PRE-CONQUEST CHURCHES OF ESSEX 275
THE PRE-CONQUEST CHURCHES OF ESSEX AND THE
METHOD OF IAYING-OUT THEIR GROUND-PLANS
BY LAURENCE S. HARLEY, B.SC, M.I.E.E.
COME twenty-five years ago, I was impressed by the following note in
Vol. IV of the Hist. Mon. Comm. Report on Essex:
On p. xxxii of the preface, the writer remarks, of pre-Conquest churches:
. . . "the proportions of the nave are commonly rather less than two
squares" (by which he means that Saxon naves are usually less than
two widths long, of course) and he adds a footnote, saying
"The uniformity in the proportion of width to length in five instances
(all pre-Conquest) is so remarkable and perhaps significant that the details
are appended" (my italics).
The writer then gives the first five examples shown in the table below.
PROPORTIONS OF NAVE-DIMENSIONS OF EARLY CHURCHES
(ESSEX)
I at once realised that his uniform ratio of 0.58-0.59 is significantly near to
0.577, which is the inverse of √3, and that had he taken the proportion of
length to width instead of the other way round, he surely would have grasped