Church Heritage Record 621643

West tower, nave of five bays with aisles and clerestory, the west bays of the aisles embracing the tower; north porch, north and south transepts: chancel of five bays.

There was an earlier church, but no trace of this remains; Ralph Third Baron Cromwell, who became Treasurer of England in 1433, founded a college consisting of a Provost, six priests, six clerks and six choristers under a charter dated 10 November 1440. The building of the church began shortly after and was completed after the Treasurer's death (in 1456) by his executor, Bishop Waynfleet, probably in the 1480's. It is possible that Waynfleet was responsible for its design, and interesting connections can be traced between Tattershall Castle and various brick buildings in other parts of the country with which Waynfleet had connections. The church was built in one campaign and has been little altered since. In 1757 the glass was removed from the chancel and the church remained partly windowless for about seventy years, but the chancel was restored and refurnished by Earl Fortescue in about 1815. In 1822 the box pews were removed from the nave. There does not seem to have been any nineteenth-century restoration on a large scale. Some new timber was inserted in the nave roof in 1893-7.

Having been built all in one campaign, Tattershall is an unusually complete example of a Perpendicular collegiate church. It seems, however, that the death of its founder during work caused the upper parts to be finished rather more severely than might have been intended originally. The uniformity of the style, apart from this consideration, gives the church a cool, almost gaunt impression, which is borne out in the lack of any cusping throughout the fabric. There is moreover no unnecessary wall surface, and the huge areas of the seventy-two windows make the church a glass-house, as has been often said of other Perpendicular churches. The tracery designs of the windows follow uniform patterns for each part of the church four lights with panel tracery in the aisles, the same in the east walls of the transepts, two windows of three lights in each bay of the clerestory (and in the east walls of the transepts where, like Newark, a clerestory appears above the main windows), a larger five-light design of similar character for the west window and six lights in the north and south transept windows. The chancel has three light windows to each bay of the north and south walls and the great east window has seven lights. All have panel tracery of some sort, the style in the chancel slightly earlier, differing from that in the nave. The roofs are of low pitch and the parapets have no battlements.

The aisle walls have slender buttresses at each bay rising above the parapet to terminate in pinnacles set diagonally. The clerestory has no buttresses or even strips of stonework between the bays and the transepts have buttresses like those of the aisles, which end well below the parapet - below indeed the "clerestory" windows, again with diagonally-set pinnacles. The chancel north and south walls have buttresses marking the bays which are similar in design to those of the aisles, though larger in size and without pinnacles above the parapet (although it is impossible to say without access to the roofs whether there ever existed). At the apex of the east gable over the great east window there is a decorated statue nich provided with miniature vaulting under the canopy, hexagonal on plan.

The west tower is embraced by the aisles. At the foot of the west front is a large doorway within a moulded four-centred arch with quatrefoils and shields within the spandrels and a moulded rectangular frame decorated with triangles. Above, between the doorway and the west window, is a frieze of thirteen uncarved shields, interrupted twice by vertical panelling with ogee crocketted heads to the panels which flank the doorway. Their cusping, which is minimal, is the exception which proves the rule. The tall plinth which surrounds the building returns into the wall on each side of the doorway and the stringcourse which encircles the whole building, stepping up and down as necessary to form the sill of the windows, is only broken by the frieze of shields. At each end of this it appears through the buttresses and returns into the wall immediately.

The middle stage of the tower has a small rectangular opening in each face and the uppermost stage, which houces the bells, has a strikingly plain window in each face which is simply a group of three Lancets within a four-centred arch, surely a reduced version of the original builder's intention. The tower parapet is straight and unembattled and conceals a gabled roof. At each corner are crocketted pinnacles. Small loops in the south-west angle show the position of the turret stair. Access to the main roofs is by a turret above the angle of the east face south transept.

Such is the pattern of the exterior, but there remain one or two irregularities which call for attention. The most important is the north porch which is not matched on the south (although there is every indication that there was one here once also). This seems to have been the last part of the church to have been built. It has a stone floor and stone benches on each side, with a pair of windows in the east and west walls. The old oak roof survives. The north doorway, which is nowadays the main entrance to the church, has a four-centred arch with a continuous moulding and roses within quatrefoils in the spandrels. To the right is a recess which probably once held a holy water stoup. It also has a four-centred arch. There are diagonal buttresses at the anges. Above the doorway is a rectangular recess contaning a carved shield of Bishop Waynfleet, Cromwell's executor, who was responsible for the completion of the building. A small niche above this was doubtless intended for a statue. Another detail worthy of note is the series of small projections like capitals, two to each bay of the nave and clerestory, which provide the fixings for downpipes, all decorated uniformly with fleurons.

The ambitious intentions of the founder are shown in the abnormally high plinths of the nave arcades and, in particular, of the four great piers of the tower. The tower arch itself, rising the full height of the nave, is of two roll-moulded orders which reach unbroken from the plinth to the apex. The soffit is broadly and simply panelled. The north and south arches, aming a processional way between the embracing bays of the aisles, have equally broad mouldings. The pillars of the nave arcades are set lozenge-wise with shafts facing to nave and the aisle, small triple shafts to west and east and a broad hollow moulding between. The arch mouldings are considerably finer than those of the tower arches, and the shafts have octagonal moulded caps. The floor is paved with stone throughout.

The nave roof is of low pitch, with moulded principals and purlins and thin, insignificant arch-braces. These rest on shafts rising from corbels above the capitals of the arcades and from angols with shields between. The transept arches again rise to the full height, but unlike the tower arch they are enlarged examples based on the model of the nave arcades, and the tower arch follows the same form (i.e. triple shafts in the direction of the arch, single shafts to the lesser directions and broad hollow mouldings between). The architecture of the transepts has little to note save that both transepts have piscinas, that in the south with a roll-moulded four-centred arch enclsoing a little vault over an octagonal drain and roses along the front of the shelf, that in the north transept similar but with leaves instead of roses on the front of the shelf.

The west bay of the south aisle is curtained off to form a vestry and the south transept is screened to make a chapel. The north transept has an iron screen within which are gathered what remains of the fine collection of brasses. An attempt has been made to give a Catholic appearance to the church by placing small altars at the end of the north and south aisles, at the west end of the north aisle and in the arches each side of the central opening in the pulpitum. The chancel arch is closed by a pulpitum which survives and still carries an organ.

The chancel is lower than the nave but, being aisleless is even more flooded with light. The surviving mediaeval glass is sensibly collected in the lower part of the east window below the transom, and thus prevents glare close above the altar. The walls are plastered and the lower part, below a stringcourse at sill level, has been whitewashed. The roof is supported on large stone corbels carved as angels holding shields, several with the instruments of the passion (the scourge, sponge, lance etc.) and one apparently with a model of a church with an octagonal tower. The arch braces to the principal timbers are bolder than in the nave and the spandrels are carved with designs of leaves and tracery round Treasury purses. The floor is paved with stone and red, black and buff tiles of rather indifferent quality, with two steps between the congregational area and the choir, one at the rail and then a footpace before the altar. The sedilia and piscina in the south wall are grouped in one composition, with roll-mouldings between each which turn out higher up to be colonettes with capitals framing the four-centred arches over each recess. Each arch has an ogee crocketted moulding above against panel tracery and the piscina has an octagonal drain with straight sides like those in the transepts. The straight frieze above has a hollow moulding against which are set various animals, including the Agnus Dei, a griffin, an elephant and castle, and some others still distinguishable. Much of the cresting has been broken off and lost. In the rear wall of the piscina is a small loop which is said to have communicated with the collegiate buildings.