The building of the Abbey Church

The Abbey Church is our only Grade I listed building, a marvel of mediaeval construction before the days of modern technology, tools and equipment, and so relied on manpower alone. It was built over a period spanning several centuries yet still stands as a monument to those early artisans who worked not for the glory of God but to sustain their families and stay alive.

The building of our church is therefore a parable that has a resonance today that is reflected in a myriad familiar expressions that we use without thought such as "the labourer is worthy of his hire" or "labour brings its own reward". Each stone was fashioned and laid with perfection through hardship and sweat, a task that took some workmen a lifetime yet they never saw the completion of their toil.

The abbey was conceived by the Lord of the Manor, Baldwin Fitzgilbert (1095-1154), who began work in the early 12th century during the great revival in religious thought and action in England. Anxious to demonstrate his devotion to the faith, he decided to erect a new church on the site of the old Saxon building which was then showing signs of decay and began the task in 1138 but owing to many setbacks and adversities, he never completed the work as he intended.

Baldwin had imagined a building of cathedral like proportions with twin towers but this did not come to fruition and it has been suggested that the ambitious plans were thwarted by the Black Death which resulted in a shortage of stonemasons. He was also wounded and taken prisoner at the Battle of Lincoln in 1141 and, according to the custom of the time, had to pay a large ransom for his release and this seriously depleted his financial resources.

It was inevitable that a building of such proportions would take a considerable time to complete and apart from the expense, a significant labour force was required, but there was also the problem of finding the materials. Timber was no doubt provided by Bourne Wood, then part of the ancient Brunswald Forest which was full of oaks, but the stone itself had to be hauled from some distance away, there being no local source available in the immediate area, and this must have been transported block by block by ox-cart from somewhere such as the quarry at Barnack, near Stamford, where the limestone known as Barnack rag was first exploited by the Romans, on roads which were little more than footpaths and rough tracks.

Stone may also have been transported on sleds from the quarry to the River Glen and loaded on to barges or rafts on which it travelled down the waterway and thence to the Bourne Eau which ran past the church. Once here, it was fashioned on site by a team of stonemasons, usually travelling craftsmen from all parts of the country who moved to where the work was available and stayed until the job was finished.

The role of these mediaeval masons has been studied by Carol Davidson Cragoe, Assistant Architectural Editor of the Victoria County History, who tells us that most of the actual construction work on our churches and cathedrals was done during the spring and summer months, allowing the mortar to set and the laid stones to settle over the winter, also giving the masons a chance to carve more stones for the following year (BBC Online, British History Series).

The masons had no magical formula, she writes, merely an understanding of basic geometry and a few tools such as a set of compasses, a set square and a staff or rope marked off in halves, thirds and fifths, while designs were worked out at full scale on tracing floors covered with soft plaster or sometimes on parchment. Yet they were able to construct these most amazing buildings. Scaffolding was used to reach the loftier parts and cranes and pulleys helped lift materials but it was a hard and often dangerous occupation and many lost their balance while working at extreme heights and plunged to their death.

Work on the Abbey Church took several centuries. The original building programme was cut back by Baldwin because of the various problems he encountered and the church was not finished as originally intended, only the nave, with a low roof, and the bottom portion of the tower being completed. The west front, the upper part of the tower and the clerestory were not added until the 14th century and it would be another 200 years before the building that we see today was finally completed.

It was therefore a monumental task at an inestimable cost and despite the progress that has been made in almost 900 years that have since passed, it is one that would face insurmountable problems if tackled today. Imagine the bureaucracy that would pursue such a scheme, from the original idea to the final conception, not to mention finance because the money for such an ambitious project would be hard to find when even in these affluent times, the church is having difficulties in raising the £100,000 required for the latest essential maintenance and repairs.

First a site would have to be purchased and approved and no matter which was chosen, there would be some developer around complaining that it was eating up land that would be far better used for new houses while the planning process would produce a welter of bureaucratic pitfalls, enough to delay the process for several years. Then there would have to be agreement on the final appearance of the building and the proposed materials which would provide sufficient scope for the church itself to object on principal if merely to assert its authority, as it would undoubtedly do, and so there would be enough interference to throw the entire project into a state of confusion.

If after all of the official procedures had been ironed out, permissions sought and given and work was about to start, there would then have to be the securing of materials and the recruiting of a workforce and their trade unions to contend with whose officials would undoubtedly regulate working to an eight hour day, five days a week with suitable holiday entitlements, not to mention the Health and Safety Executive who would create a nightmare of rules and regulations, not least for working at the heights required to complete the tower.

It is unlikely, therefore, that such a building could be repeated in Bourne in the present climate, a thought worth pondering on when we are asked to dig into our pockets and support the upkeep of the present one.

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