Bar Locks and Early Church Security in the British Isles

Bar Locks and Early Church Security in the British Isles examines the evidence for the measures taken to make church buildings secure or defensible from their earliest times until the later medieval period. In particular it examines the phenomenon of ‘bar locks’ which the author identifies in many different contexts throughout England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland.

Bar locks take various forms and can be made of different materials, but they all provide a means of locking a door by placing a bar behind it from the inside which is then secured onto the door frame or housings on adjacent walls. The most dramatic examples are provided by thick wooden bars slotted into recesses incorporated in the adjacent door jambs. The volume describes and lists all the examples identified by the author and also publishes his photographs of the evidence for the first time.

The recognition of the role of bar locks in securing churches led the author to consider further measures which may have been introduced to enhance church security; these measures could have had major implications for structural change and design in the buildings. These supplementary protective requirements and methods for achieving them are many and various and are also considered in the volume.

Table of Contents

Chapter One: Keys and Bar Locks ; 
Chapter Two: Church Bar Locks in England ; 
Chapter Three: Church Bar Locks in Scotland ; 
Chapter Four: Church Bar Locks in Wales ; 
Chapter Five: Church Bar Locks in Ireland ; 
Chapter Six: Comments and Conclusions on Bar Locks ; 
Chapter Seven: A Review of Possible Church Modifications to Enhance Security ; 
Chapter Eight: Church Security in England  ; 
Chapter Nine: Church Security in Scotland ; 
Chapter Ten: Church Security in Wales ; 
Chapter Eleven: Church Security in Ireland ; 
Chapter Twelve: Conclusions ; 
Important Note and Resulting Apologies ; 
Glossary ; 
References

John F. Potter trained as a geologist specialising in lithostratigraphy (PhD London). He served as Principal of Farnborough College of Technology (1975-1997), was Hon. Secretary of the Institution of Environmental Sciences, and Editor for many years of the international journal, The Environmentalist. On retirement he was appointed Emeritus Professor at the University of Surrey and joined the University of Reading in order to continue with the church building fabric studies which he started in 1975.