St Dunstan's Without The West Gate

The NW chapel was built in 1330.

The S aisle is late C14 and the SW tower is late C14 or early C15.

The SE chapel was added in 1402

rebuilt in brick c.1524.

The porch was added in the C17.

SE chapel C16 red brick.

The C14 tower has an embattled parapet, the lower three stages undivided and with a single, small C14 window with a square head on each face.

The bell stage has two-light C14 cusped openings, also with square heads.

The W end of the nave has a large C15 W window and below it a C15 W door with blind tracery in the spandrels.

The door is flanked by two C13 lancets, presumably reset, as they are in an odd position.

The very large quoin stones in the NW corner of the nave survive from the late C11 or early C12 nave.

The C14 NW chapel has its own gabled roof, a two-light Decorated W window, and in the N wall a small rectangular C14 window that breaks the string course and a blocked C14 doorway.

The N porch was added or rebuilt in the late C17 and has a chamfered outer opening and a small E window.

There is a C17 pendant at the apex of the gable bargeboards.

Herringbone masonry in the nave N wall survives from the late C11 or early C12 nave

the lancet to the E of the N porch is late C12 or very early C13,

there is also a C14 window in the nave N wall.

There is another C14 window and a C13 lancet in the chancel N wall, and the E window is C14, heavily renewed, with intersecting ogee tracery.

The SE chapel was rebuilt in brick c.1524 and has a low pitched roof behind a plain parapet, and three light windows with depressed heads and uncusped lights.

The four bay S arcade is very tall for the height of the nave, reaching almost to the top of the wall and is late C14 in date.

The tower arch, opening into the W bay of the S aisle, is also C14 and has a continuous outer order and an inner order on shafts with moulded capitals that are slightly different to those in the arcade.

The SW chapel opens to the aisle through an early C15 arch on polygonal responds with moulded capitals, and there is a matching two bay arcade from the chapel to the chancel, the central pier with a very high base.

Late medieval nave roof of tie beam and crown post construction.

The S aisle roof is also C19 but retains the moulded timber wall posts and stone corbels of the medieval roof.

The SE chapel roof is flat and C16 in style with moulded beams.

PRINCIPAL FIXTURES: Plain octagonal font, probably C14, with an excellent C15 timber cover in the form of a tabernacle, with buttresses, pinnacles, and tracery

There are also two identical Coade stone fonts, probably early C19, with baluster stems and small bowls with fluting on the undersides.

C19 timber pulpit, choir stalls and simple nave benches.

Some good C20 glass, notably chancel E window by William Aikman of 1933, the Thomas More window by Lawrence Lee and the Ecumenical window of 1984 by John Hayward, both in the SE chapel.

In the S chapel, two marble tomb chests, one of quite plain of Bethersden marble for John Roper, d.1524, with a back plate for brasses, now lost.

The other is larger, and more heavily decorated, for Edmund Roper, d.1533.

Also a wall tablet with double columns but no figures for Thomas Roper, d.1597.

A ledger slab of 1932 marks the burial place in the S Chapel's Roper vault of the head of Sir Thomas More, d.1535 and revered as a saint in the Roman Catholic church.

HISTORY The present church is late C11 or early C12 in origin, and the herringbone flint work and large NW quoins of the nave are of this date.

In 1170/1 King Henry II is said to have removed his shoes and changed into penitential garments here for his entrance into Canterbury following the murder of Thomas Becket.

The chancel was rebuilt in the C13 and retains a lancet of this date.

The NW chapel was built c.1330 as a chantry by Henry de Canterbury, chaplain to Edward III.

The SW tower and S aisle were built in the later C14, possibly in two phases.

The SE chapel was built in 1402 by John Roper and dedicated to St Nicholas.

The head of Sir Thomas More, beheaded in 1535 for refusing to sign the Act of Supremacy, is buried in the Roper vault in the S aisle.

More is revered as a saint by the Roman Catholic church, and the church is a place of pilgrimage.

SOURCES: Lambeth Palace Library ICBS 08399 Buildings of England North-East and East Kent , 236-7 Worgan, M. The Church of St Dunstan, Canterbury: A General Guide to the Church (nd) REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: The church of St Dunstan's without the west gate, Canterbury is designated at Grade I for the following principal reasons: * Parish church, late C11 or early C12 in origin, preserving herringbone masonry

quoins of that date, enlarged in the C13

C14

with a possibly C15 roof in nave

* C14 font with very rare C15 cover