Roman Masonry - St Andrew - Wroxeter, Shropshire
Posted by: SMacB
N 52° 40.208 W 002° 38.834
30U E 523854 N 5835635
St Andrew's is built on the Roman site of Viroconium, the fourth largest town of Roman Britain, and the evidence for the ancient town is everywhere. Walls containing massive Roman stones, and the font is made from an inverted Roman column base.
Waymark Code: WM10T4B
Location: West Midlands, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 06/19/2019
Views: 1
"St Andrew's is built on the Roman site of Viroconium, the fourth largest town of Roman Britain, and the evidence for the ancient town is everywhere. The gateposts are made from two Roman columns; the walls contain massive Roman stones; and the huge font is made from an inverted Roman column base."
SOURCE - (
visit link)
"The earliest parts of the church are Anglo-Saxon but the precise date of its foundation in uncertain. There is strong circumstantial evidence that a church was built in the area of the Roman bath in the 5th or 6th century. A preaching cross was erected in the churchyard in the 8th century. It is thought that the oldest existing fabric in the present church dates from the 8th or 9th century. This consists of large stones which came from the public buildings of the Roman town.
St Andrew's is built of sandstone with tiled roofs. It has a nave, south porch, chancel, south vestry, and west tower. The north wall of the nave is Anglo-Saxon and contains blocks from former Roman buildings. These blocks have Lewis holes (
visit link) . The chancel also incorporates some re-used Roman masonry in its north wall.
The font is large and round, and was constructed from the base of a former Roman column.
The sandstone churchyard gate piers were made in the 19th century re-using Roman masonry. The square bases came from farm buildings, the shafts of the columns from the Roman baths, and the capitals from an unknown source."
SOURCE - (
visit link)