johncons said…
Hi,
I’m from Norway, but I live in Liverpool.
Yesterday, I was in Chester, to have a look at the town, or city I think it is.
Since I think I should also visit some other places here, than just Liverpool.
And then suddently I stumbled upon St. Olave’s Church, and that was fun.
I saw the sign for the street, St. Olave Street, and understood it was the saint we call ‘Olav den hellige’, Olav the holy, in Norway.
In Norway, we have some wooden churches, ‘stavkirker’, from the viking-age.
But I wasn’t aware of, that in Chester there is a church built by vikings, so this was very surprising, to me, I didn’t know that there existed stone-buildings like this, from the Vikings.
There was a sign there, saying that the church was built on, in the 18th century, that it was restaured?
I was wondering if you know if this building, when it was conserved, in the 18th century was built in the same way, as it used to be?
I saw that the parishes, between St. Olave’s and St. Michael’s were quite strict defined, since on a building, called ‘the nine houses’, or something, the border between the parishes, was marked, on the fasade of the building.
So was there like a conflict there, between the ‘Viking’ parish, and the St Michael’s Church parish?
The people living in the Viking part of town, must have been quite poor then, since the parish was joined with the neighbour parish.
The tradition with the black and white timber-buildings, that one see, in Chester, and also in other towns in Britain, on pubs etc., where is this tradition from.
I guess that’s typically British then, is it from the Normans or something?
Sorry if I’m asking a lot of questions, I just thought it was fun that a Viking-church in stone, existed, to this date.
Is the building listed, or graded, or what the right term is, and why haven’t it got a proper sign on it, that says its from the Viking-age, because from the only sign I saw, it looked like it was from the 18th century, but that was really when it was conserved, I understood, when I later searched about the church on the internet.
I took some pictures in Chester, so I can add a link, so it’s possible to understand what I meant with the sign, or plate.
Sorry that I ask so many questions, by the way, I just thought it was very fun, to see that a church like this, existed, from the Vikings, I wasn’t aware of that.
Thanks in advance for any answers to all the questions!
Sincerely,
Erik Ribsskog
PS.
Here is the link I mentioned, with the pictures of the church etc., from Chester:
https://johncons-blogg.net/2009/07/fler-bilder-fra-chester-mm-in-norwegian.html
6:37 AM
boobelle said…
Hi Eric
Im afraid I am no expert on these churches or Chester – try emailing Professor Stephen Harding (Steve.Harding@nottingham.ac.uk) at Nottingham University, the content of that blog post was from him….the black & white timber framed buildings though are from the Tudor times in England, not Viking! Im very interested in what you find out about the churches – please share…
B