Church Heritage Record 632373

The present church is an accretive structure of the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (see plan at figure 1). The chancel arch dates from the thirteenth century, but the church appears otherwise to be a later remodelling and rebuilding. The aisles and west tower date from the fourteenth century, but the aisles were rebuilt, a south porch added and a clerestorey and new roof added over a raised nave arcade in the fifteenth century. North and south chancel chapels were also added about this time, and the chancel refenestrated. By the end of the Middle Ages the church had acquired, more or less, its present external form. Figure 2: The church from the south in c.1820 (Beds Community Archives website) In the seventeenth century there was a Laudian rearrangement with a new Communion table and rails. In the eighteenth century, lead rainwater hoppers dated 1783 on the south side of the church suggest a roof overhaul at that time. The early nineteenth century appearance of the church is shown at figure 2. The spire was repaired in 1843 and stained glass windows placed in the chancel in 1854 and 1857, when the tile floor of the chancel may also have been installed. Beyond this (apart from the stripping of the internal plaster, so widespread at that time) the building escaped Victorian overrestoration. Indeed, it appears to have passed through a period of neglect, having been described by Archdeacon Frederick Bathurst in 1873 as in ‘a wretched state’ and in 1888 as ‘still in bad repair’. The Victoria County History for Bedfordshire (1912) recorded that ‘at the present day for want of money the whole is slowly falling to decay, the walls bare of plaster and green with damp from leaking roofs, and the beautiful carvings of the roofs threatening to fall. The mediaeval seats remain, in great part much in need of repair, and the floors are broken and uneven, patched with rough stone, in places showing the ground beneath’. However repairs to the chancel, north aisle and north chapel were put in hand in that year, and from 1916 a more comprehensive, but gradual (still incomplete in 1925) programme of repairs took place under the direction of Sidney Inskip Ladds, architect of Huntingdon and Ely Diocesan Surveyor. The church was listed in 1964, and today is listed Grade I. It forms part of the Stodden Churches group of parishes, named after the ancient Hundred of that name.

The church is built of coursed limestone rubble, with ashlar dressings. On plan (figure 1) it consists of a west tower, nave, north and south aisles, south porch, chancel and north and south chancel chapels. As well as the main south entrance there is a door in the north aisle and a small priest’s door with ogee head on the south side of the chancel. The VCH refers to a later door under the west tower window but evidence for this has been lost, probably in the c.1916 restoration. The fourteenth century west tower is of three stages with attached buttresses and a two-light trefoiled window to the lower stage (west face) with clock over, a short intermediate stage, and trefoiled two-light windows to the belfry stage. Above a plain parapet with frieze of grotesque heads and central gargoyles is an octagonal spire with lucarnes. The aisles, nave clerestory, south porch and north and south chapels were remodelled or added in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; all have embattled parapets, while the earlier chancel has a solid plain parapet. The most elaborate windows are those to the east windows of the side chapels (and the southeast window in the south chapel), which are of three lights with traceried ogee heads. The remaining windows are more Perp (fifteenthcentury) in character, including those in the chancel. Near the south porch are two eighteenthcentury lead hoppers with square downpipes, each hopper with a griffin over a crown and one inscribed IF 1783.

A studded oak door with broad strap hinges and inset ogee-headed wicket leads into the interior of the church. Here the walls have been stripped of their original plaster. The floors are mainly of flagstones, with inset ledger slabs, the pews raised on wooden platforms. The nave arcade is of four bays, with fourteenth-century bases and later octagonal piers, the arcade probably raised when the clerestorey was added in the fifteenth century. At the west end, the mouldings of the tower arch die into the wall. Evidence for the earlier steeplypitched fourteenth-century roof can be seen on the eastern tower face; the plate is below the apex level of the present nave arcade. The clerestorey windows are of three cinquefoiled lights, with a fine fifteenth-century timber roof above. This has cambered tie beams with beautiful central bosses, and braces with carved spandrels springing from the canopied heads of former niches (the lower parts lost). Details include a band of openwork carving below the wall plates, a line of angels around the east bay and blank shields around the west bay. The eastern bay was originally ceiled and is slightly plainer; other bays have elaborate bosses of foliage, and angels bearing instruments of the Passion or musical instruments (some angels restored). The aisle roofs are similarly, though less elaborately detailed. The thirteenth century chancel arch has two chamfered orders with moulded octagonal capitals with nail head detail. The chancel was rebuilt in the fourteenth century and has a simpler roof, of three bays, with moulded tie-beams and braces springing from small halfcolumns. Moulded four-centred arches open onto the north and south chancel chapels, which have panelled ceilings. The north chapel arch contains the organ, and the area behind is a vestry/store. From here a squint affords a view towards the altar. The chancel was refenestrated in the fifteenth century, with windows of three trefoiled lights.

The church retains a good number of medieval and later furnishings and monuments of note. The main fittings and furnishings are, in roughly chronological order:  Remains of holy water stoup and pedestal by south door, probably fourteenth century  Fourteenth century octagonal font with quatrefoil panels, on octagonal base carved with leaves and flowers, in south aisle (modern oak cover, in memory of Horace Hodgkins)  Arched piscine in the chancel and side chapels  Cupboard on north chancel wall (modern door with brass strap hinges)  Fourteenth century canopied tomb recess at the east end of the north aisle, with richly carved cusping, and a base with quatrefoils on the front and Purbeck marble slab with the remains of an inscription [PRI] ES FOR SA ALME DEU MER [CI], to Walter de Ireland, rector, d.1311 (some of the lettering is now ex situ, displayed in a case above, figure 3). Incorporates old carved graffiti.  Elaborate medieval wooden rood screen and chapel screens, with crocketed labels to the arched openings (the gate to the rood screen is Jacobean)  Fifteenth century wooden pulpit, with arched tracery panels  A bench front alongside the pulpit incorporates tracery panels from a screen  The nave and aisle pews are substantially medieval, with moulded tops and square buttressed ends. Some old pew fronts have been reused in the creation of a kitchen area at the west end of the south aisle  In the south chapel, a raised tomb chest with a brass to Thomas Parker, rector, d.1501, shown vested for Mass, with indent for Trinity brass  Seventeenth century communion rails and communion table  Seventeenth century wall monuments in the north and south chapels, notably a Baroque marble monument to John Neale (d.1680) in the south chapel, attributed to Edward Stanton (O’Brien/Pevsner) and one to Thomas Bourdy, rector of Shelton (d.1691) in the north chapel (largely obscured by the organ)  Jacobean alms chest by main entrance, baluster form with heavy iron strapping  A fine oak chest in the north chapel  Timber screen to tower arch, possibly seventeenth century  Seventeenth and eighteenth-century panelling in tower area, and an old ladder  In the south aisle, a brass to Richard Hooke, rector (d.1690) and his wife Anne (d.1669)  A painted hatchment/memorial to Joseph Neale (d.1710), son of John Neale, recording his endowment of a charity school  A number of eighteenth century brass plates on the rear of the front pew, with inscriptions to members of the Boswell family  A number of eighteenth-century slate ledger slabs in the circulation alleys of the nave and aisles  Encaustic tile floor in the chancel, probably 1850s  A Jacobean-style wooden lectern in the chancel  A Victorian bier at the west end of the north aisle  Two diamond-shaped late-nineteenth century white marble wall monuments in south aisle (Evans and Dalton)  A brass eagle lectern, in memory of Philip Templer Furneaux, killed at Ypres in 1914  Board recording 1916 ICBS grant of £25 towards repairs  Organ by R. Rose & Co. of Bedford, installed in 1936 (renovated 1988). According to the BIOS Register it was brought here from Melchbourne House, Bedfordshire. (Not inspected): The VCH lists four bells: the treble by Hugh Watts of Leicester, 1603; the second, cast in London in the late fifteenth century, the third by Tobias Norris of Stamford, 1671, and the tenor an alphabet bell cast by Hugh Watts, 1610. The bells were rehung and a fifth added in 1956. The fifteenth century bell frame is said to survive in situ. The seventeenth century clock was made by the village blacksmith (information from parish). Stained glass  In the west window of the south aisle, a medieval figure of a kneeling priest  In the east window of the south chapel, a medieval shield  Three-light east window with quatrefoiled panels, by Thomas Willement, in memory of Richard Verity (d.1857)  Three-light window in south chapel with modern figure of St Francis and incorporating medieval figures, by Goddard & Gibbs, in memory of Thomas Patrick Hayes (d.1962)