Farnham

St Mary the Virgin was undergoing some serious work, I assume re-roofing, and was locked when I visited with not only no sign of a keyholder but no sign at all. The only reason I know it's called St Mary the Virgin is the interweb.

On the one hand I can understand why it is locked - this is the hardest to find church in the history of hard to find churches - but on the other that surely works in favour of keeping it open since, I suspect, only locals can find it with regularity, I'd certainly struggle to find it again!

Having found it I was slightly disappointed to find that it is a Victorian church built in 1859, however, this is more than made up for its location. I assume it is, or was, connected to the Hassobury estate since my sat nav was determined to take me through private roads to reach it - hence the trouble finding it since I'm not a drive along on private roads type.

UPDATE 13/09/14 - Gained access today...internally it's dire.

ST MARY THE VIRGIN, 1859 by Joseph Clarke.

It appears that Mee couldn't find it either.

Simon K:

One of the county's most remote churches, stuck in a fold of fields at the end of a narrow lane in that hook of Essex beyond the Hertfordshire town of Bishop's Stortford.

The church is alone in the fields, a grand sight on a rise above the Jacobean stately home of Hassiobury in the fold beneath. It was entirely rebuilt in the 1850s by John Clarke in a jaunty flint, with exposed beams, which cannot have been entirely approved of by the ecclesiologists. The steep roofs and exposed wood gave the effect of a gingerbread house, or at least of a church for a village of gingerbread houses.

It was tempting to ring the keyholder, but the church appears to have little of interest inside, and there was only a phone number, suggesting we'd have to wait for them to come and open up. I decided that the interior could not compete with the exterior, so instead we headed on through increasingly narrow and flooded winding lanes northwards to the pretty village of Manuden.

Stisted

Sandwiched between a golf course and a pre-school All Saints is an obvious candidate to be locked without a keyholder listed.

Why give golfers or pre-schoolers access to your church? Or anyone else for that matter - I can't be arsed to rant.

All Saints is a curious blend of north and south Essex and is rather enjoyable for it - I particularly liked the octagonal tiled spire, which is odd because this style does not normally appeal to me!

The church is not to a standard configuration nor is its external appearance typical of the area. It comprises nave and chancel, north and south aisle. The tower and spire are at the east end of the south aisle adjacent to the nave. The vestry is to the north east corner of the chancel with a boiler room below. There are north and south porches.

The roofs of the chancel and vestry are covered in plain clay tiles with pointed verges and overhanging eaves. The roofs of the nave, aisles and porches are generally lead covered with overhanging eaves. There are parapets to the east and west ends of the nave and aisles. The church spire is covered with cedar shingles. The walls are flint rubble including some conglomerate and with limestone dressings.

It is recorded that the church was begun in the late twelfth century, although very little of this period remains. The chancel was built in the thirteenth century, as was the south arcade.

The aisle and vestry generally date from the fourteenth century. The church was extensively 'restored' in the nineteenth century when the two porches and the tower were added.

Old foundations were dug up near the chancel indicating that the church may have been larger at one time, but no details are available.

On the ground floor of the tower is a wall tablet stating "The tower was rebuilt from the foundations by Onley Savill-Onley and at the same time the chancel was new roofed and restored by the Rev Charles Forster AD 1844". In the first floor ringing chamber there are several photographs and an oil painting. The bells are rung now on certain Sundays and special occasions but as recently as 1950-1960 the tower was often used for 'competition' ringing.

Descriptions of the church prior to the nineteenth century restoration works refer to a gallery at the west end. At that time Stisted had a church and village band. The band was replaced by a harmonium which was eventually sold in 1892 when it was replaced by the organ.

The nave was filled by box pews of different sizes and shapes. They were lined with green baize and studded with brass nails. The pew belonging to Stisted Hall was at the front and raised two steps above the others. The other pews followed in order of perceived importance with the farmers next.

The pews generally had doors and some were like four poster beds with curtains hung around. It is suggested some had fireplaces with poker, tongs and shovel.

The pulpit, based on the descriptions was a three-decker pulpit with an octagonal sounding board above and the clerk's desk adjoining the reading desk.

ALL SAINTS. A church of odd external shape; but it must be remembered that the tower, standing at the E end of the S aisle was built only in 1844. Chronologically the history of the church begins with the N arcade of five bays, or rather three with odd narrower arches at the W and E ends. The arcade is of c. 1180-90 and has short circular piers with very good square foliage capitals. The E capital is a little later; round with heads at the corners. The S arcade has in the corresponding place a capital of the same type. The others are without carving. The N and S arches have only one slight chamfer. The chancel belongs to the same time as the E capitals. It possessed a fine group of five (renewed) stepped single lancets; lancets also on the N and S sides. Finally there are the N and S aisle walls with C14 Dec windows of no special interest. - PULPIT with panelled sides, one with a coat of arms, early C18. - PAINTING. Adoration of the Magi, by Gaspar de Crayer. - STAINED GLASS. A whole collection of fragments in the chancel windows, mostly Flemish and mostly C16. In a S window some C14 tabernacle work. - MONUMENTS. Charles Savill-Onley d. 1843 with profile portrait in a medallion; by Gaffin - Caroline Savill-Onley d. 1845 with a soul in long garments rising to heaven; by Baily.

STISTED. It is one of the places the traveller remembers for the charm of its setting, with moulded chimneys on its cottages, the rookery by the church, rolling meadows toward the Roman Stane Street, and the horizon lined with trees against the sky.

Stisted was a name on all men’s lips in the time of the Conqueror, for the overlordship here was the subject of the famous trial on Penenden Heath in Kent between the monks of Canterbury and Bishop Odo. The court sat in the open in the ancient Saxon way and the monks brought their old documents and proved their right. It was the fall of Odo the tanner’s son, half-brother of the Conqueror and owner of 200 houses.

There is neither Saxon nor Norman stone here now, but the 13th century columns in the nave show that they were rebuilding here  when Thomas Becket was building the choir at Canterbury. The capitals of some of the columns are elaborately carved; on one are three grotesque heads and a dragon with a rose a bird is pecking at. There is much glass in the chancel by 16th century Flemish craftsmen; it is in five lancet windows which almost till the east wall and two windows facing across the sanctuary; and in it are the two Johns, Elijah in a bright cloak, the Last Judgment, and the Betrayal. The people are quaint and the trees are like those in a Noah’s Ark. A panel of the Madonna in a golden and deep blue dress, supported by two women, is of 1554, and in a side window is the Return of the Prodigal, a red-haired lad with ragged sleeves. Engraved in brass below these windows kneels an Elizabethan with her daughter at prayer, members of the Wyseman family.

Most of the wood of the fine roofs of nave and aisles is 500 years old, and the dug-out chest is older, in spite of the date on the lid.There are Tudor linenfold panels in a pew and the Queen Anne pulpit has a carved head very like Pocahontas, the beautiful Red Indian princess who saved the life of Captain John Smith in Virginia, and lies across the river at Gravesend.

A book called The Picturesque Beauties of Great Britain by Thomas Wright records the ownership thus:

The manor of Stisted, with other possessions belonging to earl Godwin, and Wisgith, the widow of a noble Saxon named Elfwine, had been given to the monks of Christchurch in Canterbury, sometime previous to the Norman Conquest; but, soon after that event, they were deprived of those possessions, by the rapacity of Odo, bishop of Bayeux, and earl of Kent; they were, however, restored at the great trial of Penenden-heath, and remained in possession of the prior and monks, till the dissolution of the house in 1539, when king Henry the Eighth made this manor part of the endowment of the dean and chapter of Canterbury.

From this appropriation it afterwards again passed to the crown, and was granted to sir Richard Rich, who disposed of it to Henry Pigott, esq., of Abington in Cambridgeshire, of whom it was purchased, in 1549, by Thomas Wiseman, of Northend, in Great Waltham, and it remained in possession of his posterity till the year 1685, when it was conveyed, by lady Mary, the widorw of sir Thomas Wiseman, knt. of Rivenhall, to her three successive husbands. 

It afterwards passed, by purchase, to the Lingwood family, of the counties of Hereford and Gloucester. The ancestor of this family, in Essex, was John Lingwood, settled at Braintree, where he died in 1571; he had three sons and two daughters, of whom Geofrey, the eldest son, married Elizabeth, daughter of John Sibthorp, of Great Bardfield, by whom he had several sons and daughters, and William his eldest son, who was a student in Barnard's Inn, and in 1629, made escheator-general for this county, to king Charles the First: he died in 1665, and his son William, by his first wife, Mary, daughter of Thomas Wilson, of Jenkins, in this parish, was the purchaser of Stisted Hall. He was of Gray's Inn, bred to the law, and many years in the commission of the peace for the county. He married, first, Bridget, daughter of Thomas Wynne; his second wife was Cicely, daughter of Paul Buckingham, esq., of Suffolk; and his third wife was Elizabeth, daughter of John Jones, esq., of Chiswick, to whom, on his death in 1700, without surviving offspring, he bequeathed this estate. This lady died in 1719, leaving Stisted Hall to John Saville, esq., counsellor-at-law; who dying a bachelor, in 1735, this estate descended to his brother, Samuel Saville, esq., of Colchester; of which borough he was one of the representatives in parliament, in 1741. He died in 1763, leaving by his wife, Sarah, daughter of Edward Husbands, esq., of Little Horkesley, two daughters, co-heiresses; the inheritance of Sarah was the manor of Great Fordham, with other possessions; and Anne, the other daughter, had Stisted Hall and other estates in this parish, and in 1763, was married to the Rev. Charles Onley, from whom it has descended to the present proprietor. Stisted Hall is forty-two miles north-east from London, and two miles from Braintree.

Flickr set. 

Steeple Bumpstead

I love St Mary with its curious combination of Norman and Tudor work, its utterly bizarre but charming. Bumstead or Bumsted is Saxon for "place of reeds" and Steeple, it is believed, refers not to the church steeple, which the tower lacks, but to another steeple located near the Wixoe pumping station.

There has been a long history of non-conformist belief in the village which continues to this day in the Congregational Church. A Bumpstead man was burnt to death in the parish for his beliefs. Along the Blois Road, leading from Bumpstead to Birdbrook, is a field that has been called the ‘Bloody Pightle’, and that is where he is believed to have been martyred. In 1527 John Tibauld and eight other village residents were seized and taken before the Bishop of London, charged with meeting together in Bower Hall to pray and read a copy of the New Testament. Although the non-conformists in the village were encouraged by the powerful Bendyshe family that lived at Bower Hall, even their influence could not save Tibauld. He was burned at the stake.

The first time I visited the church it was locked with no sign of a keyholder but a subsequent, recent, visit found the church open. Sadly there was no guide book and my architectural expertise is nowhere near good enough to do it justice so I'll leave that to Mee.

ST MARY. There was here a remarkably large C11 church. The W tower (see its lower windows, open and blocked) belonged to it, and the chancel (see its quoins). The diagonal buttresses, also the buttresses into the present nave were added later. The top is all brick. Brick also the tops of the aisles, the S porch and the whole clerestory. Most of the exterior features are due to the restoration of 1880. But in the N aisle are still two fairly reliable windows. They look late C14 or early C15. The N arcade and the identical S arcade may well belong  to the same date. They have piers with semi-polygonal shafts without capitals to the nave and semi-circular shafts with capitals to the arches. The aisle roofs deserve some notice too. - FONT. Octagonal, Perp, with quatrefoils carrying shields. - BENCHES. Two in the nave with panelling dated 1568. Also some poppyheads and some more panelling. - POOR BOX. Iron-bound, on panelled stem. - HELM. Late C16, N aisle, E end. - PLATE. Two large Flagons of 1639; two Cups, two Patens, and a Paten on foot of 1712. - MONUMENTS. Sir Henry Bendyshe d. 1717.

STEEPLE BUMPSTEAD. It has lost the steeple which gave it its name, but it has a group of old houses, farms, and barns, and by the road from Haverhill to Baythorn Bridge are entrenchments of an ancient stronghold. Gone, too, is Bower Hall, though a fine avenue of tall trees still leads to the site. Its six-sided dovecot was built about 1700, its brick walls honeycombed with 220 nesting-holes. Another unusual dovecot is at Claydon’s cottage; it is nine feet square and built of mud. It is said that in 1914 something fell down inside it, so frightening the birds that they never returned.

Little Walton’s Farm was built about 1500, and has something of its moat still left. Remains of another moat are at 17th century Herksted Hall; and here too is a 17th century weatherboarded barn with a thatched roof. Another thatched barn of the same date is at Latchley’s manor house, a timbered and plastered Tudor building surrounded by a moat complete and unusually wide.

One of the finest houses of this countryside is the magnificent Moyns Park, an Elizabethan home in grounds of 200 acres; it has bay windows, pinnacled gables, and three many-cornered chimney stacks. The Moot Hall, a pretty timbered building at the cross-roads in the middle of the village, has a projecting storey, and on the roof is a stone lion holding a shield with the royal arms of the Tudors. The ancient church has a Norman tower, though its upper stage has been repaired with Tudor brick. There are three narrow Norman windows, and a gargoyle below each length of parapet. The porch is 14th century; its roof and a pair of rough and gnarled benches are 16th. The door is partly 16th century and by it is an ironbound almsbox of about 1500 on a traceried post.

The tower arch stands on round pillars and was set up about 1500 a century after the wide chancel arch. In the aisles are six poppyheads 400 years old, attached to modern seats, and in the back of a pew is old panelling which says "Onsel and Thomas Lond, her son, did these stools make in l568." There are two Tudor stalls in the chancel, a 17th century oak chest in the vestry, an altar table of about 1700, and a cupboard door with Jacobean carving. The font is 500 years old. In one of the windows are fragments of medieval glass, and on a wall hangs a wooden helmet with a Tudor crest.

Near by is an 18th century monument to Sir John Bendish and his wife, with their busts, by which stands a cherub holding a flaming torch upside down. A finer monument against the same wall is to Sir Henry Bendish, the last baronet, showing him reclining in lace cuffs, cravat, and buckled shoes, his curly wig falling over his shoulders. Playing by his pillow lies his infant son, Henry, a lively little fellow.

On the wall near by is a stone to Dick Dare who made his last long journey a few years ago: he, his father, and his grandfather were carriers from Bumpstead to London for 150 years.

We gathered two items of news here from the vicarage, where the greatest treasure of the church was once put to base uses as a shovel - an 8th century bronze boss with panels of ornament and sockets for 18 jewels. It used to be on the chancel door of the church and is now in the British Museum. The other news from the vicarage was that Nurse Cavell was a nursery governess there long before her name was known throughout the world. She was here live years. Often must she have sat in these pews with village folk who can little have imagined that her life would be caught up in the grip of so great a destiny. There is a tablet to her memory in the church.

Given that Mee was writing in 1940 Nurse Cavell meant nothing to me so I Googled her and found that Edith Cavell (pronounced /ˈkævəl/; rhymes with 'gravel') was born in Swardeston, a village near Norwich, where her father, the Reverend Frederick Cavell, was priest for 45 years. After a period as a governess, including for a family in Brussels 1900 -1905, she trained as a nurse at the London Hospital under Matron Eva Luckes. In 1907 Cavell was recruited by Dr. Antoine Depage to be matron of a newly established nursing school by the name of L'École Belge d’Infirmières Diplômées on the Rue de la Culture in Brussels. By 1910 Miss Cavell felt that the profession of nursing had gained sufficient foothold in Belgium to warrant the publishing of a professional journal, and therefore launched the nursing journal L'infirmière. A year later she was a training nurse for three hospitals, 24 schools and 13 kindergartens in Belgium.

When World War I broke out, she was visiting her widowed mother in Norfolk. She returned to Brussels where her clinic and nursing school were taken over by the Red Cross.

In late 1914, after the German occupation of Brussels, Cavell began sheltering British soldiers and funnelling them out of occupied Belgium to neutral Holland. In the following months an underground organisation developed, allowing her to guide some 200 Allied soldiers to safety, which placed Cavell in violation of German military law. German authorities became increasingly suspicious of the nurse's actions, which were backed up by her outspokenness.

She was arrested on 3 August 1915 and charged with harbouring Allied soldiers. She was held in St Gilles prison for 10 weeks, the last two in solitary confinement, and was court-martialled.

The British government said they could do nothing to help her. Sir Horace Rowland of the Foreign Office said, "I am afraid that it is likely to go hard with Miss Cavell; I am afraid we are powerless." The sentiment was echoed by Lord Robert Cecil, Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, "Any representation by us", he advised, "will do her more harm than good." The United States, however, had not yet joined the war and was in a position to apply diplomatic pressure. Hugh S. Gibson, First Secretary of the U.S. legation at Brussels, made clear to the German government that executing Cavell would further harm Germany's already damaged reputation. Later, he wrote:

We reminded him (Baron von der Lancken) of the burning of Louvain and the sinking of the Lusitania, and told him that this murder would stir all civilized countries with horror and disgust. Count Harrach broke in at this with the remark that he would rather see Miss Cavell shot than have harm come to one of the humblest German soldiers, and his only regret was that they had not 'three or four English old women to shoot.'

The German civil governor, Baron von der Lancken, is known to have stated that Cavell should be pardoned because of her complete honesty and because she had helped save so many lives, German as well as Allied. However the German military acted quickly to execute Cavell and so deny higher authorities the opportunity to consider clemency.

Cavell was not arrested for espionage, as many were led to believe, but for treason. Of the 27 put on trial, Cavell and four others were condemned to death, among them Philippe Baucq, an architect in his thirties who had also been instrumental in the escapes. Evidence has recently emerged that Cavell was in fact a spy working for the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), but her espionage role was compromised by her helping prisoners to escape.

When in custody, Cavell was questioned in French, but the session was minuted in German. This gave the interrogator the opportunity to misinterpret her answers. Although she may have been misrepresented, she made no attempt to defend herself. Cavell was provided with a defender approved by the German military governor. A previous defender, who was chosen for Cavell by her assistant, Elizabeth Wilkins, was ultimately rejected by the governor.

The night before her execution, she told the Reverend Stirling Gahan, the Anglican chaplain who had been allowed to see her and to give her Holy Communion, “Patriotism is not enough, I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone.” These words are inscribed on her statue in St Martin's Place, near Trafalgar Square in London. Her final words to the German Lutheran prison chaplain, Paul Le Seur, were recorded as, “Ask Father Gahan to tell my loved ones later on that my soul, as I believe, is safe, and that I am glad to die for my country.”

Despite efforts by Brand Whitlock, the U.S. minister to Belgium, and by the Marquis de Villalobar, the Spanish minister, on Cavell's behalf, on 11 October Baron von der Lancken allowed the execution to proceed. Sixteen men, forming two firing squads, carried out the sentence pronounced on her and on four Belgian men at Tir National shooting range in Schaerbeek, at 6:00 am on 12 October 1915. There are conflicting reports of the details of Cavell's execution. However, according to the eyewitness account of the Reverend Le Seur, who attended Cavell in her final hours, eight soldiers fired at Cavell while the other eight executed Philippe Baucq.

There is also a dispute over the sentencing imposed under the German Military Code. Supposedly the death penalty equivalent to the offence committed by Cavell was not officially declared until a few hours after her death.

On instructions from the Spanish minister, Belgian women immediately buried her body next to St. Gilles Prison. After the War, her body was taken back to Britain for a memorial service at Westminster Abbey and then transferred to Norwich, to be laid to rest at Life's Green.

In the months and years following Cavell's death countless newspaper articles, pamphlets, images and books publicised her story. She became an iconic propaganda figure for military recruitment in Britain and to help increase favourable sentiment towards the Allies in the United States.

Cavell was a popular icon because of her sex, her nursing profession and her apparently heroic approach to death. Her execution was represented as an act of German barbarism and moral depravity. The many biographies that surfaced shortly after her death were, in reality, only fictional.

Along with the invasion of Belgium and the sinking of the Lusitania, Cavell's execution was widely publicised in both Britain and North America by Wellington House, the British War Propaganda Bureau.

During World War I the French shot a number of women, including two German nurses who aided German prisoners of war to escape; the German government did nothing to publicise the incident. When asked why not, the German officer in charge of war propaganda replied, “What? Protest? The French had a perfect right to shoot them!”

Because of the British government's decision to use her story as propaganda, Cavell became the most prominent British female casualty of World War I. The combination of heroic appeal and a resonant atrocity-story narrative made Cavell's case one of the most effective in British propaganda of World War I.

Stebbing

St Mary the Virgin is imposing, especially when the village is approached from the south, sitting at the top of a hill dominating all. It has everything you could want in a church but, rather oddly, I missed the brass of an unknown widow so a return visit is in order. Of particular note is the rood screen and the carving thereon but the whole ticks all the right boxes.

I re-visited and how I missed the brass is quite beyond me, it's as clear as day in the nave.

ST MARY THE VIRGIN. Entirely a C14 church, and perhaps rather earlier than c. 1360, the date suggested by the Royal Commission. The tracery of all the windows has Dec forms, the Sedilia and Piscina don’t look later either, and no Perp feature appears yet anywhere. The W tower (with angle buttresses, battlements and a recessed lead spire) has a W window with (renewed) reticulated tracery. The S porch is given one original feature; the side openings are small and of quatrefoil shapes (cf. Great Bardfield) one on the l., two on the r. The N and S arcades of the large nave inside have piers of an uncommon section, four slim polygonal shafts and in the diagonals four round ones. Complex arch mouldings in the two-centred arches. Head and leaf stops. It is important to come to some conclusion about the date of all this, because of the one distinguishing, and at the same time most effective, feature of the church; the stone rood screen, filling with a bold tripartite openwork design the whole of the tall chancel arch. This motif exists in only one other Essex church, at Great Bardfield,* and there we have every reason to assume that it is later. The Stebbing Screen has basically three stepped lancet arches and then many ogee arches, some quatrefoils and some ball-flowers in the decoration. That should not be later than c. 1350 and may well be a little earlier. In the middle part an embattled transome runs through the arch at the point of its springing to hold, on three plinths, the three figures of the Rood. - The chancel roof is of flat pitch with arched braces carrying tracery in the spandrels, and collar-beams. Wallplates with foliage trails and battlements; embattled purlins. The nave roof is also flat-pitched. The principals rest on stone brackets, the sub-principals start with figures of angels. Two bosses on each sub-principal. - REREDOS at the E end of the N aisle. Very defaced. Traces of a rib pattern in the soffit. - COMMUNION RAIL C18, with alternating slim balusters. - BRASS to a widow, c. 1390, large (nave).

* And besides at Trondheim in Norway

Flickr set.

STEBBING. Any traveller would stop here for the splendid church, but Stebbing has more. It is as old as Domesday Book and has a moated mound older than the Conqueror and an extraordinary wealth of cottages and farms, at least 50 of them having been here 300 years. The nearest house to the mound is one of Shakespeare’s day, and, walking up the village street with its pretty cottages, we come to a group on high ground about the church. One is a little 15th century cottage by the churchyard gate; another is 17th century; and a third is Church Farm, a Tudor building with original carvings round a gabled dormer window. Some distance away is Porter’s Hall with its moat still wet, an Elizabethan house with a thatched dovecot. But it is the church that draws all eyes, for it is a magnificent example of the work of the l4th century builders just before the Black Death swept over the land. Its tower has grotesque gargoyles and looks westward at a view of great charm over the valley. Its doorways are handsome. Its interior is spacious with a high tower arch and arcades of five bays. And its glory is a rare and beautiful screen of stone under the chancel arch. The screen has three bays divided by clustered shafts, which rise to form charming lancet arches, enriched with flowers and other ornament. The middle bay has more elaborate tracery, and an arched transom helps to support the Cross and the two pedestals for the attendant figures. Very interesting it is to see that in all this rich carving, set up at one of the most sacred places in the church, the 14th century craftsmen were not afraid to include two of the grotesque figures they loved to carve. Beautiful, too, are the richly carved sedilia in this long chancel, which has on the wall the wooden block of the pulley used for raising the Lenten veil in medieval ceremony, a rare object to find in a church today. The piscina is a double one, and there are two others, one in the 14th century vestry and a beautiful one in the south aisle. The north aisle has something left of an elaborate canopied reredos, with traces of colour, from the 16th century. There is a 15th century font, a chest of the same age, an old oak pulpit said to have been made from a medieval screen, fragments of foliage and tabernacle-work in 14th century glass, and altar rails and a communion table of the 18th century. Two of the roofs are remarkable, that of the chancel being of Henry the Seventh’s time with foliage on the wall-plates, and that of the nave a little younger, with wooden angels holding shields. A splendid brass shows the costume worn by a widow who looks as if she might have walked out of Chaucer’s Tales.

Stansted Mountfitchet - Stansted Hall

Stansted Hall stands on land once occupied by the Romans and nearby were found the remnants of a substantial villa. The Roman settlement probably gave rise to the Saxon name of Stansteda meaning stony place.

Following the conquest Robert de Gernon (Robert Greno in the Domesday Book) was granted the barony of Stansted and built a motte and bailey castle which has been re-created in recent times. Robert’s son, William, took the name Montfichet and built, or laid the foundations of, St Mary the Virgin.

The first Hall at Stansted was built after King John sacked the castle in 1216. Richard de Montfichet, one of the Magna Carta sureties, died without issue in 1258 and his sister, Margaret de Bolebec, inherited the Hall. Upon the death of her grandson, Walter, without male issue the Hall had a succession of owners until Thomas de Vere, son of Robert, 3^rd Earl of Oxford, bought the estate.

In 1438 Elizabeth de Vere, nee Howard and daughter of Sir John Howard and Joan Walton, inherited the Hall and estate. Her husband and son, John de Vere, 12^th Earl of Oxford, and Aubrey were on the losing, Lancastrian, side at Towton and were both beheaded. The de Vere lands, including Stansted, were sequestered and Stansted became the property of the Duke of Norfolk for the next 23 years.

In 1485 Henry VII gave the estate to his mother in law, the Dowager Queen Elizabeth, but two years later, after her banishment, he restored the lands to the de Veres with whom it remained until the 17^th Earl, Edward de Vere, sold it to John Southall in 1582.

In 1588 John Southall conveyed the manors of Stansted to Edward Hubbard or Hubert who was a Clerk in Chancery; it was his son Sir Francis Hubbard who sold the estate in 1615 to Sir Thomas Myddleton, who was a Member of Parliament, a former Lord Mayor of London in 1613 and a dynamic merchant, who appears to have been a wealthy man of many talents. It was Sir Thomas Myddleton who built the Jacobean Hall in the early 1600’s. Sir Thomas Myddleton died aged 81 on the 12th August 1631 and is buried in the Parish Church.

His splendid monument and effigy may be seen on the south side of the Sanctuary in the Church. Inscribed on this monument are the words "Resigned his soul to Heaven, his body to the ground, in earnest expectation of a better life than this". (It is not known what better life he expected. He had lived well and been married four times.)

The Hall remained in the Myddleton family until 1710, when another Thomas Myddleton MP (a Member of four successive Parliaments in the reign of Queen Anne) died, leaving five daughters but no male heir.

The title was then bought by Thomas Heath, Member of Parliament for Harwich and the son of William Heath who had been a Captain in the service of the East India Company.

Thomas died in 1741 and was succeeded as Lord of the Manor by his two sons, Bailey and William. Bailey was Sheriff of Essex in 1747 and died in 1760.

William inherited the estate and died in 1797. He was succeeded by another Bailey Heath, upon whose death in 1808 the family became extinct.

Sometime during the 1800's, the upper floors of the Jacobean Hall were devastated by fire. From an old map we know that the Tudor/Jacobean Halls were sited at the lower end of the lake field near to the Church. The Hall fell into disrepair until 1825, when it was referred to as a 'farm house'.

Stansted Park and the creation and development of its landscape between 1750 and 1900 survive relatively intact today. Humphry Repton in 1791 produced one of his ‘red books’ of designs for Stansted. The parkland covered 146 acres and there was a narrow rectangular pond, with a narrower curved extension to the north.

The Hall then came into the ownership of Miss Berthia Ellis (1780-1863), and upon her marriage to Mr E. Fuller-Maitland (1781-1858) Stansted Hall became the property of that family. However, Berthia disliked the residence and after a fire in 1880 when the old hall burnt down leaving only a tower, she allowed it to fall into further ruin.

Their son, William Fuller-Maitland, MA was a traveller, connoisseur and art collector and he was, in 1870, looking for a place in which to house his priceless collection of paintings and other artefacts. His home across the valley from Stansted was already bursting at the seams and he needed more space in which to display his treasures. It was this William who commissioned Robert Armstrong a young architect to design a new Hall, apparently on the site of the earlier stables and offices, which would combine a Jacobean style with 19th century building techniques.

Building work commenced in 1871 and by 1876 the mansion was ready. William Fuller-Maitland died in that year before he could take up residence in his new home.

To provide a sense of continuity and authenticity, various items were salvaged from the old Halls and incorporated into the new house. These included a small Cupola which was made into a Bell Tower and incorporated on the roof of the Kitchen Wing. Two of the larger Cupolas from the towers of the Jacobean Hall were brought across, one of which was placed on the Stable Block.

Various other items were incorporated such as the two magnificent Adam fireplaces, a wooden fireplace surround and some 16th c. wood panelling.

The Hall then passed to his son, also called William, who lived there until 1921, when the Hall was sold to Sir Albert Ball. William Fuller Maitland died in November 1932. In the Parish Church and Churchyard are various monuments to the Fuller-Maitland family.

In 1923 Arthur Findlay and his wife from Scotland visited the property with a view to purchasing it. They fell in love with the place, and in 1923 after some tough bargaining they bought the estate

They moved into the house in 1926, and in the years to come he became an English landowner, farmer, magistrate and author of some standing, as well as taking a very active part in local affairs. During the Second World War, Stansted Hall was loaned to the Ministry of Defence for use as a convalescent hospital by the Red Cross. During this period some 5,500 soldiers, recovering from accidents, wounds and illness, recuperated within its walls and enjoyed the beauties and pleasures of its surroundings. They could go anywhere they liked in the pleasure grounds, but were not allowed in the three hundred year old walled kitchen garden. Following the war Mr & Mrs Findlay came back to live at the Hall.

Mrs Annie Gertrude Findlay died in 1963 and Arthur J Findlay died 24th July 1964 and Stansted Hall was bequeathed to the Spiritualists' National Union to house the Arthur Findlay College for the Advancement of Psychic Science.

STANSTED MOUNTFITCHET. Its houses look down on a Roman road, but its name comes from the Norman family of Mountfitchet, whose castle was destroyed in the year of Magna Carta. There are traces of its earthworks and some rubble foundations. There are Tudor houses here with their imposing timbers, one in Church Road with brackets carved with foliage, and others of the 17th and 18th centuries. A fine tower windmill stands in the background.

The church is a little way off in the 200 acres of Stansted Hall, and has three archways through which men were walking in Norman days, a chancel arch carved with small heads and two doorways with tympanums, all with Norman decoration. The tower is 17th century, but the chancel was refashioned by the 13th century men, and has graceful shafts and a handsome wall arcade. It opens to a chapel by two arches, one of the l3th century, with rich foliage on its capitals, and one of the 14th. Five big linenfold panels are left from a Tudor screen, and from the 17th century are two carved chairs, an attractive cover for the 700-year—old font, and a curious panel carved with the thirty pieces of silver, the Crown of thorns, a kneeling cherub, and instruments of the Passion. There are two fine candlesticks from Italy; a reredos with the Resurrection, the Tree of Life, and a phoenix; and a window of Faith and Hope in memory of a father who died in 1915 and his son killed in France two years later.

The oldest monument is the worn figure of a cross-legged knight in armour, said to be Roger de Lancaster from the beginning of the 14th century. He wears a surcoat, and has his feet on a grinning lion. Far more imposing is the great marble monument, 20 feet high, of Sir Thomas Middleton who died in 1631. He is wearing a fur cloak over his armour, and the collar he wore as Lord Mayor of London; there are angels by the inscription, and seven shields of arms. His wife lies on an altar tomb panelled and carved with elaborate heraldry. She is a coloured figure wearing a cloak, a lace collar, and a tall hat, and her sad little story is that she was killed by a stag in the park.

Stansted Mountfitchet - St John the Evangelist

St John is Victorian new build being consecrated in 1889. Once the village moved westwards from Stansted Hall and left St Mary remote from the heart of the village a new church was required hence St John's existence. It is all that you'd expect of a Victorian church.

ST JOHN THE EVANGELIST. 1889 by Caroe, an early work of his, but already with the touches of wilfulness which characterize his style. The tower a little later; 1895, and consequently more original. The interior in fact, with exposed brick, is still quite conventional. Nave and S aisle. The only distinguishing detail is the canted W balcony. The tower, also very red, as is the whole church, treats the Perp of the church freely. Tower top with gargoyles, pinnacles, stepped battlements, and a lantern-shaped upper ending of the stair turret.

STANSTED MOUNTFITCHET. Its houses look down on a Roman road, but its name comes from the Norman family of Mountfitchet, whose castle was destroyed in the year of Magna Carta. There are traces of its earthworks and some rubble foundations. There are Tudor houses here with their imposing timbers, one in Church Road with brackets carved with foliage, and others of the 17th and 18th centuries. A fine tower windmill stands in the background.

The church is a little way off in the 200 acres of Stansted Hall, and has three archways through which men were walking in Norman days, a chancel arch carved with small heads and two doorways with tympanums, all with Norman decoration. The tower is 17th century, but the chancel was refashioned by the 13th century men, and has graceful shafts and a handsome wall arcade. It opens to a chapel by two arches, one of the l3th century, with rich foliage on its capitals, and one of the 14th. Five big linenfold panels are left from a Tudor screen, and from the 17th century are two carved chairs, an attractive cover for the 700-year—old font, and a curious panel carved with the thirty pieces of silver, the Crown of thorns, a kneeling cherub, and instruments of the Passion. There are two fine candlesticks from Italy; a reredos with the Resurrection, the Tree of Life, and a phoenix; and a window of Faith and Hope in memory of a father who died in 1915 and his son killed in France two years later.

The oldest monument is the worn figure of a cross-legged knight in armour, said to be Roger de Lancaster from the beginning of the 14th century. He wears a surcoat, and has his feet on a grinning lion. Far more imposing is the great marble monument, 20 feet high, of Sir Thomas Middleton who died in 1631. He is wearing a fur cloak over his armour, and the collar he wore as Lord Mayor of London; there are angels by the inscription, and seven shields of arms. His wife lies on an altar tomb panelled and carved with elaborate heraldry. She is a coloured figure wearing a cloak, a lace collar, and a tall hat, and her sad little story is that she was killed by a stag in the park.

Simon K:

The church is a grand sight on the hillside, the 1880s early work of Water Caroe (who did Eversden) so in full fantastic flight. The red brick tower is engulfed in statues and tracery. 

I'd arranged to meet a friend in here at 9.30, and thought about a wander around the surprisingly scruffy little town first. But it began to rain, and I wandered up to the church to discover with some horror that it was being used for a mums and tots group from 9.30 onwards. Carpe Horem, I thought to myself, and wandered inside.

As big as the exterior looks, the interior is warm and intimate, the woodwork of the chancel instantly reminiscent of Elveden. 

Thankfully, the nave was full of modern chairs (Caroes work hasn't been replaced, the parish ran out of money in the 1890s) and this is a good offsetting for the low arches and a lovely curved balcony. 

Caroe's elaborate wrought iron gas lamps have been taken down and now serve as flower stands. Some decent stained glass by Burllison and Grys, but most of the windows are clear. I was glad I'd seen inside, but now escaped the invasion of mums and tots and met my friend in the railway station instead.

Flickr.

Stansted Mountfitchet - St Mary the Virgin

Stansted is a game of two halves with St Mary playing against St John and Stansted Hall standing in the wings waiting to play the winner. God that's weak.

St Mary the Virgin, in its peaceful and beautiful setting near to Stansted Hall, is about three-quarters of a mile away from the main centre of population which has grown up around what was the main A11 road. Here St John’s Church, which is now the parish church, was built in 1889.

Because of its architectural and historic interest, St Mary was considered worthy of preservation by and for the Church and the Nation and in November 1990 it was vested in the Redundant Churches Fund, renamed The Churches Conservation Trust in April 1994. In 1991, repairs were carried out under the direction of Mr. Henry Freeland of Cambridge, and now this building is safe and its future assured, together with 290 other English churches.

The Domesday Survey records that Stansted had a priest, so it is almost certain that there was a Saxon church here, and therefore Christian worship has been offered here for a thousand years.

William Greno built the castle at Stansted on a hill which was raised artificially about 70 feet above the level of the road. Because of this he was known as William "de Monte fixo", or "Mountfichet" and this name was later used to distinguish this village from Stanstead in Hertfordshire. William was probably the founder of the present church; the chancel arch and the two splendid Norman doorways date from around 1120 and he died in 1126. The size and quality of the Norman work suggest a fine church of the period, although probably only consisting of nave and chancel.

In the 13th century the chancel was lengthened and enlarged. Early English work of the period remains in the wall arcading and in a blocked lancet window. A chapel was built on the north side of the chancel, possibly by Sir Roger de Lancaster, who was lord of the manor of Stansted Hall from c.1285-1291. The effigy beneath the arch in the north wall of the chapel is probably his, although some authorities believe that it belongs to his son, Sir John, who died in 1334. The font is also 13th century.

During the 14th century the Lancaster Chapel was lengthened eastwards, in line with the east wall of the chancel. It was given windows in the Decorated style and a second arch to divide it from the chancel, possibly by Sir John de Lancaster, who also gave the advowson of the living to the Priory of Thremhale. In the chancel floor is a brass inscription to Robert of Bocking, the first vicar to be appointed by the Priory, who died in 1361.

Although little evidence of this remains, the church would have looked at its grandest just before the Reformation - its windows filled with mediaeval glass, its walls emblazoned with wall paintings (remains of which were discovered on the chancel south wall in 1888), and colour and carving everywhere, providing visual aids for people who could not read and could not understand Latin. With the Reformation in the mid 1500s, much of this was swept away, although an inventory prepared in 1552 shows that the church possessed vestments including plate and four bells, a sanctus bell and a silver pyx.

Sir Thomas Middleton was lord of the manor from 1615 until his death in 1631 and his splendid monument may be seen on the south side of the sanctuary. The monument of his daughter Hester, who died in 1614/15 (according to how the calendar was interpreted) was on the north side but later moved to the Lancaster Chapel. In 1692 Sir Stephen Langham, whose only daughter had married the fourth Middleton in line from Sir Thomas, had the present tower built and gave the church new porches.

By 1829 the church had fallen into disrepair and needed restoration. This was not a period for the most tasteful designs in restoration work and churches were often regarded as preaching houses, needing as much seating accommodation as possible for people to hear the preaching of the Word. St Mary’s was drastically restored in 1829 at a cost of £1,450 – in other words butchered. The north nave wall was taken down and a north aisle formed. Midway through the work however it was discovered that the new north wall was not strong enough to support the roof and it had to be supported by buttresses. No arcade was built and the nave and "aisle" formed one vast space beneath a single roof. The contractor was Mr. John Poolman. The Norman doorway on the north side was re-set towards the east end of the north wall, alterations were made to the pews, and the organ (by Flight & Robson, purchased in 1825 for £125) was re-sited.

In 1835 work was done to the cornices at the tops of the walls and a new altarpiece was made, with four panels inscribed with the Lord’s Prayer, Creed and Commandments.

By 1887-88 the church was again in a state of disrepair and it was even suggested that it should be allowed to fall into ruin and that a new church should be built nearer to the village. By this time, thanks to the Gothic Revival in architecture and the Oxford Movement in worship, churches were being restored on mediaeval lines, using "correct" Gothic architecture, proportions and fittings. The restorers had much to put right. The north wall of 1829 was again bulging with the weight of the roof. The nave and aisle formed one "wide and unsightly parallelogram" and were equipped with commodious western (for the organ) and northern (for the children) galleries. The font stood at the east end of the nave, near the great pulpit and reading-desk, and the tiny communion table in the sanctuary was hemmed in on the north side by Hester Salusbury’s monument.

A thorough restoration took place to the designs of Francis Thomas Dollman (1812-1900) who had been a pupil of the eminent A. W. N. Pugin and who designed the churches of St Saviour’s, Walthamstow, Eye near Peterborough and several in London which have now been demolished. The contractors were Messrs. J. L. Glasscock & Son of Bishops Stortford and the total cost of the work was £5,035 15s. Again the church was transformed, although every effort was made to preserve and reinstate every fragment of ancient craftsmanship. The nave and north aisle were taken down and rebuilt, the Norman doorways re-set towards the west end and a new porch was built on the south side. New roofs were provided for the nave and aisle and an arcade was built to divide them. The galleries were removed, also the old seating and pulpit; and the church was equipped with new pine benches, a stone pulpit, choir stalls and sedilia in the chancel. The chancel received new windows and a new altar, Lady Salusbury’s monument was moved to the Lancaster Chapel and the font to the west end of the nave.

In 1951 Hester Salusbury’s monument was moved, once again, from the chapel to the east end of the north aisle.

The nave is 68 feet in length and the chancel a further 34 feet, whilst the width across the nave and north aisle is 37 feet. This is a church of considerable size - a fact which is not immediately apparent from the outside.

The ultimate surprise of St Mary is that it mainly dates from 1888 when an almost total re-build took place - you can see that it’s had a Victorian hoover but I would never have guessed how much despoilment has been inflicted, particularly on poor Hester Salusbury.

Haunted Earth have a disturbing report which seems to me to be totally underwhelming but call me a cynic - you may find the reportage more convincing.

ST MARY THE VIRGIN. With its ‘spike’ on the W tower (brick, embattled, of 1692) and its wealth of monuments more a Hertfordshire than an Essex church, and indeed close to the border. Nave and N aisle of 1888; chancel much renewed at the same time. But the chancel arch is remaining proof of the Norman church. Capitals with incised zigzag decoration, arch with zigzag and an outer Norman ‘bell-flower’ motif. The S doorway is Norman too, with three orders of columns carrying scalloped capitals, arch with zigzag and saltire-cross decoration and a tympanum on a curved lintel, with diaperwork. On the N side of the N aisle another (of course re-used) Norman doorway. It has three orders of columns, with scalloped capitals, and the rest also very similar to the S doorway. The chancel dates from the C13 and has inside tall blank shafted arcades embracing the windows. The renewed E end was similar, as is shown by the angle-shafts (with shaftrings). On the N side an E.E. arch into a side chapel and a plain C14 arch. The E.E. arch has responds with capitals decorated with volutes at the angles and between them stiff-leaf in the E, upright three-lobed leaves in the W respond. - FONT. A big heavy circular piece with coarse angle volutes, c. 1300. - FONT COVER. Plain, ogee in outline, with foliage finial; early C17. - COMMUNION RAIL. Graceful; C18. - CANDLESTICKS. Wood, gilt, tall, with foliage decoration; C18. - SCULPTURE. Cartouche of the early C17 at the end of the N aisle. It is surrounded by the thirty pieces of silver, a shield with the Instruments of the Passion and the crown of thorns as a crest, etc.* - STAINED GLASS. N chapel E end. Good Samaritan; three lights, signed by Warrington, 1859. - PLATE. Paten on foot of 1676. - MONUMENTS. Cross legged Knight of c. 1300 (N chapel). - Hester Salusbury d. 1614, coloured recumbent effigy wearing the fashionable high hat. Alabaster sarcophagus with two big shields surrounded by gristly ornament. The tomb is not in its original state. Mrs Esdaile has pointed out that the escutcheon with the Instruments of the Passion indicated Epiphanius Evesham as author. - Sir Thomas Middleton, late Lord Mayor of London d. 1631, and wife. Uncommonly sumptuous standing Wall monument with bulgy sarcophagus-like base decorated with skulls, recumbent effigies, between coupled black marble columns carrying a shallow coffered arch. Straight top with achievement. Outside the columns two standing angels and inside also two, of specially good quality, holding the large inscription plate. - William Harcourt Torriano d. 1828 with mourning female figure leaning over an altar. By E. Gaffin.

* The Cartouche rightly belongs to Hester Salusbury's monument; it must have lost a canopy.

STANSTED MOUNTFITCHET. Its houses look down on a Roman road, but its name comes from the Norman family of Mountfitchet, whose castle was destroyed in the year of Magna Carta. There are traces of its earthworks and some rubble foundations. There are Tudor houses here with their imposing timbers, one in Church Road with brackets carved with foliage, and others of the 17th and 18th centuries. A fine tower windmill stands in the background.

The church is a little way off in the 200 acres of Stansted Hall, and has three archways through which men were walking in Norman days, a chancel arch carved with small heads and two doorways with tympanums, all with Norman decoration. The tower is 17th century, but the chancel was refashioned by the 13th century men, and has graceful shafts and a handsome wall arcade. It opens to a chapel by two arches, one of the l3th century, with rich foliage on its capitals, and one of the 14th. Five big linenfold panels are left from a Tudor screen, and from the 17th century are two carved chairs, an attractive cover for the 700-year—old font, and a curious panel carved with the thirty pieces of silver, the Crown of thorns, a kneeling cherub, and instruments of the Passion. There are two fine candlesticks from Italy; a reredos with the Resurrection, the Tree of Life, and a phoenix; and a window of Faith and Hope in memory of a father who died in 1915 and his son killed in France two years later.

The oldest monument is the worn figure of a cross-legged knight in armour, said to be Roger de Lancaster from the beginning of the 14th century. He wears a surcoat, and has his feet on a grinning lion. Far more imposing is the great marble monument, 20 feet high, of Sir Thomas Middleton who died in 1631. He is wearing a fur cloak over his armour, and the collar he wore as Lord Mayor of London; there are angels by the inscription, and seven shields of arms. His wife lies on an altar tomb panelled and carved with elaborate heraldry. She is a coloured figure wearing a cloak, a lace collar, and a tall hat, and her sad little story is that she was killed by a stag in the park.

Simon K:

A mile or so out of town, A fine estate church, with a complex building history. Redundant since 1990, it is now in the care of the CCT, although the graveyard is still the parish burial ground. The red brick tower is a most unusual date, the 1690s, and the Victorians widened the church (nave and north aisle) but moved the grand Norman south and north doorways into new positions. The chancel is the width of the pre-19th Century church.

A church full of interest - the Norman chancel arch is a grander and more elaborate version of that at Elsenham a couple of miles off, and there are good early 17th Century memorials, including one to a widow in full late Elizabethan riding dress. A good range of late 19th Century glass from several workshops, and elaborate stiffleaf carving in the capitals. Must be Essex top 50.

Flickr.