ST MARY MAGDALENE. Away from the village and close to Ockendon Hall which was destroyed during the Second World War. Norman church with E.E. N aisle and N chancel chapel, and low C15 W tower with diagonal buttresses. Norman work, besides the masonry, the S doorway of three orders with zig-zag-decorated arches survives. Its columns have one scalloped and one very stylized fleur-de-lis capital. A little later the pointed W arch of the N arcade with one chamfer. The next two bays of the N arcade of the early C13 with circular pier and double-chamfered arch. The easternmost arch is C15 with hollow mouldings in the arch, similar to the chancel arch. The N chancel chapel is connected with the chancel by an arcade of two bays with a quatrefoil pier with Perp foliage capital. Fine nave roof with tiebeams, and king-posts with four-way struts. - PULPIT. Elizabethan type, though no doubt C17. - STAIRS in the tower, steep and elementarily constructed, C15 or perhaps earlier. - STAINED GLASS. Female Saint, late C13, and much tabernacle work perhaps a little later. - PLATE. Cup and Cover of 1561; Cup and Paten on foot, 1646. - MONUMENTS. Brass to Thomasine Badby d. 1532. - Brasses to William Poyntz and wife d. 1502 ; their children below. - Eight small monuments of members of the Poyntz family, kneeling couples under arches. All eight put up in 1606. - Two larger monuments with kneelers, early C17 and 1643. - Large alabaster tomb-chest with the recumbent effigies of Sir Gabriel Poyntz d. 1607 and wife. The unusual feature is a tester unsupported by columns. - Sir Thomas Poyntz d. 1709, standing wall monument with bust high up, one hand elegantly on his breast, Corinthian columns l. and r., supporting a broken segmental g pediment with two reclining putti seated on it. - John Russell of Stubbers d. 1825, bust by Behnes.
NORTH OCKENDON. Men must have been living here for 60 generations, for there is a Roman burial ground of 16 acres. One of the oldest houses still standing is the timbered post office of Shakespeare’s century. The hall is a little younger, but the church which keeps it company has still the fine doorway through which the Normans came into it; it has a striking arch which does not begin to curve until high above its capitals. Indoors each pier of the nave is different, and the pillar between the chancel and the chapel is lovely with 700-year-old carving of oak and vine leaves, all as fresh as if the sculptor had just left it.
The chapel is the shrine of the Poyntz family, and in it lies the proud Sir Gabriel. He is on a magnificent tomb which dominates all others, he and his wife gazing at a painted blue sky on an oak canopy above them. From the canopy look down sun, moon, and stars, and human faces are quaintly painted on the sun and the crescent moon. They are beautiful figures and the embroidery on the wife’s dress is elaborately wrought. Sir Gabriel loved old things and set in relief on these walls six monuments to his ancestors. In the armour and dress of their period kneel lords and ladies of the manor from the reign of Edward the Third to Queen Elizabeth, and after that Sir Gabriel added his own monuments and one for his son. All kneeling at prayer in the 16th century way, this group of carvings is one of the smallest sculpture galleries we have seen, none over 12 inches high. After these come greater monuments - one of Sir James with his son Richard, both in armour; Catherine with her husband facing each other; and a bust of Sir Thomas, who lived into Queen Anne’s day and has four cherubs lamenting him. There are three brass portraits on the wall facing Sir Gabriel’s tomb, one of Sir William Poyntz and his wife (1502), and one of a tall lady of 1532, Thomasyn Latham. Near them is the gravestone of William Baldwin on which is the earliest date in the church, 1316.
It is interesting to look about this place, to see this gallery of monuments, and realise that a lovely wistful figure of a saint has gazed from one of the windows while all these great people have passed to their rest. She is St Helen, holding a book and a staff, clothed in raiment of green and gold as the painter left her 700 years ago. Two centuries passed by and the glass workers set here another figure to keep her company, Mary Magdalene with her trailing tresses and her pot of precious ointment. Between these ancient figures is now a bishop in his robes and mitre. The window itself is beautiful and its glass of the 13th and 15th century is a remarkable possession. In a window of the 15th century tower are the arms of England and France glowing in glass of the 14th century, so that this fine church adds to its possessions in marble a rare collection of glass of our three great church-building centuries.
About a mile from the church is a house with a 16th century barn and a large fish-pond. Jacobean doors and panelling are in the house, while both staircases were carved about the year 1700.
Here in the early days of the Stuarts was the garden of William Coys, famous among botanists of the time for being the first garden in which the yucca and the ivy-leaved toadflax grew in England. The Hampshire botanist John Goodyer visited the garden and helped Coys to make the first complete English garden list with all the plants scientifically described. Botanists went on pilgrimage to the garden 300 years ago, and it is delightful to know that the garden is maintained by the family which succeeded William Coys.
The chapel is the shrine of the Poyntz family, and in it lies the proud Sir Gabriel. He is on a magnificent tomb which dominates all others, he and his wife gazing at a painted blue sky on an oak canopy above them. From the canopy look down sun, moon, and stars, and human faces are quaintly painted on the sun and the crescent moon. They are beautiful figures and the embroidery on the wife’s dress is elaborately wrought. Sir Gabriel loved old things and set in relief on these walls six monuments to his ancestors. In the armour and dress of their period kneel lords and ladies of the manor from the reign of Edward the Third to Queen Elizabeth, and after that Sir Gabriel added his own monuments and one for his son. All kneeling at prayer in the 16th century way, this group of carvings is one of the smallest sculpture galleries we have seen, none over 12 inches high. After these come greater monuments - one of Sir James with his son Richard, both in armour; Catherine with her husband facing each other; and a bust of Sir Thomas, who lived into Queen Anne’s day and has four cherubs lamenting him. There are three brass portraits on the wall facing Sir Gabriel’s tomb, one of Sir William Poyntz and his wife (1502), and one of a tall lady of 1532, Thomasyn Latham. Near them is the gravestone of William Baldwin on which is the earliest date in the church, 1316.
It is interesting to look about this place, to see this gallery of monuments, and realise that a lovely wistful figure of a saint has gazed from one of the windows while all these great people have passed to their rest. She is St Helen, holding a book and a staff, clothed in raiment of green and gold as the painter left her 700 years ago. Two centuries passed by and the glass workers set here another figure to keep her company, Mary Magdalene with her trailing tresses and her pot of precious ointment. Between these ancient figures is now a bishop in his robes and mitre. The window itself is beautiful and its glass of the 13th and 15th century is a remarkable possession. In a window of the 15th century tower are the arms of England and France glowing in glass of the 14th century, so that this fine church adds to its possessions in marble a rare collection of glass of our three great church-building centuries.
About a mile from the church is a house with a 16th century barn and a large fish-pond. Jacobean doors and panelling are in the house, while both staircases were carved about the year 1700.
Here in the early days of the Stuarts was the garden of William Coys, famous among botanists of the time for being the first garden in which the yucca and the ivy-leaved toadflax grew in England. The Hampshire botanist John Goodyer visited the garden and helped Coys to make the first complete English garden list with all the plants scientifically described. Botanists went on pilgrimage to the garden 300 years ago, and it is delightful to know that the garden is maintained by the family which succeeded William Coys.
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