The door of St Saviours Church, Dartmouth which has been carbon dated to 1361. With later iron work added in 1631. Love an old door me.

by StGuthlac2025

30 comments

  6. Beautiful. We have some incredibly old “stuff” in this country still in daily use, like that Anglo Saxon door in Westminster Abbey that got officially dated in 2005 – causing one of the Abbey staff to say “Well. I supposed we’d better stop putting post-it notes all over it.”

  7. Amazing how the ironwork can be dated so precisely to 1631.

  8. Bring this back. Tired of grey doors with those massive long handles like a posh fridge.

  10. There was a lovely old door in a castle I visited with friends. It had a small grate, and on the other side was a small plaque with information. I leant forward to read it through the grate, then stood back upright as said “wow, this door is 600 years old!”

    Since then, my friends have a joke that I can tell the age of a door by smell.

  12. I bet some of those around in 1631 thought that adding ‘that modern metal monstrosity’ to such a beautiful ‘old’ wooden door was akin to graffiti and sacrilegious.

  13. At least it’s a DIY job to change to sign from 1631 to 1361. I’ll do it for 30 dubloons.

  14. my old school had a special door which had iron snakes for the hinges and handle etc. Unimaginatively (though quite coolly) called ‘Snake Door’.

  16. It’s incredible to think that door has been opened and closed by people for over 650 years.

  17. They built them stout in those days. No Wisht hound’s getting through that!

  19. Fantastic. I love the huge creature across the middle

  20. There’s no quim likes to party like the quim down in Darty

  22. The mind just boggles when I try and think of what that door has “seen” over the years. Faces and conversations it’s been privvy to. 

  23. You should totally post this in the Door Appreciation Society on FB!

  24. I too love a good door! I didn’t even know that was there, thank you!

  25. Mental mate thanks for sharing

    The other day I was going down this ornate wooden staircase in a clothing store in a historic market town & thought “this is a damn nice staircase” & figured it must be somewhat historical.

    It looked very out of place – the rest of the shop looked like it had been built in the 90s+

    Turns out it was built in about 1600 I think. Was originally part of a pub on the site and has survived 400+ years of building repurposes & such. Was very wide about 3 meters across I think..? So just fucking mental innit what sort of people would’ve walked up and down those stairs over time, pre great fire of London pre civil war pre all sorts of events, what their intentions were their hopes & desires, anxieties..

  28. No further modifications to the door are permitted until the year 3116.

  30. Amazing to think that in 1631 they would’ve been thinking, “‘Kin hell, this door is OLD!”

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