A recent luminescence sample obtained from a brick at the church of St Andrew, Boreham, Essex, returned a date of AD 896 +/- 68 at 2-sigma or 95% confidence. Given that the brick was reused, the date was subsequently revised to AD 913 +/- 73. The sample nevertheless suggests the church at Boreham retains the earliest medieval brickwork in England and the only example to date from the Anglo-Saxon period. The sampled brick was probably contemporary with entire medieval bricks in the eastern nave quoins of the church which appear to be primary features. Structural survey suggests the east end of the nave pre-dates the early Romanesque axial tower and that the former is stratigraphically Anglo-Saxon. The use of brick at such an early date in England may be explained by Boreham’s situation near the Essex coast, on the periphery of north-western Continental Europe where use of early medieval brick in churches was sporadic but widespread.
Daniel Secker (Sun,) studied this question.