MonoMonday "Ancient Buildings": Church Tower 850AD

Many thanks again to JoanneInOz for hosting Mono-Monday this month.
She asked for an ancient building: the lower part of this tower on Bywell Church dates from approx 850AD which seems pretty old :)


This tower is part of St Andrews’ Church in the tiny village of Bywell, about 15 miles west of Newcastle upon Tyne. I went out there today to photograph it.
 
The lower part of the tower dates from about 850AD. As was common at the time it was built as a defensive structure; its walls are massive, said to be up to 5 metres thick although I'm not sure I believe this - they look more like 0.5 metres thick to me! At the time it was built, the rest of the church would have been made of wood.
 
The upper part of the tower (which includes a belfry) and the nave were probably added in the 11th Century. The chancel and south transept were added in the early 13th Century. Some further alterations were made in the 19th Century, in particular a north transept and (probably) the south porch (visible on the picture) were added.
 
Regrettably the church was declared redundant in October 1973 and in 1975 its care was vested in the Churches Conservation Trust, a national charity – which seems to be doing a great job of keeping it in good condition. It seems hardly surprising that it became redundant as there is another church (St Peters), also dating from Anglo-Saxon times, about 100 yards from it. Bywell is probably the only village in England with 2 surviving churches from the Anglo-Saxon era. Seemingly this results from the fact that each stands near the boundary of a different ancient estate; St Andrews would have been built for the long-vanished village of Styford, whereas St Peters was built for Bywell itself.

If you like the bullding, there's some more pictures, including the impressive interior of the church, on this link on flickr.