The mystery of the saint, the Lord Mayor and the country house

A mysterious underground object could connect a seventh century Anglo Saxon prince who became a saint, a Tudor Lord Mayor of London and a Shropshire country manor.

The tale has drawn comparisons to a Dan Brown novel or a historical mystery story, but it is being taken seriously by some historians.

It has also been claimed there is a modern relevance to this saint, even though he lived almost 1,400 years ago.

Erkenwald served as the Bishop of London between 675 and 693. He was a nobleman who founded two great Anglo-Saxon monasteries and gained a reputation for healing rifts within the church, which led to his later canonisation.

His remains were kept at St Paul's Cathedral for many centuries, but they disappeared during the reformation.

Now, an art historian believes they may have been saved by the London's Lord Mayor at the time, Rowland Hill, and buried beneath his country home, Soulton Hall.

James D Wenn, from Chelmsford in Essex, specialises in social and architectural history.

He explains that Erkenwald was a prince of the east Saxons before becoming a priest. He was placed in charge of a diocese which included modern day Essex, Middlesex and London.

But Wenn said he was also "uniquely and centrally important to bringing together different religious figures of the time, who differed on theological matters and healing rifts".

Erkenwald is mentioned by Bede and is also the subject of a medieval poem in which he baptises a man who wakes from the dead.

After his death he became the patron saint of London, and his remains were kept in a golden shrine at St Pauls.

But Wenn said when the Reformation came, English Protestants wanted to remove Catholic references from St Paul's Cathedral, and that included a large stone altar and a number of relics.

The man given the task of overseeing this controversial work was Rowland Hill, who Wenn describes as the "superstar Lord Mayor of London".

He said that while Hill had become a Protestant, he had grown up a Catholic and that might have persuaded him to save some of these objects and move them to his home at Soulton Hall, near Wem in Shropshire.

Last year, Wenn put forward a theory that a large stone block at Soulton Hall could be the missing altar stone from St Paul's.

The block is housed in a room which the historian believes was specifically designed to house it.

Wenn said the room demonstrates Hill's commitment to saving the artefacts from St Paul's and said he would have been "both incredibly brave and and potentially incredibly idiotic" to have built such an obvious statement of intent "if he didn't really believe in the risk that he was taking".

He has suggested the underside of the stone should be examined, to check for proof it is indeed the altar stone, because he believes Hill may have installed it upside down to conceal its identity.

Wenn was also struck by the geometry Soulton Hall, which he said was a "puzzle box of Renaissance Tudor mathematics".

He believes it intentionally draws the visitor's attention towards certain parts of the estate and one of those points was a part of the garden with no obvious features.

The geometry "was hyper-focused on honouring this little patch of ground," he said.

The current owner of Soulton Hall, Tim Ashton, brought in people from Exeter University to carry out a geophysical survey of the ground and they discovered an "anomaly" roughly 1.5m (5ft) below the surface.

At the moment there are no plans to excavate the site, but Wenn said his "body is screaming" that this could be the missing relics of St Erkenwald.

However, this theory is dividing opinions.

Wenn said: "There are a lot of very senior church people across different churches who completely agree and believe that that's the case there are other people that would like to see more material evidence."

Unfortunately, proving his theory may be almost impossible.

Hundreds of year lying in acidic soil is likely to have reduced any remains to their component chemicals, and even if there was something to find, positively identifying them would be difficult.

That is because there are no known living descendants of the celibate priest from 1,400 years ago, so DNA matches could not be used.

But that has not dampened the enthusiasm of Wenn and Ashton, who have erected a temporary metal pyramid over the spot.

Wenn said the important thing was that people were now talking about Erkenwald, who he said was "a historic figure who can be very inspirational in bringing together different communities across divides."

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