Shalford

St Andrew is very peculiar and is not helped by a, seemingly, very new, north extension; because it's so odd it is logically locked with no keyholder listed. I've Googled it and can't find anything particularly informative.

The south aisle and porch are embattled while the north aisle isn't but the nave is, a tiny chancel is tacked on to the end and a four stage tower sits four square to the world. The new extension will age well and only adds to the eccentricity of the church.

ST ANDREW. An early C14 church. But the most unusual motif is the straightheaded two-and three-light windows with a kind of reticulated tracery straightened out, and these are Early Perp, i.e. later C14. In the chancel and the N aisle some earlier C14 windows. The Sedilia with cusped arches on polygonal shafts and no ogee forms also is early C14. W tower with clasping buttresses and a three-light W window. The arcades to the N and S aisles rest on piers with four major and four keeled minor shafts. The arches are two-centred and have head-stops. The most remarkable feature of the church however is its three large and almost identical tomb-recesses, one in the N aisle, one in the S wall of the chancel, and one in the S aisle. There is no effigy or record on any of them to tell us who had them erected. Two hold tomb-chests with indents for brass figures. All three have canopies with thin buttresses and large cusped arches and ogee gables with crockets and finials. In the gables of two is a quatrefoil in a circle. The third has the quatrefoil cusped. The one in the chancel moreover has to the l. and r. of the gable large shields. The S aisle recess seems the earliest, the chancel recess the latest; but all three must be C14. - FONT. Octagonal. Traceried stem, bowl with two small quatrefoils with shields in each panel. - SCREEN with simple traceried lights. - S DOOR with much tracery; C14. - STALLS (W end of nave). Two with poppy-heads. - COMMUNION RAIL, c. 1700, with twisted balusters. - STAINED GLASS. Many bits, especially in the E window - the arms of the Norwood family and its alliances; C14. - STRAW DECORATION for the altar, premiated at an 1872 exhibition in London. PLATE. Small Cup and Paten of 1562.

SHALFORD. Its many old buildings include a farm which has an overhanging storey above the porch, and a Tudor door with ornamental ironwork; but for Shalford’s treasures we cross a field to the church standing in a quiet valley. Its tower is 15th century, but nearly everything else we see is a hundred years older, the porch with shields and grotesques in its roof, the beautiful traceried door, and the arches and clerestory windows which make the interior so impressive. The handsome altar rails are 17th century, and so is the nave roof, but there are other beams 600 years old, and a splendid chancel screen which has been with them all the time. It has little openings in the lower panels, at which a child might kneel and look through at the altar; and at the back of the screen are two Tudor stalls, and a panelled desk with a pelican on one of its poppyheads.

The east window has fine glass as old as the church, showing shields of arms, lions, and foliage; and there are shields and other fragments in the windows of the aisles. A peephole is 15th century, and so is the font, which has the arms of such famous families as the Mortimers, De Veres, and Fitzwalters. There is much notable stone carving by the 14th century men, the chancel having three handsome sedilia and a very fine recess with an altar tomb. Two other beautiful recesses are in the aisles, and on the sanctuary wall is a brass of William Bigge and his wife, from the England Shakespeare knew.

Flickr.

Saffron Walden

The town was originally called Walden then Chipping Walden but its name was changed owing to the fields of saffron crocuses grown here 500 years ago, which provided the dye for the wool upon which the prosperity of the town was based. Saffron was also used for cooking and as a medicine; the saffron crocus will no longer grow in the area.

St Mary the Virgin, which is the largest church in Essex, stands on a hill in the middle of the town witnessing to the glory of God. It is thought that a church stood on this site in Saxon times which was replaced by a Norman church. In about 1250 this was in turn replaced by a cruciform church in the Decorated style of which the lower part of the chancel, the arches into the north and south chapels and the carvings in the north aisle survive from this period. The aisles and nave were rebuilt in the Perpendicular style commencing in 1430 and taking about 100 years to complete.

The later stages of this rebuilding were carried out under the supervision of John Wastell, the Master mason who was engaged in the building of King’s College Chapel in Cambridge. The exterior turrets which stand above the east end of the nave are typical of his work. The size and magnificence of the nave are the church’s more remarkable features.

The church you see today is predominantly the result of work undertaken in the years 1430 to 1525. A great influence in the latter part of this period was the Guild of the Holy Trinity which was partly religious but also had local government-type powers.

A less obvious, but most important influence on the way the church looks today was the major restoration undertaken by the restorer of Audley End House, Sir John Griffin Griffin, 4th Lord Howard de Walden and 1st Lord Braybrooke, between years 1790 and 1793. The church at the time was in a sad state of disrepair but this restoration unfortunately removed many medieval brasses and monuments.

The nave is 54 feet high with tall slender pillars, arches and a clerestory. The carving of the spandrels, the triangular pieces between the arches, some of which contain Tudor roses, are of special note particularly those above the crucifix. These are similar to work in King’s College Chapel and the cross section of the pillars is identical to that in Great St. Mary’s Cambridge, another of John Wastell’s churches. No less than eleven bosses are variations on the Tudor rose reflecting the power of  Henry VIII. Also to be seen are the pomegranate of his Queen, Catherine of Aragon, and the Knot of Henry Bourchier, Earl of Essex.

The lower part of the chancel was built about 1250 but the upper part dates from the early 1500’s after the rebuilding of the nave and aisles had been completed. The roof does not fit very well and by tradition Lord Audley had it brought from another religious house. It is very beautiful and as far as is known nothing quite like it exists in other English churches.

The Sanctuary is raised because it was built on top of a great vault. The Howard vault was sealed in 1860 and holds the bodies of Lord Audley, ten Earls of Suffolk - whose family built Audley End - and Lord Howard de Walden and his two wives.

At the eastern end of the north aisle there are three bays of elaborately carved canopies which are over 600 years old, surviving from the Decorated period of the church. These are worn and damaged, but in the bay nearest the north chapel it is easy to pick out King David with his harp. The brasses attached to the wall were originally on tombs which have disappeared.

The north chapel was rebuilt in 1526 although the wooden carvings of saints below the roof probably date from the fifteenth century. The marble tomb of John Leche was moved from the chancel in the restoration of 1790-93.

The south chapel, now used as the Choir Vestry, is believed to have contained the altar of the Guild of the Holy Trinity. Two monuments on the wall commemorate deaths in the Neville family who took the title in 1797. The elaborate carved tablet tells of the death of two sons of the 3rd Lord Braybrooke killed within a week of each other in 1854 in the Crimea, and the lower one the deaths of the 7^th Lord Braybrooke and his two sons both killed in the Second World War. The tomb of black Belgian slate known as touch is that of Lord Chancellor Audley who was granted Walden Abbey on its dissolution in 1537 but is sadly inaccessible to the public. I particularly wanted to photograph this tomb!

The South Porch has a fan vaulted ceiling and by the door is a fragment of an old alabaster reredos above it is the Muniments Room, once the meeting place of the Guild of the Holy Trinity.

The spire reaches a height of 193 feet and the top part of the tower together with the spire were built in 1832 to a design by Thomas Rickman and extensively repaired in 1973-76. The original spire, with a lantern was designed by Henry Winstanley and it is said that he designed this as an experiment for the design of the Eddystone Lighthouse of which he was the architect; he and the lighthouse perished in a storm in 1703.

PEVSNER.

 

SAFFRON WALDEN. It is the medieval age living on into our century of change, a delightful little town in the Slade valley with a great roll of fame and 100 houses fit to be preserved as national monuments. Life has been going on here for more than a thousand years, and most of the time a thread has been running through it that has found its place in history.

Hundreds of Saxon graves have been dug in the solid chalk, and on the site of the big Saxon cemetery are traces of ramparts known as Battle Ditches, below which were pits in which ancient pottery was found. Looking down from Bury Hill are the ruined flint walls of the Norman castle. In the medieval days after the Normans a poor Walden boy grew up to be Archbishop of Canterbury, and a King of England died in his arms. In the century after these was born that Thomas Audley who became Lord Chancellor and whose grandson built Walden’s most marvellous house, Audley End; and in his age Walden produced a Provost of Eton and a poet who had the friendship of Edmund Spenser and yet was good-for-nothing. It produced also John Bradford the martyr, and in one century more it gave to the world that wonderful man Henry Winstanley, who built the first Eddystone Lighthouse. A rich dower it has given to us in the lives of men.

And, as we have said, it is rich in old houses. We find them in every street, with massive timbers, carved brackets, overhanging eaves, and plastered fronts with the dolphins, cornucopias, foliage, and portraits fashionable in the 17th century. Inside some of them are rich fireplaces and lovely screens. One of the houses was once the school and has a Latin phrase on its front which warns us either to learn, or to teach, or to depart. There are not many schools in England with a longer tradition than Saffron Walden’s, for it is referred to in the records of 1317, and was endowed in 1522 by Dame Jane Bradbury, widow of a Lord Mayor of London, to support one teacher of grammar "after the ordre and use of teching gramer in the scholes of Wynchester and Eton."

At the corner of Myddleton Place is a 15th century house with closely set timbers in the walls, a richly carved corner-post, and two oriel windows; inside is a magnificent panelled screen. The oak timbers on the house next door come from the house before it, in which the Friends used to meet in the 17th century, a house which came into the history of the town in the year in which the last Stuart king ran away, for we read in the civic accounts that 4d was paid for nailing up the Quaker’s door twice. Their door being nailed up, they met in the street, unperturbed by the fact that some of them were arrested. The town is close to the hearts of the Friends, and their oldest school was transferred here from Croydon towards the end of last century. It stands on the hill called Mount Pleasant, a building costing £30,000, in 20 acres of ground.

Splendid and famous and historic too is the Sun Inn, with its captivating gabled front and its story of exciting days in the Civil War. Here Cromwell stayed with Fairfax when they met the Commissioners of Parliament and tried for two or three days to compose the quarrel with the army, trying in vain. The inn, which is in Castle Street, has projecting wings on each side of the 15th century hall, 14th century timbers in its roof, and a plaster front of the 17^th century. A cartway has been cut through one wing, and in the gable above it is a big round sun in plaster relief with men on each side wearing long coats, knee breeches, and high-heeled shoes, one man wielding a club and one with sword and buckler. Next door to this inn is a house with wood tracery in a window 600 years old.

Close by the great park of Audley End is a charming group of the 15th century Abbey Farm and Almshouses. It is one of the rarest peeps in Essex. Built of brick with tiled roofs, the almshouses have 20 tenements set round two courtyards, with a kitchen, a hall, and a chapel between them. The chapel has a hammerbeam roof with ornamental work in the spandrels, and the stone-paved kitchen has a great fireplace with an ornamental iron jack. In one of the kitchen windows is a Madonna and Child in glass 600 years old, and in the window of one of the houses is medieval glass with an angel and a pope among other fragments. The town has another group of almshouses which were the gift of Roger Walden in the 14th century, but they have been rebuilt. They stand between Audley Park and the High Street, and preserve from the older building a 15th century brass inscription, two carved corbels of the original windowsills, a Jacobean armchair, and a notice board 200 years old with the rules for tenants.

It should not be forgotten, as we look about at all this ancient beauty, that Walden has a living beauty too. Its name of Saffron comes from the flavouring plant which was once widely grown here, having been brought to England hidden in the staff of a palmer. Today if we come to Walden in carnation time we may see in a nursery a remarkable display of carnations. They are the pride of the town in their season, a riot of colour under one of the widest glass roofs in the world, covering an acre. The town is also rich in trees and in green spaces, for besides the great park it has a wide common and what are called the Bridge End Gardens, with noble cedars. From Audley End runs a double avenue of beeches to Strethall. Walden is perhaps unique among our towns for having two public mazes. One, on the common, is a curious survival of the centuries, a spiral maze cut in the turf. Nobody knows how old it is, but 15s was spent on repairing it in 1699. The other maze is in a corner of Bridge End Gardens, and is a copy of that famous maze at Hampton Court in which ten million people have been lost. As we are visiting it we should peep in at the little picture gallery at the garden gate to see the paintings by Old Masters.

In the castle grounds is the museum, a collection of remarkable interest. The ruins of the castle take us back eight centuries; the contents of the museum go down the ages and across the earth. We see a glove Mary Stuart wore on the morning of her execution, and a grim fragment of human skin which was found nailed to the door of Hadstock church. There are skulls and ornaments from the Saxon cemetery, and the skeleton of an elephant shown in the Great Exhibition of 1851 which was meant to usher in the peace of the world. There is one of the best collections of humming birds to be seen in England. An oak strip has 13th century carving of a mounted knight in mail, a bedstead has 14th century carving, and there is a 14th century altarpiece of alabaster showing Joseph leading the boy Jesus. A Jacobean doll’s chair has a padded back. There are two stone mantelpieces from the home of Gabriel Harvey, the ne’er-do-well poet, one with figures of Justice and Truth and one with a pack-horse, a pig eating acorns, bees about a hive, and flowers of the saffron crocus.

Among the most interesting of all the exhibits is one of those rare feather cloaks worn by the kings of Hawaii, made from the feathers of birds that have long been extinct. There are only a small number of these cloaks left in the world, and they are all known, being highly treasured by the people of Hawaii; this one was worn by a king who came to England, who ruled for five years over Hawaii and was so agreeable to the missionaries that Christianity made great progress, and it became possible to pass a code of laws based on the Ten Commandments. The friendly king, Kamehameha, came to England with his queen and unhappily both caught measles and died.

In the castle grounds outside the museum we found the whipping-post and pillory, brought here from the prison of the neighbouring town of Newport.

The stately and impressive church looks boldly across the town. Its tower has 12 bells and dominates the High Street with a fine spire rising nearly 200 feet. There is only one church in Essex bigger than this noble structure of the 15th century, 184 feet long and 80 feet wide. Cupolas and pinnacles rise above its roofs, its parapets are richly carved, and along the north wall run grotesques among which we noticed a chained monkey, a wild man, a saddled beast, a woman with a cat on her lap. Both porches have vaulted roofs and the south porch has a priest’s chamber above and a 13^th century crypt below. In the porch wall is a figure from a 14^th century reredos.

The arches of the nave are the solid work of the 15th century mason, the spandrels elaborately carved with familiar devices. Above these arches run 13 clerestory windows in each wall of the nave, filling the church with light. All the roofs are splendid, the chancel roof with the Twelve Apostles and painted bosses 500 years old, the nave roof with angels 400 years old, and the north chapel roof with 16th century saints and angels. Set in the wall of the north aisle are 12 canopied niches 600 years old, with delicate carvings of David playing the harp, St John and the Lamb, the incredulity of Thomas, and Our Lord’s last days.

Below this lovely stone carving is a little gallery of brass portraits of people whose names have been lost. They are of the 15th and 16^th centuries: a priest of 1430 with a pelican above his head, a woman of 1490, two women in butterfly headdresses leaning gracefully backward, a longhaired civilian and his wife of 1510, a thick-set man in a fur gown of 1530, a woman in a flat cap of the same time, and a 14^th century civilian. On a wall are banners and helmets carved in memory of two brothers who died in one week, sons of Lord Braybrooke, one perishing at Inkerman and one at Balaclava. There is a lovely modern window of the Madonna in memory of Lord Braybrooke and his daughter, Augusta Strutt. On one of the screens is a little carving 600 years old. The fine chancel screen was designed by Sir Charles Nicholson, with the gallery above the roodbeam in medieval style. There is a Jacobean altar table, a Jacobean chest, and a plain font of the 15th century. A homely picture of Jerome with the Madonna and Child was above the altar when we called;  it is a copy Matthew Peters made of Correggio’s famous painting at Parma, and was given to this church by Lord Braybrooke in 1793.

But the chief monument in the church is in the south chapel, where on a fine altar tomb lies the man who was largely responsible for the grandeur about him, Thomas Audley, an Essex man born in 1488 who became town clerk of Colchester and rose to be a member of Cardinal Wolsey’s household. On Wolsey’s fall Sir Thomas More became Lord Chancellor and Audley took More’s place as Speaker of the Commons. He advanced rapidly in the king’s favour, and as Speaker allowed himself to transmit to the House one of the most flagrant pieces of royal hypocrisy. He caused two oaths to be read in Parliament to prepare the way for the Act of Supremacy. On Sir Thomas More surrendering to the king his seal as Lord Chancellor, Henry gave it to Audley while he was still Speaker, wishing to retain a Speaker who so well suited his purposes. He helped the king to put away Catherine of Aragon and to marry Anne Boleyn, and then examined Sir Thomas More, whom he could have saved if he would, though he would not. A man of poor character, the willing instrument of his imperious master, he declared that he was glad to have no learning but Aesop’s Fables. Having presided at the trial of Bishop Fisher and Sir Thomas More, behaving shamefully at both, this man who had manoeuvred the marriage of Anne Boleyn now conducted her a prisoner to the Tower. He tried the prisoners for the Pilgrimage of Grace, and for all these services he was allowed to have what Thomas Fuller called the carving for himself of the first cut of the monastic properties. He declared that he was always poor till then, but he now became rich enough to build this magnificent tomb at Walden, the town after which he had called himself Baron Audley of Walden. His name is a stain on the Knighthood of the Garter which the king gave to him. He was a tall and impressive man to look at, and these seem to have been his noblest attributes, except that he was loyal as a tyrant’s slave.

A man who left us a heroic example and an immortal saying, one of the notable figures of the 16th century, comes into Saffron Walden’s story - John Bradford, at one time chaplain to the young King

Edward the Sixth. He preached here for two years, and so endeared the people to him that they were in his thoughts as he sat writing his last letter at Newgate, with the prisoners in tears all round him; he called his letter the Dying Martyr’s Testament to the Faithful at Saffron Walden. His death was one of the bitterest tragedies of Mary Tudor’s reign, and rarely was seen such a crowd as at his burning. Taking a faggot in his hand and kissing it, Bradford looked on the people and cried: "O England, England, repent thee of thy sins; take heed they do not deceive you." It was John Bradford who, seeing a criminal going to execution, used these words which have been quoted a million times since, "But for the grace of God, there goes John Bradford." He was about 45, and a Manchester grammar school boy.

Walden has on its roll of fame two men of the 14th century and two of the 16th. One of its 14th century men began life as a poor boy and rose to be Lord Treasurer of England and Archbishop of Canterbury. He was Roger Walden, probably a butcher’s son. He had a curiously adventurous life, advancing rapidly from a rectory to an archdeaconry at Winchester, becoming secretary to Richard the Second, and then Treasurer of England. In 1397 the king banished Archbishop Arundel from Canterbury and gave his office to Walden, but he held it only a little while, for Arundel returned and took the Primacy again. He bore no ill-will against Walden, in spite of the fact that he had removed jewels and six cartloads of goods from Canterbury. During the public miseries of those times Walden suffered with the deposition of the king and was put in the Tower; he was one of those who fell when King Richard gave up his crown and pleaded for a little, little grave on the king’s highway. He came back into favour and was even installed as Bishop of London in the new reign, but he did not long survive this dignity. In spite of his chequered career he is said to have been a gentle character, and even the archbishop whose office he usurped paid high tribute to his qualities.

Thomas Waldensis, who was living at the same time as Roger Walden, is also known as Thomas Netter. He became a monk, and took a great part in the prosecuting of the followers of Wycliffe, being made an inquisitor. He preached against the Lollards at Paul’s Cross, and examined Sir John Oldcastle as to his opinions. He became a favourite with Henry the Fourth, and was with him when he died in Jerusalem Chamber, so that he would see that wondrous scene in Shakespeare. Henry the Fourth lay dying, his conscience uneasy, his physical frame in the grip of disease, and the Prince of Wales was by his bed when the king fell into a deathlike trance, and it seemed to his son that the crown had fallen to his lot. Thinking that the king was not to wake again, the prince took up the crown and put it on, and suddenly the king awoke. His dying heart was broken as he felt that his wild son had seized the crown so soon:

Dost thou so hunger for mine empty chair

That thou wilt needs invest thee with my honours

Before thy hour be ripe?

It is said that Henry the Fourth died actually in the arms of Waldensis, who preached his funeral sermon. He lived through the reign of Henry the Fifth and became confessor of the young Henry the Sixth, with whom he went to Rouen, where he died and was buried, a year before the burning of Joan of Arc in that city.

The two 16th century notables of Saffron Walden were kinsmen, Thomas Smith and Gabriel Harvey. Smith was a Saffron Walden grammar school boy who found favour with Thomas Cromwell, became Public Orator at Cambridge, and had such influence that he was appointed to discuss with Henry the Eighth the point as to whether he should marry an Englishwoman or a foreigner. Smith was a Protestant, and in the reign of the young Edward the Sixth the foul Bishop Bonner was imprisoned in the Tower for his conduct towards Smith. He became Provost of Eton, but lived in retirement during most of Mary Tudor’s reign, being made Ambassador to France by Queen Elizabeth. Holbein painted his portrait. He was upright according to the life of his time, was a classical scholar and a writer, and believed in astrology long before the astrological quacks came pouring into Fleet Street. He lies at Theydon Mount, and his kinsman Gabriel Harvey wrote a poem of praise on his death. Both were grammar school boys, but while Sir Thomas Smith lived in the great house Audley End and entertained Elizabeth there, Harvey was but a ropemaker’s son, though it is suggested that his father was quite a prosperous man.

At Pembroke College Harvey made friends with Edmund Spenser, who has immortalised him in the Shepherd’s Calendar, where he is known as Hobbinol. One of Harvey’s poems is also in the group which introduces Spenser’s Faerie Queene. Apparently a quarrelsome man himself, Harvey shared with Shakespeare the scurrility of Robert Greene, the forgotten dramatist who imagined that he would live when Shakespeare was forgot, and he assailed Harvey with such vehemence that his offensive references were afterwards expunged from his work. Harvey replied to it in the same unworthy style, and today is forgotten with the rest.

Mee then includes a lengthy biography of Henry Winstanley (see Littlebury) and a review of Audley End which I'm omitting as outside of this blog's remit - although Audley End probably merits a post.

Flickr set.

Rayne

All Saints has a Tudor brick tower with a rebuilt nave and arch which I'm in two minds about - it's either lovely or hideous but I'm torn between the two. Naturally it's locked and naturally no keyholder is listed.

After being in use for more than 600 years, the Norman Nave and Chancel became unsafe and in 1840, shortly after the accession of Queen Victoria, they were replaced by those in use today.  The Tudor Tower was, however, left intact.

The present Church consists of a Tower, Nave, Chancel and Sanctuary with Clergy and Choir Vestries.  The Chancel was restored and the Choir Vestry enlarged to accommodate the Organ in 1867.  The present Sanctuary and Clergy Vestry were added in 1914.  The existing pews and most of the windows date from 1866.

Given the date of the rebuild I rather suspect that most things of interest will have been removed or over restored so perhaps nothing is lost - however Mee seems to indicate otherwise.

UPDATE [13/05/12]

After many futile re-visits I finally gained access today and I'm afraid to say that I have to agree with Pevsner:

ALL SAINTS. 1840 and dull. But an unusually fine Tudor brick tower with blue brick diapering, a quatrefoil frieze at the foot, a blank stepped gable above the W window with a finial on the apex, a castellated frieze below the bell-openings and an embattled top with pinnacles and a curious stepped pinnacle as a roof to the stair turret. - WOODWORK c. 1500. Tracery panels and also a later C16 figure relief, said to be Flemish. - PLATE. Early Elizabethan Cup with embossed stem and foot.

The reredos - which I thought was going to be resplendent - is subdued in the gloomy chancel but to be fair my expectations had been raised by Mee and it's not the worst example of a Victorian rebuild I've seen.

Also I should say that it is now open between 2 and 4pm on Sundays between May and September - or so the notice board claims (I've recently learnt at Great Hallingbury that claims of being open at specified times and actually being open when specified are not the same thing).

RAYNE. Its houses look down on a road where Caesar’s legions marched, one of them a 15th century house with a Tudor chimney. Another Tudor chimney rises above the Old Hall, which has kept fine barns from Cromwell’s century; and in Rayne Hall by the church there are roof beams possibly 600 years old, with other woodwork and many windows from the 16th century. Out of a barn has been fashioned the village club and library, making, with its old oak rafters, one of the best libraries we have seen in Essex. Here, too, stands one of the best brick towers in the county, built about 1500 by a Lord Mayor of London, Sir William Capel. It has a bold turret, pinnacles and battlements, handsome moulding round the doorway, and panels with shields. Sir William was an ancestor of the Earls of Essex, and the family arms are shown at the belfry door. The Capels lived at the hall, and many of them were laid to rest here.There is a heraldic inscription to Lady Catherine of 1572, great-grandmother of that Arthur Capel of Hadham who tried to rescue Charles Stuart from the Isle of Wight and was beheaded shortly after his king, expressing a wish that his heart might be buried in the royal grave. The chief attraction inside this refashioned church is the rare woodwork in the chancel, some of it by Flemish carvers 300 years ago and some older still. The reredos is a triptych, with 15 panels of scenes from the Annunciation to the Ascension; and near the altar is a beautiful traceried cupboard with figures of saints and an angel. The oak sedilia is carved in the same style, with angels under canopies and weird dogs as armrests; and over the vestry door is a vigorous relief of the death of the Madonna. A high-backed bench is rich with Tudor tracery, and has armrests of quaint men in flat-topped hats with books. The kneeling desk in front is carved with heads and an angel with a scroll ; and the work of modern carvers is seen on the panels in the altar rails, where we see Pilate washing his hands. Rather hidden by the altar triptych is an attractive window of our own day, glowing with figures of St Alban, St Edmund, Edward the Confessor, and Charles Stuart. There are two old fonts, a plain l7th century one, and a restored 14th century one with a lovely frieze and symbols of the evangelists. A sacring bell, dated 1520, has been restored to the chancel after an absence of 100 years.
 
Can any village, we wonder, beat the record of the Hance family in this church? One was churchwarden in Restoration England. His son became parish clerk in 1723, and for nearly 200 years the office stayed in the family. Had we been here in the time of the Stuart Pretenders, of Clive in India, of Wolfe at Quebec, of Napoleon, of the first railways, of Queen Victoria and King Edward and the first years of King George the Fifth, we should always have found a Hance as parish clerk of Rayne. The wheel has turned full circle, for though the last of the Hances to be clerk died in 1916, his son was churchwarden when we called.

Flickr.

Radwinter

St Mary the Virgin is locked with no keyholder listed and, to my mind, can be summed up as a great porch with a church attached. There must be something more though as she makes it into Jenkins' Thousand Best Churches with a star, mainly for the reredos which Mee also highlights.

The parish shares its vicar with Great and Little Sampford and Hempstead, all three of which are always open - so I fail to understand why Radwinter is inaccessible.

Saint Mary the Virgin, is built of flint and white limestone with bands of tiles of irregular length and spacing. The roofs are covered with tiles and lead.

The oldest part of the Church is the nave - as far as to the last pair of arches towards the East.

On the second and third arches of the North Arcade, remains of mediaeval painted decorations in red and yellow bands could still be seen until the 1960's when sadly, despite Eden-Nesfield's advice in 1868, they were painted over. A West tower was built in c. 1350 and rebuilt with the spire by Mr Temple Moore in 1887-8, after he had taken over from Mr. Eden Nesfield as the Church’s architect.

The restoration and enlargement of the Church was undertaken by the Reverend John Frederick Watkinson Bullock (Rector from 1865-1916) on his own initiative, and largely at his own expense, though he did appeal for co-operation from members of the Vestry before he set to work. Mr. Eden Nesfield was the Architect. Letters of his describing his work are still remaining and have been published by the Friends of Radwinter Church under the title "A Deuce of an Uproar". The Chancel was rebuilt and lengthened to its present proportions; the south and north aisles were rebuilt. The clerestory was remade using old materials. Quaint stone heads, of medieval age, can be seen below the five roof beams. A north vestry and a south vestry and an organ chamber were added. The church was re-consecrated by the Bishop of Rochester (in whose diocese Radwinter then was) on Wednesday 25th May 1870.

The columns north of the nave are octagonal with moulded capitals and modern bases.

The north aisle was added to the Church in 1340 and has in its east wall a reset fourteenth century window showing painted glass of St Alban and St Etheldreda of Ely. This window formerly contained the coat of arms of the Bendysh family.

The tower arch at the back of the church is fourteenth century work reset. The West window is nineteenth century but has some fourteenth century stonework. The painted glass in it shows incidents which have to do with the birth and childhood of Our Lord. The light which shows Him at the age of 12 in the Temple, gives the features of Mr. Gladstone, Lord Salisbury and Sir William Vernon Harcourt to the "doctors" who are speaking with Him.

The flints facing the walls and tower are the work of an old family who lived at Brandon and had been flint knappers for many centuries. In the middle of each outer wall of the bell chamber, below the parapet, a sixteenth century gargoyle is reset.

The south porch was added in about 1350 and also the door. The room above this porch was rebuilt at the restoration and is now used as a muniments room. There had been a room before but it was derelict by 1800. 

The original small chancel of the Church had been rebuilt in about 1325. The present chancel is entirely nineteenth century except for the chancel arch which dates from 1300 and has now been reset one bay to the east of its original position.

Above and behind the high altar is the magnificent wooden reredos of Flemish workmanship of the early sixteenth century. It was bought for Radwinter church from a saleroom in London in 1888. It contains six scenes from the life of Our Lady, with small free-standing figures against shallow carved backgrounds, with elaborate tracery. 

The top middle recess shows the Blessed Virgin as a little girl being presented in the temple. The lower middle recess shows her being espoused to St. Joseph; the top left and right hand recesses show the arrival of the Wise Men and the Shepherds, respectively, at Bethlehem. The bottom left recess gives the scene at her death bed and the bottom right recess is her funeral procession.

The two side wings of the reredos are additionally designed by Mr Temple Moore. On the left wing is to be seen the birth and childhood of the Blessed Virgin, and above, her Annunciation and Visitation. On the right wing Our Lady is shown standing beside the cross on Good Friday; with the body of Her Divine Son in her arms after He had been taken down from the cross; Mary with the Apostles on the first Whitsunday; and finally St. Luke painting her portrait with the Infant Jesus on her knee.

UPDATE: I saw in my local paper that Radwinter was having an open morning last Saturday so having dropped the youngest off at football training headed straight there. Now I have to say that after an initially suspicious reception - they have been broken into several times and suspect that photographers recorded the stolen items to then steal to order - and having to agree to sign the visitors book as having taken pictures I was given a warm and enthusiastic welcome but found it hard to like the interior.

Yes the reredos is magnificent but somehow looks out of place and the Rev JFW Bullock did so much restoration that this is, to all intents and purposes, a Victorian interior - and not a very good one. Still at least I've at last managed to see what all the fuss is about but am becoming increasingly confused by Simon Jenkins choices.

ST MARY THE VIRGIN. The church was all but rebuilt by Eden Nesfield in 1869-70. He used some old materials and left the remarkable S porch as he found it. It has very heavy timbers and brackets to carry an over-sailing upper storey - quite different from any other of the Essex timber porches. The date is C14 and probably not too late. Nesfield added the pretty, pargetted, domestic upper storey, very much in his Essex style. As for the church, the material is flint with bands of tiles of irregular length and spacing. The tracery of the windows is geometrical and of no interest. The good embattled W tower with a spire was added by Temple Moore in 1887. Inside, Nesfield kept to the surviving arcade piers which are on the S side of the late C13 type, quatrefoil with thin round shafts in the diagonals - all shafts carrying fillets. Moulded arches. On the N side the arcade is mid C14: octagonal piers and moulded arches. The chancel arch also is old; it goes with the S arcade. The nave roof is C14 too; tie-beams, curved braces with traceried spandrels, octagonal king-posts with capitals and four-way struts. The chancel roof is panelled and painted and belongs to Nesfield’s time. - REREDOS. A Flemish early C16 altar with six scenes with small free-standing figures against shallow carved backgrounds. - CHANCEL SCREEN of metal. Very pretty scroll-work. Made c. 1880-5. - PAINTING. Triptych in the N aisle. C15, Italian, perhaps Sienese. Demi-figure of Virgin and Child in the centre, two Saints on the wings.

 

RADWINTER. Here is a woodland setting for delightful old houses, chief among them 16th century Grange Farm with its chimney stack as lovingly finished as a work of art, and the Old Vicarage with elaborate bargeboards carved 300 years ago.

But best of all is the church porch, where 14th century wooden arches hold up an overhanging black and white room, with sunken carving on the great beams forming the outer entrance, and a medieval handle to the new inner door. A door on the other side has more medieval ironwork.

From the black and white of the porch we pass into a church bright with colour. It has 14th century arches to the tower and the chancel, but most of it was rebuilt last century, when the massive tower and spire were taken down and put up again and its old bells re-hung. The tower has kept its 16th century gargoyles and the nave roof its corbels, one open-mouthed with a hand clutching its tongue. Some of the beams are 600 years old.

A medieval decorator painted two arches of the arcades with red and yellow bands, and ever since the church has been turning itself into a gallery of art, some good, some poor. Most impressive is the huge 16th century reredos, which presents the story of the Madonna like a pageant, its six deep recesses crowded with wooden figures in realistic scenes. We see her as a baby and then with her own baby; we see her marriage, death, and funeral. In striking contrast with the many shadows cast on the dark wood by the figures is the case of richly coloured 19th century panels made to fold up and enclose the precious reredos, Each panel is painted with another scene in the Madonna’s life, and she appears yet again between two saints in a simple triptych painted by a foreign artist 500 years ago.

Other paintings include a striking 19th century picture of Christ and the Children, a complete series of the Stations of the Cross, brilliantly coloured saints on the organ screen, and a vivid picture of the Ascension in memory of 120 years of service by rectors of the Bullock family, one of whom was here for 5l years. It is mainly due to this family that the village has so rich a church. There is good woodcarving, too, both new and old, including three old chests, a Jacobean chair, and a tall font cover with saints under canopies, a copy of medieval work. Between two huge vestment chests hangs a 12-branched candelabra of the 18th century.

Flickr set.

Pebmarsh

St John the Baptist  is situated on a mound on the east side of the valley through which flows the brook, known locally as ‘The Peb’. The oldest part of the church is the tower, the east side of which shows the roof line of an earlier building and is built in 3 stages of flint rubble with limestone corners, the walls of the lower stage being 1 foot thicker than the upper stages.

The main body of the church, including the aisles, was built at the beginning of the 14th century. The construction is of flint rubble with the walls being 30 inches thick. The Church is built on a slope so the north side is higher than the south and the east higher than the west. This gives a Tardis effect, from the south entrance it seems quite a small church but once you enter it's huge.

The window sills appear to be the same height from the ground when viewed from the outside but the north windows are considerably higher from the inside of the church.

The  porch over the south door is of Tudor brick, the unweathered condition of the carving around the door arch suggests this is a replacement of an earlier one.

The east wall of the chancel is not flint rubble, but of lath and plaster. The sedilla has only two arched seats and the eastern most is partly within the wall. There is no Piscina and this all indicates that the chancel has been shortened by at least 6 feet and the floor appears to have been lowered as it is impossible to sit in the sedilla.

Extensive repairs and restoration were carried out to the North West corner of the Church in 1905 and at the same time the interior plaster was removed and the flints ribbon pointed.

The chancel door has two steps down to floor level and in front of the Altar is the Grade 1 listed brass of Sir William Fitzralph circa 1323 which is one of the the glories of this church, the other being the porch.

St John is an oddity - a straightforward looking Norman building with a peculiar Tudor porch, an oddly Jacobean looking steeple and a vast interior all perched up on a knob of a mound.

The porch and brass sets it apart from the norm.

ST JOHN THE BAPTIST. A C14 church. The W tower came first, see its lower windows. Nave, aisles and chancel followed, all with Dec windows, the most fanciful being the N aisle E window. The arcades have piers with semicircular shafts to the arches and semi-polygonal ones to the nave (cf. e.g. St Peter, Colchester, and St Gregory, Sudbury, across the Suffolk border). The arches are double-chamfered. The Sedilia are the most ornate piece, of two seats only, but meant to be carried on; with crockets, finials, and head-label-stops. In the early C16 the W tower was completed in red brick, with blue diapers, battlements, and stunted pinnacles. An C18 cupola on top. Of the C16 and also in brick the embattling of the church and the unusually elaborate brick S porch, with a blank stepped gable over the entrance and another stepped gable above. In a niche a statuette of St John by Alec Miller. - PULPIT. Re-used traceried panels, perhaps from bench ends. - STAINED GLASS. C14 bits in chancel and N aisle windows. E window by Clayton & Bell, 1879. N aisle E window by Hugh Easton, 1934. So much is said (and done) nowadays against Victorian glass that one should consider seriously whether Clayton & Bell’s is not more legitimately stained glass than Mr Easton’s which is always reminiscent of line drawings daintily water coloured. - PLATE. Cup of 1567; Paten on foot of 1697. - MONUMENT Sir William Fitzralph d. c. 1323; The earliest and one of the most important brasses in the county. Large figure, cross legged, with a hood of mail.

PEBMARSH. Its post office is Tudor and it has many Tudor farms and houses, among them Stanley Hall with a moat and carved beams; Worldsend with two original studded doors; and Greathouse Farm, a modern house with two barns and a granary of the 16th and 17th centuries. But we come to the church for the great attraction of Pebmarsh, for among its treasures is one of the very few brasses in England dating from the first half of the 14th century. There are believed to be only about 16 of them, and this one has the distinction of being among the very earliest to show the plate armour of those days. It is a fine picture of Sir William Fitzralph who fought in the wars of Edward the First and helped to hammer the Scots, dying about 1323. He is lying cross-legged, has armour and chain mail, and wears a long coat tied at the waist. His sword is in an ornamental scabbard, and his feet rest on a hound.

The church is mostly the work of 14th century builders, but from the 16th century come its brick parapets on the tower and aisle, a porch with a niche and a rose, and tie-beams in the nave roof. There is a beautiful 14th century doorway with four animal heads, a modern door with medieval ironwork, a 15th century bell, a  pulpit with woodwork 500 years old, two l7th century chairs carved with flowers and leaves and cherubs, and an old chest. In the windows are many scraps of glass as old as the church, shields and foliage, flowers and leopard faces, and a little man standing.

Simon K -

By now the lanes were awash, and so at Alphamstone I decided to call it a day and take the shortest route back to Bures station, but the sun seemed insistent, and so instead I headed on to Pebmarsh for just one more church, I told myself. I could head back to Bures from there.

The rain stayed off, but the amount of surface water was now a problem - I have mudguards, but some roads were flooded, and although cars were rare around here it would only take one overtaking carelessly to soak me. Without incident I entered Pebmarsh, which turned out to be a largish, long village, and in the oldest part of it I reached the church.

Open. This church is quite different from the others I had visited so far. They were all, in their way, typical small Essex churches. Pebmarsh is a typical large East Anglian church. It is BIG. It has aisles and a clerestory, and castellated walls, so would be quite at home in west Suffolk or south-east Cambridgeshire. To give it an Essex signature it has a perky wooden turret at the top of the tower as at Finchingfield and Felsted.

I don't know of a church more difficult to photograph from the south; it sits within a wide bend, hard against the churchyard wall and high above the village street. The best I could do was to wander down the street opposite, but trees and a telegraph pole quickly impeded the view.

Inside, it is like the bones of a church: the considerable 19th Century restoration stripped the plaster from the walls, exposing the flints internally as at Hildersham in Cambridgeshire. It is rather striking, as you may imagine.

There is good 19th and 20th Century glass, as well as some 13th century survivals including a figure of St Peter holding his keys at a jaunty angle, but the star of the show here is the 1330s brass to Sir William Fitzralph, generally considered the most important brass in Essex, and one of the earliest martial brasses in England. I'm not a great one for brasses, but it is pretty awe-inspiring.


Flickr set.

Pattiswick

St Mary was odd, it had dormer windows in the roof, what looked like a domestic drive and, after a good look round, turned out to have been converted into a house. Thank God no-one was around whilst I was casing the joint. For what it's worth it is fairly innocuous and is probably better off as a house than a church.

ST MARY. Nave and chancel of the same height, and belfry. The nave is C13 (one re-set lancet in the N vestry), the chancel C14 (two S windows each of two lights under one pointed head). Tiebeam between nave and chancel and above it a plastered half-timbered ‘tympanum’ like a gable. The roof of the nave has a tiebeam with an octagonal king-post, the belfry rests on a tiebeam also with a king-post. - BENCHES in the nave, c. 1500, absolutely plain. - PLATE. Cup and Cover of 1702, re-purchased for the church in 1922.

PATTISWICK. It is very rich in trees, and has farms and cottages with ancient roofs and chimneys. The nave of the church is 700 years old and the chancel 600, both roofs being medieval. A few of the pews have been here since the time of Henry the Eighth.

To be fair Pattiswick is tiny and was lucky to have a church in the first place.

Simon K -

Now a private house. The Diocese of Chelmsford suffered the same brush with insanity as several other dioceses in the 1970s, selling off wherever possible any church they could get off the books, and this was one of them. A 13th Century church in the Essex style, rendered nave/chancel with a wooden bell turret. 

The Edwardian screen and glass are apparently still in situ - it looks fabulous, lending itself far more to domestic living than a typical East Anglian tower/nave/chancel church would. The church is fenced off from the churchyard so you can still approach all the graves.