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The timber church of St Andrew at Greensted-juxta-Ongar is a unique building being the oldest surviving timber church and one of the oldest timber buildings in Europe. Sometimes incorrectly referred to as a stave church, the church originally consisted of a timber nave built of upright logs, split vertically, and placed side by side, with a groove down the centre and a thin fillet of wood inserted to make a weatherproof seal. The logs originally stood upon a timber sill, but this was replaced by a sill of mixed timber and bricks during a Victorian restoration.

Confusion concerning the date of the church arose when Jack E. Crawford Stringer claimed to have proved a ‘dendro-magnetic’ (a dating technique that does not exist) date of AD 845. From a letter that Crawford Stringer sent to the Bishop of Chelmsford it is obvious that he had attempted dendrochronological analysis of rubbings taken from the timbers.

In 1996 a proper dendrochronological analysis of the timbers produced the following conclusion:
“Dendrochronological analysis of staves from the church of St Andrew’s, Greensted, has demonstrated that the building is later than has hitherto been thought. The analysis presented here provides a terminus post quem for the construction of the building of AD 1063. The balance of evidence suggests that construction probably occurred between c 1063 and c 1100. Despite the new date Greensted remains Britain’s oldest known standing timber building and one of the earliest standing timber buildings in Europe.”
Tyers, I. (1996). Tree-ring analysis of timbers from the stave church at Greensted, Essex.

Greensted Church from the south
image David Beard
(click on the images to enlarge)

Greensted Church from the south
image David Beard

Reconstruction of the original Greensted nave (after Hewett (1980)