Way We Were: Kevin Salt talks about Dilhorne Church and octagonal…

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MADAM, I write with reference to the caption below Tommy Woodward's photograph of Dilhorne Church in The Way We Were on March 29.

Although octagonal church towers are rare, others do exist including those at Hodnet in Shropshire and Hornby in Lancashire.

The parish churches of both Stafford and Nantwich also contain octagonal towers, although these are placed above the central crossing, rather than at the west end of the nave. The tower at Dilhorne may have existed before the church, being originally built as a defensive structure.

The abundance of round towers found in East Anglia, built for this purpose, were often incorporated into later churches. The fact that the tower has no doorway and only the smallest of windows at lower levels makes this theory more plausible.

It is unlikely, although not impossible, that this may be a Saxon construction. However, if the tower was built as a defensive structure, it is more probable this was erected by one of the first Normans who took the name of 'de Dulverne' after the Conquest.

In all likelihood, the first church at Dilhorne would have been a wooden construction.

St Chad first brought Christianity to Britain during the 7th century, although it is impossible to say precisely when Dilhorne's spiritual needs were strong enough to warrant the building of a church. If the first church did predate the tower, then this may have been attached to it or at least stood nearby.

The first mention of a church at Dilhorne in documentary sources is 1166 when Ruald de Dulverne presented the advowson, the right to appoint the priest, to the Priory of Stone with the agreement of his overlord Robert de Stafford.

This would have been a newly-constructed building of stone, occupying the area of the current nave and incorporating the tower.

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