From medieval times (c.1400) the Nave had been colourful and delightfully cluttered with a profusion of tombs, gravestones, indents, brasses, monuments, decorative banners, screens and chantry chapels, some of great historical significance.

In 1787 Dean George Horne ordered that all such items, even the font, should be ruthlessly swept away and the floor of the Nave completely cleared and re-laid so that a “pleasant” prospect could be viewed from the west door. The font was removed to the upper storey of the Water Tower, on account of which, it came to be known as the Baptistery.

Horne’s command was carried out without any regard to conservation. Many observers of the time, including Horace Walpole (politician, commentator, writer and coiner of the word serendipity, 1717-1797) were horrified by the “outrageous Nave clearance”. To render the appearance even more bland, stonework in the Nave and the Choir was whitewashed.

The area became a pale shadow of its former glorious self and we can only imagine the colour and diversity of the medieval Nave, as the pilgrims to Becket’s shrine must have seen it.

Dean George Horne