Curse
The Viking's Skin
A church robber flayed and nailed to the door. Or a cow.
See it clearly
- What's there
- Possibly England's oldest working door, Saxon church
- Legend from
- Late Saxon, 11th century
- Tone
- Dark history
Hadstock: they said the leather on this ancient door was the skin of a flayed Viking.
Hadstock's north door is dated by tree rings to about 1034-1042 and may be the oldest door in England still in use. For centuries, at least since the 1600s, the tale went that skin nailed to it had been flayed from a Danish raider caught robbing the church. Supporters linked the church to the minster Cnut founded after the battle of Assandun in 1016. In 2022, ZooMS protein analysis of the Hadstock fragment by Cambridge researcher Ruairidh Macleod showed it was cow hide. The door survives, although the legend is now debunked.