LONDON, ENGLAND.-The oldest door in Britain has been discovered at Westminster Abbey following a study by English Heritage with the support of the Dean & Chapter. The door to the Chapter House outer vestibule is now known to be the only surviving Anglo-Saxon door in this country, dating back to the time of Edward the Confessor, the Abbey’s founder, who was born 1,000 years ago this year.

The octagonal Chapter House, in the east cloister, dates from the 1250s and is one of the largest in England. The monks met here every day for prayers and to read a chapter from the rule of St Benedict and discuss the day’s work. The King’s Great Council first assembled here in 1257. This was effectively the beginning of the English Parliament. The House of Commons regularly used the room in the 14th century, before they transferred to the Palace of Westminster. After having been a repository for government records from the 1540s it was restored in Victorian times by Sir Gilbert Scott.

It has long been obvious that the battered and insignificant-looking wooden door leading from the Chapter House Vestibule into a small chamber within the east cloister range of Westminster Abbey must be ancient, but its true age has so far eluded discovery. In the 19th century it was noticed that there were fragments of hide adhering to the door, and a legend grew up suggesting that these were human. It was supposed that somebody in the Middle Ages had been caught committing sacrilege in the Abbey, had been flayed and his skin nailed to the door as a deterrent to other would-be felons. A specific link was suggested to a robbery that is known to have taken place in the adjoining treasury, in 1303.

Scientific dating of the timber with a technique known as ‘dendrochronology’ was part of a study commissioned and funded by English Heritage and carried out by Daniel Miles and Dr Martin Bridge of the Oxford Dendrochronology Laboratory. What this study actually tells us is that the timber was felled between dates 1032AD and 1064AD. It is therefore the earliest dated door in England.

The door is made of five vertical oak planks, held together with three horizontal battens, or ‘ledges’, and iron straps. Most unusually, the battens are recessed into the planks, so that the door is flush on both faces. Normally, medieval doors have a flat ‘front’ face and a ‘back’ which has projecting ledges and braces. The construction of the Westminster door is unique, and shows that it was intended to communicate between two spaces of equal importance.

The boards were cut from a single tree and the visible rings on them represent growth during the years from AD 924 to 1030. Because the bark and some of the sapwood was trimmed away when the planks were made into a door, the exact year of felling cannot be determined, but it can be calculated as falling within the period 1032-1064. A date in the 1050s for the manufacture of the door is most likely.

Simon Thurley, Chief Executive of English Heritage, said: “We are delighted to have been able to fund and carry out this important investigative work on Westminster Abbey’s historic medieval timberwork in partnership with the Dean and Chapter. It is incredible to think that when the ‘Pyx’ door was made, the Norman Conquest had not yet happened and William of Normandy was still a young man of about 20 years old. William was later crowned King of England on Christmas Day 1066 just a hundred feet away from the door. This impressive finding is the result of a collaboration between four experts from English Heritage, Westminster Abbey and the Oxford Dendrochonology Laboratory using the latest tree-ring sampling technology. The discovery has deepened our understanding of the Abbey and its history in the year we celebrate the 1000th anniversary of its founder’s birth.”

Explains Dr Warwick Rodwell, the Abbey’s Archaeologist, “This the oldest door in Britain, but it is the only one assignable to the Anglo-Saxon period. We can therefore say confidently that this was a major door belonging to the great Abbey constructed by Edward the Confessor, King of England, 1042-1065.

“The ring-pattern displayed by the timber indicates that the tree grew in eastern England, and almost certainly came from the extensive woodland owned by the Abbey, possibly in Essex.”

The door now measures 6½ ft high by 4 ft wide, but has been cut down. Almost certainly the top was originally round-arched, and the door would have measured 9 ft high by 4½ ft wide. After the planks were fitted together, at least one and probably both faces were covered with animal hides, which were tacked on to the planks. The hides were taken from cows and added to provide a smooth surface for decoration. Then the ornamental iron hinges and decorative straps with curled ends were fixed, using large-headed nails and clench-bolts.

Only one of the original iron straps survives today (with skin trapped underneath it), but the outlines of the lost elements have been recovered by studying the fixing-holes and other scars remaining on one face of the door. Except for the paint, its original appearance can be reconstructed with confidence. Until now, such doors have only been known from drawings in Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, and from later Norman derivatives.

Dan Miles from the Oxford Dendrochronology Laboratory said: “From its size, and its double-sided form, it is clear that this was one of the major doors of the Saxon Abbey. Its reuse here, in c. 1250, in the Vestibule of King Henry III’s magnificent Chapter House, can’t have been accidental. Henry greatly revered Edward the Confessor, rebuilding the Abbey church and creating a sumptuous shrine in his honour. No expense was spared, and thus the adaptation and reuse of this ancient door must have been a symbolic act to preserve in-use a ritually important element of the Saxon Abbey. Potentially, it was the door to the Confessor’s own Chapter House.”