Other Saxon remains are not wanting.  Wilfrid’s Crypt at Hexham, that at Ripon, Brixworth Church, the church within the precincts of Dover Castle, the towers of Barnack, Barton-upon-Humber, Stow, Earl’s Barton, Sompting, Stanton Lacy show considerable evidences of Saxon work.  Saxon windows with their peculiar baluster shafts can be seen at Bolam and Billingham, Durham; St. Andrew’s, Bywell, Monkwearmouth, Ovington, Sompting, St. Mary Junior, York, Hornby, Wickham (Berks), Waithe, Holton-le-Clay, Glentworth and Clee (Lincoln), Northleigh, Oxon, and St. Alban’s Abbey.  Saxon arches exist at Worth, Corhampton, Escomb, Deerhurst, St. Benet’s, Cambridge, Brigstock, and Barnack.  Triangular arches remain at Brigstock, Barnack, Deerhurst, Aston Tirrold, Berks.  We have still some Saxon fonts at Potterne, Wilts; Little Billing, Northants; Edgmond and Bucknell, Shropshire; Penmon, Anglesey; and South Hayling, Hants.  Even Saxon sundials exist at Winchester, Corhampton, Bishopstone, Escomb, Aldborough, Edston, and Kirkdale.  There is also one at Daglingworth, Gloucestershire.  Some hours of the Saxon’s day in that village must have fled more swiftly than others, as all the radii are placed at the same angle.  Even some mural paintings by Saxon artists exist at St. Mary’s, Guildford; St. Martin’s, Canterbury; and faint traces at Britford, Headbourne, Worthing, and St. Nicholas, Ipswich, and some painted consecration crosses are believed to belong to this period.

Recent investigations have revealed much Saxon work in our churches, the existence of which had before been unsuspected.  Many circumstances have combined to obliterate it.  The Danish wars had a disastrous effect on many churches reared in Saxon times.  The Norman Conquest caused many of them to be replaced by more highly finished structures.  But frequently, as we study the history written in the stonework of our churches, we find beneath coatings of stucco the actual walls built by Saxon builders, and an arch here, a column there, which link our own times with the distant past, when England was divided into eight kingdoms and when Danegelt was levied to buy off the marauding strangers.

It is refreshing to find these specimens of early work in our churches.  Since then what destruction has been wrought, what havoc done upon their fabric and furniture!  At the Reformation iconoclasm raged with unpitying ferocity.  Everybody from the King to the churchwardens, who sold church plate lest it should fall into the hands of the royal commissioners, seems to have been engaged in pillaging churches and monasteries.  The plunder of chantries and guilds followed.  Fuller quaintly describes this as “the last dish of the course, and after cheese nothing is to be expected.”  But the coping-stone was placed on the vast fabric of spoliation by sending commissioners to visit all the cathedrals and parish churches, and seize the superfluous plate and ornaments for the King’s use.  Even quite small churches possessed many treasures which the piety of many generations had bestowed upon them.