Tewkesbury Borough, Gloucestershire, England. The village is a spring line settlement at the foot of the Cotswold escarpment, about 2+1⁄2 miles (4 km) southwest of Broadway in neighbouring Worcestershire. Broadway is Stanton's postal town. The 2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 198.
St Mary's Priory Church, Deerhurst, is the Church of England parish church of Deerhurst, Gloucestershire, England. Much of the church is Anglo-Saxon. It was built in the 8th century, when Deerhurst was part of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia. It is contemporary with the Carolingian Renaissance on mainland Europe, which may have influenced it.
Odda of Deerhurst was an Anglo-Saxon nobleman active in the period from 1013 onwards. He became a leading magnate in 1051, following the exile of Godwin, Earl of Wessex and his sons and the confiscation of their property and earldoms, when King Edward the Confessor appointed Odda as earl over a portion of the vacated territory. Earl Godwin was later restored to royal favour, and his lands returned, while Odda received a new earldom in the west midlands in compensation. Odda became a monk late in life. He was buried at Pershore Abbey.
Forthampton is a village in Gloucestershire, England. The village is located three miles from the market town of Tewkesbury and features "a great number of interesting buildings", fine views, several duck ponds, a church, a collection of thatched cottages and farmsteads, a village hall and a village club. Forthampton was designated a Conservation Area in 2003 due to its special architectural and historic interest, character and appearance which it was desirable to preserve and enhance. Notable features of the village include extensive historic buildings clustered around farm houses situated at the centre of the village, the many roadside ponds and grass verges around and between buildings and significant panoramic views.
Leonard Stanley Priory was a priory in Gloucestershire, England. Over the years following the dissolution most of the buildings of the priory complex have been destroyed.
The Church of St Mary and All Saints is an Anglican church in the village of Whalley, Lancashire, England. It is an active parish church in the Diocese of Blackburn. A church probably existed on the site in Anglo-Saxon times and the current building dates from the 13th century. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building.
St Saviour's Church is a historic 19th-century Anglican church in the town of Tetbury, Gloucestershire, England under the care of The Churches Conservation Trust. It was designed by the architect Samuel Daukes. Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin and John Hardman undertook the design and execution of the chancel roof. St Saviour's is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II* listed building.
The Church of St Mary the Virgin is a Church of England parish church in Meysey Hampton, Gloucestershire. It is in the Diocese of Gloucester and the archdeaconry of Cheltenham. It is a Grade II* listed building.
St Peter's Church is an Anglican church in Southrop, a Cotswolds village in the English county of Gloucestershire. It is an active parish church in the Diocese of Gloucester and the archdeaconry of Cheltenham. It has been designated a Grade I listed building by English Heritage. The church—on the site of an older structure—dates from the 12th century.
Todenham is a village and civil parish in the Cotswold district of Gloucestershire, England. The village is significant for its Grade I listed 14th-century parish church.
St Mary's Church, Dymock is a Church of England parish church in the center of the village of Dymock in Gloucestershire, England. It is a Grade I listed building.
Odda's Dedication Stone is an Anglo-Saxon object in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England. It bears an inscription regarding the dedication of a chapel at Deerhurst, Gloucestershire. The building, known as Odda's Chapel, still exists.