A funeral service was under way when I passed Christ Church which slightly inhibited me for interiors but I don't think I missed much.
Built in 1858 and designed by Nehemiah Edward Stevens of Kentish ragstone in EE style - its a pretty poor example of Victoriana.
Ware.
It was known to the Danes, who are said to have brought their ships up
the River Lea, and to John Gilpin on his famous ride, and was important
enough 600 years ago for the county town to be referred to as
Hertford-by-Ware. Long associated with malting, its aspect has been
spoiled by the cone shaped cowls of many kilns, but there are quaint
survivals of old Ware, looking its best as we come from Hertford and see
its clustering red roofs and the fine grey church with a tiny spire.
There is a pleasant tree-lined walk along the towpath on this side of
the town, and the gardens of the houses have quaint gazebos along the
north bank. George Stephenson’s iron bridge over the River Lea was cased
by a concrete bridge early in our century.
The church stands finely at a corner
which is like a paved garden, with a sundial among the flowers. In the
narrow streets about it is a sprinkling of old houses, some with
overhanging storeys. Facing the church is a big house with creepered
walls and a roof of mellow tiles; known as the Priory, it has been much
altered since it was built from the remains of a Franciscan friary
founded in 1338 by the lord of the manor, Thomas Wake. It has some
medieval windows, and in the entrance hall is an arch resting on corbels
crudely carved with the heads of men. Here, too, is a 14th-century
refectory table of oak and ash and poplar, said to be unique for its
time in England. The house and its gardens were given to the town in
1920 by Annie Elizabeth Croft - the gardens small but charming with
lawns and flowers, fine trees, and the river flowing through, a weeping
willow making an arbour near the bridge to a tree-shaded island. Gilpin
House in High Street, 17th century, keeps green the association of
Cowper’s John Gilpin with the town. The Bluecoat House, built in 1686 by
the Governors of Christ’s Hospital, served as a school till the
children were removed to Hertford in 1760, and has since been a private
house. An 18th—century house in the London Road, home of the Quaker
poet, John Scott, became part of the grammar school for girls opened in
our own time. A curious transformation has taken place at 65 High
Street, where the timbered fronts of two 15th-century houses (which once
faced each other across an alley) now form the walls of a coal cellar.
One of the fronts has its original window frame and oak doorway, the
curved arches above them having pierced spandrels.
Unspoiled by time or trade, the spacious
cross-shaped church of St Mary is a grand tribute to its medieval
builders, and to the restorers since the middle of last century, who
have made the embattled exterior, including most of the windows, look
rather new. Most of the old work is 14th and 15th century,
but the chancel (said to have been completed by the mother of Henry VII,
Margaret Beaufort) has 13th-century masonry and a fragment of an
original window. The chancel arch is 15th century. Opening to the lady
chapel is a rare 14th-century round-headed archway divided into two
pointed bays, with straight mullions in the spandrel. The chapel has a
sedila and piscina 600 years old, 17th-century panelling with a fine
border of pierced carving, 15th century screenwork dividing it from the
south transept, and a panelled and traceried roof in red and gold, with
floral bosses. The 500-year-old doorway to the vestry has slender
shafts, and a draped head and the head of a demon peeping from hollow
moulding; it frames an old oak door. The 17th-century altar rails now
enclosing the children’s corner were cast out of the church last century
and served for a time as a garden fence before being brought back a few
years ago.
The nave and aisles are from the end of
the 14th century, and the tower with double buttresses is a little
older. The graceful arches of the arcades, and the big windows of the
clerestory (which are partly medieval) carry the eye to the splendid
15th-century nave roof, with stout tie beams and bosses of flowers,
shields, and quaint heads, supported by modern stone corbels of saints
and apostles. Good heads of medieval folk are between the arches of the
arcades. The north transept has two 15th century recesses, and two brass
portraits of the same century, showing a woman in flowing robes and
ornamented headdress, and Elen Coke of 1454 wearing draped head-dress
and wide sleeves. There is a remarkable brass in the south transept with
23 people on it - fine small figures of William Pyrey of 1470 in a
belted gown, his two wives in horned headdress, and charming groups of
20 children, each wife having given him five sons and five daughters.
The font is magnificent with its
vigorous carving of figures under leafy arches round the bowl. We see
Gabriel and Mary, St Margaret slaying the dragon, St Christopher
carrying the Holy Child over the stream, St Catherine with her wheel, St
James with his pilgrim’s staff, St john the Baptist, and a bearded St
George in armour, slaying the dragon. It is this armour of St George
which enables us to date the lovely font at about 1380, for it closely
resembles that of the Black Prince in Canterbury. At the corners of the
font are angels with musical instruments and Passion symbols; the stem,
only a little narrower than the bowl, is carved with quatrefoils, and
round the base is a wreath of branchwork and flowers. The traceried and
pinnacled cover is modern.
Sir Richard Fanshawe’s descendants have
restored his marble monument in the south transept. Son of Sir Henry
Fanshawe, who was a horticulturist and an Italian scholar, Sir Richard
was born in 1608 at Ware Park, a domain of over 200 acres west of the
town, partly encircled by the River Lea and the River Rib. He was a
famous ambassador of Charles I, and his son was taken prisoner at
Worcester, and became Latin secretary to Prince Charles at the Hague.
Returning at the Restoration, he became a Privy councillor and in 1664
was English ambassador at Madrid, where he died in 1666. His body was
brought home and buried here.
The church of the Sacred Heart, built in
1939, is the most attractive modern place of worship in the town, with
its clear glass and comely fittings. It was designed by the late
Geoffrey Webb.
Ware Park is now a sanatorium. One of
its rooms is said to have been the original home of a piece of furniture
that lives in Shakespeare, the Great Bed of Ware, which has lately been
bought for the Victoria and Albert Museum. For nearly four centuries
this wonderful oak bedstead, nearly 11 feet square and over 7 feet high,
has been a byword with English people. It has often been mentioned in
literature. Shakespeare makes an amusing allusion to it in Twelfth
Night, when Sir Toby gives advice on courtship to Sir Andrew Aguecheek,
telling him to write to Olivia, assuring her of his valour, "as many
lies as will lie in thy sheet of paper, although the sheet were big
enough for the Bed of Ware in England." Early in the 18th
century it was in the Crown Inn at Ware, and in 1764 was moved to the
Saracen’s Head near by. Last century it was taken to a building in the
grounds of Rye House in Hertfordshire, renowned for the plot against
Charles I’s two sons, happily discovered before they could be
assassinated. The bed is magnificently carved. The head is a work of
art, and the canopy and bedposts are also richly decorated. From the
moment the idea of this huge bed entered the mind of its maker the Great
Bed of Ware must have been a perpetual joke down the centuries. All
kinds of travellers stopping at the two inns have slept under its great
canopy, and many strange bedfellows it must have seen.
