Buckland

St Andrew is the first church under the auspices of the CCT I've visited that was locked with no key holder listed. In my experience CCT churches are always open so perhaps something untoward has happened at Buckland.

Its imposing tower is probably the best exterior feature but it's a shame that it's locked as Mee makes it sound rather interesting.

Update: When I returned to Buckland a note saying that the church is usually kept unlocked and gave keyholders for the times it was not had been added to the north door.

The interior holds lots of interest including brasses, monuments and some fragmentary medieval glass.

ST ANDREW. Nave, chancel, and S transept C14. An inscription in some stained glass is recorded giving the date 1348 for the construction of the church. W tower c. 1400, S aisle and S porch later C15. The W tower has diagonal buttresses. The nave and chancel have windows typical of the mid C14, the S aisle and S porch (depressed arch, two-light windows) belong to the late C15 or even early C16. The S aisle arcade has odd and very pretty piers consisting of shafts with capitals only for the inner order of the arches themselves. Towards the nave and aisle there are no capitals. Demi-figure of an angel on the W impost. Head-stops on the labels of the nave windows. - STAINED GLASS. C15 canopies in N windows. - MONUMENTS. Brasses to Alice Boteler d. 1451; to William Langley, Rector of Buckland, d. 1478; and to John Gyll d. 1499 with children (chancel). - Susan Clarke d. 1634, epitaph with bust and small Mannerist figures on the l. and r. - John Clare d. 1772, big epitaph with bust above an asymmetrical Rococo cartouche with inscription. By John Richards of Bishopsgate.

Buckland. Cutting through the broad harvest fields comes the Romans’ Ermine Street, and where it climbs this village hill is the church Nicholas de Bokeland built in 1348, recording his deed on the glass of a chancel window; it is one of the few Hertfordshire churches of which the exact date is known. Though Nicholas’s glass has gone a few fragments of 14th-century glass remain in other windows. The font is old enough to have served for the baptism of this church-builder’s children, though its bowl of Barnack stone has been recut. The tower, the aisle, and the porch were added in the 15th century, and several people who saw them new are here in brass - Alice Boteler, the wife of a Sheriff of London; John Gyll with his six sons (his four daughters have been stolen from him); William Langley, the rector who died in 1478, pictured in his robes with the chalice he held out to the villagers 500 years ago. Under the altar is an inscription to a rector’s wife who died the year before Charles I, and close by is Chantrey’s beautiful medallion portrait of William Michell, son of another rector. An 18th-century rector, Dr Thomas Morrell, made for himself another kind of memorial, compiling the words for some of Handel’s oratorios.

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Broxbourne

St Augustine is truly astonishing, containing more monuments and memorials than any church outside of a cathedral that I've visited to date. Quite literally every inch of the aisles and nave walls are covered, the floors are littered with ledger stones and the churchwarden assured me that they had more hatchments, 11 although only 9 are currently displayed, than any other church in the county and possibly the country. On top of this cornucopia are two table tombs for the Says, Sir John 1478 and Sir William 1529, and a sumptuous one for Sir Henry Cock 1609. The quantity and quality is such that it took over an hour to record (although this wasn't helped by the very helpful and knowledgeable ladies who though obviously proud of their church were somewhat loquacious).

Which leads me to my own over detail:

Sir John Say of of Baas (in Broxbourne), Little Berkhampstead and Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire, and Lawford, Essex, was King's Serjeant, Coroner of the Marshalsea, Yeoman of The Chamber & Crown, Keeper of Westminster Palace, Squire of The Body, Keeper of the Great Wardrobe, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Privy Councillor, Under-Treasurer of England, Knight of the Shire for counties Cambridge and Hertford and Speaker of the House of Commons.

He married before 1449, Elizabeth, daughter of Laurence Cheyne of Fenn Ditton Manor, Cambridgeshire. She died 2 September  1473 and she and Say are buried together at Broxbourne, Hertfordshire. They left three sons and four daughters.

Little is known of Sir John's early life but he soon rose to prominence and in 1449 appears as a member of the Privy Council. He certainly represented Cambridgeshire in the Parliament of 1448-9 and Hertfordshire in the Parliament's of 1453, 1455, 1463 and 1467, and probably in all the Parliament's of that period.

Say was maligned and embroiled in much controversy during his life. In 1451 his name was included amongst a number whom the House of Commons prayed to be removed from the presence of Henry VI. Sir John was indicted for treason and in 1469 was appointed with Sir Thomas Urswyck (his important brass may be seen at Dagenham, Essex) "to inquire into the state of the coinage, and certain alleged abuses at the Royal Mint". He also managed to successfully switch sides from the House of Lancaster to that of York and survive. He became Speaker of the House of Commons in 1463-5 and 1467-8 and so claims the distinction of being one of nine speakers to be represented on a brass.

Say was knighted in 1464 and following his first wife's death in 1473 married Agnes, daughter of Sir John Danvers of Cothorpe, Oxfordshire. Sir John died on 12th April 1478, the year after his marriage. His second wife died within a few months and was buried with her first husband, Sir John Fray, at St Bartholomew-the-Great, London.

ST AUGUSTINE. A large church, entirely of the C15-C16.. Tall W tower with angle buttresses and a SW stair-turret higher than the tower. Decorated W door and four-light W window. Nave and two aisles, chancel, and two chancel chapels. The whole church is embattled, except for the N chancel chapel or Saye Chapel which has a parapet with an inscription recording its erection in 1522. The chapel is stone-faced, as is also the S chapel, whereas the rest of the church is flint. The S chapel was built before the N chapel, in 1476, by Robert Stowell who later built St Margaret’s church by the side of Westminster Abbey. All the windows of Broxbourne church are Perp. Of post medieval only the S porch doorway, semicircular with complex classical surround. It may be c. 1650. There is no chancel arch, so that the arcades run through from W to E. Tall thin piers of four shafts and four hollows in the diagonals. The same design appears in the taller tower arch. The roof of the nave is original, so is the handsome panelled ceiling of the chancel, adorned with bosses. - FONT. Octagonal, Norman, with shallow blank arcading, two arches per panel. - STAINED GLASS. In the N chancel chapel, by Willemenz, 1857 (TK), with medallions containing scenes in strong colours. - PLATE. Chalice and Paten, 1606; Paten, 1633; Chalice and Paten, 1824. - MONUMENTS. Between chancel and S chancel chapel Sir John Say d. 1474 and wife, tomb-chest with shields in blank arcades. On the lid good brass elfigies of Knight and Lady, the figures c. 3 1/2 ft long. - Between chancel and N chancel chapel tomb-chest with canopy to Sir William Say and family: early C16. Plain chest; the supports of the canopy polygonal, the canopy with depressed arches, quatrefoil frieze and cresting. The effigies were of brass and let into the E wall. They have disappeared. Brasses in the chancel to a priest, late C15; to another priest, early C16; in the nave to a knight carrying a mace (Sir John Borrell ?), early C16. - Standing wall monument to Sir Henry Cock d. 1609 with wife and children. Stiff effigies, she recumbent, he semi-reclining behind and above her. The children as usual kneeling against the front of the base. Coffered arch on solid side supports. Achievements and obelisks on top. Not of high quality. - Sir William Monson and wife d. 1734, two busts above a long inscription tablet. - G. P. Williams d. 1736 and wife; big epitaph.

Broxbourne. Its church, its priest's house and its giant yew have been here on the bank of the River Lea for about 500 years, and every year sees more homes collect around them. The Jacobean church porch, with a trapdoor leading to a priest’s room above, has become the vestry, and we enter by the tower doorway, which is  15th century, as are the striking arcades running the whole length of the church, and the roofs ofthe nave and the aisles. The panelled chancel roof is 16th century. A Norman arcade decorates the font, one of the earliest in the Purbeck marble fashion of the 13th century. A great treasure is the arcaded 14th century chest nearly six feet long, very much like one we have seen in Hereford Cathedral.

But it is the people of Broxbourne here in brass and stone who interest us most. Two priests who must have lived in the old gabled house when it was new have their portraits in brass. One is Robert Ecton, who died in 1474; the other preached his last sermon here about 1510. Another brass shows Sir John Borrell in armour holding a mace, for he was sergeant-at-arms to Henry VIII. Finest of all are the brasses on the altar tomb of Sir John Say, the Lancastrian who died a Yorkist in 1478, after having been Speaker of the House of Commons during the Wars of the Roses. He makes a fine figure, in elaborate armour and short heraldic coat, with his wife in a butterfly headdress and with traces of colour on her heraldic mantle. Gone from his tomb is the brass of Sir William Say, who lies under a fan-vaulted canopy in an arch leading to the chapel he added in 1522.

Exquisitely sculptured in his Elizabethan armour lies Sir Henry Cock, resting his bearded head on his hand on a ledge behind his wife who reclines with upward gaze. Their children and their grandchildren appear in relief, some big, some tiny, two of the girls wearing curious halo-like headdresses. Adding to the splendour of this monument are many delicate carvings of fruit and flowers. A tablet recalls a famous figure of 100 years ago, John Macadam, the Scottish engineer who taught us how to make good roads and whose English home was at Hoddesdon, close by.

There lies in the chancel here Marmaduke Rawdon, who won fame for himself while on his uncle’s business in the Canary Islands in the 17th century by climbing the Peak of Teneriffe. The British Museum has a collection of notes by him on life in 17th-century England. Because he was born at York, Rawdon left to that city a gold loving-cup and money to buy a gold chain which is still worn by every lady mayoress of York.

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Benington

St Peter is at the far end of my self imposed limit of churches that I can get to within fifty minutes of home and thank goodness it does since it is gorgeous. The last day of March saw glorious spring weather and a churchyard full of daffodils showing St Peter at its best.

Positioned besides Benington Lordship, which itself looks like it would reward a visit, the church and churchyard exude class. While the exterior is lovely the interior is interesting, with two fine table tombs, one to Sir John de Benstede, who died in 1359, and his wife,the other to Sir Edward de Benstede, 1432, a brass to an unknown priest and a fine set of sedilla with a piscina however I was drawn to a peculiar plinth carved with a strange looking man resting his hands on his knees.

ST PETER. Essentially a late C13 to early C14 church, although the W tower with angle buttresses and a Herts spike belong to the C15, as do the clerestory with big two-light windows and the chancel S windows. The Sedilia in the chancel are the earliest pieces in the church, much restored, but certainly made some time before 1300: stiff-leaf, and crocket capitals and cusped pointed arches. The Piscina is a little later; it has an ogee arch. Its style goes with that of the nave N windows. The N chancel chapel was added yet later, say about 1320-30. It is the most important part of the church. The windows have modest flowing tracery, the arcade to the chancel quatrefoil piers with thin shafts in the diagonals and simple moulded capitals (cf. Ashwell and Baldock). The labels rest on excellent corbels (head of a woman wearing a wimple, man piercing his body with a sword, etc.). The arches are of finely moulded sections. Under one of the two arches stands a MONUMENT with two more than life size effigies. a cross-legged Knight and a Lady wearing a wimple. The figures are defaced. On the sides of the tomb-chest mourners in arcades with triangular heads. The arch above is surrounded by a big crocketed ogee canopy flanked by thin buttresses on which some tracery is exactly identical with that of the windows. The style seems to exclude a date later than c. 1330; yet the heraldry is supposed to point to 1358. To the E of this chantry a smaller opening with a four-centred arch was pierced through early in the C15 for the placing of another MONUMENT with two effigies. The heraldry here indicates the date 1432. Ogee niches on the tomb-chest. The arch is panelled inside and has in the centre of the panelling the figure of an angel holding the little souls of the deceased in a cloth. Between the two openings BRASS of a priest, upper half only, C15. - FONT. Octagonal, with projecting, coarsely moulded shafts in the diagonals (cf. Walkern). - BENCHES. Simple C15. - PLATE. Chalice and Paten, 1639.

Benington The road climbs up a green and pleasant hill to where a tall willow weeps over a pond behind the green, while a timber-and-plaster row of 16th-century cottages looks on, and an attractive old inn cheerfully declares itself twice as old as it is.

We see the little medieval church on a steep bank by the roadside with a yew collapsed from old age beside it; but what stranger would guess that behind the tall trees topping the church hides the keep of a Norman castle? It stands four-square on a moated mount, the only one of its kind in Hertfordshire, but the water has drained from the moat and the strong walls have crumbled. This forgotten place came early into history, for here lived the kings of Mercia, and on this hill Berthulf held a council in 850 when news came that the Danes had captured Canterbury and London, and that their fleet was in the Thames. He met the invaders in battle, but failed to stop them.

All this is written in the ancient chronicles, but much more of Benington’s story is set forth in the church. The chancel and the nave were finished about 1300, the chapel and the porch were added in the 14th century, and from the 1 5th come the tower, the clerestory, the south windows of the chancel, and the roof of the nave. A battered St Michael continues his 600-year·old fight with the dragon in a niche over our heads as we push open the 14th-century south door, and inside and out are numerous other small stone carvings, many of them grotesque. But the most beautiful stonework is the row of three magnificent arches between the chancel and the chapel built about 1330 by Petronilla, the widow of Sir John de Benstede, who was one of the envoys sent north to draw up the peace treaty between Edward I and Robert Bruce. We see his knightly figure lying on a tomb under one of these lovely arches, his wife in her long veil beside him and their feet on lions. The third arch, panelled and pinnacled, was added during the next century as a canopy for another knight and his lady sculptured on their tomb, an angel in the point of the arch holding miniature copies of their figures.

These were the Benstedes, whose arms are with the Moynes on the buttresses of the tower and on the bosses of the nave. There are some 16th-century benches, a chair and an altar table in the chapel are 17th century, the excellent screen and rich gilt reredos belong to our own day, and there is one brass portrait, a small figure of a 15th century priest with a rose badge on the shoulder of his cope.

A stone on the floor of the chancel describes Sir Charles Caesar, a judge of Charles I’s reign, as an equal distributor of unsuspected justice, but the man who lies beneath it seems to have been a far less capable figure than his father, Sir Julius Caesar, the great legal light of the reigns of Elizabeth and James. The epitaph, as epitaphs will, unduly flatters the judge, who bought his position of Master of the Rolls for £15,000 and a loan to the king of £2000 trust money left by an uncle to found university scholarships. The loan was never repaid, and though Jesus College, Cambridge, received annuities for these scholarships from the family till 1668, that was all that was done about it. Sir Charles Caesar died of smallpox in 1642.

The 17th-century rectory has seen many changes, but keeps the old staircase leading up to elegant rooms with powder closets.

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Barkway

I came to St Mary Magdalene with very low expectations, perhaps influenced by the dire weather and the fact that it's tucked away and was bound to be locked, the next in line of several locked churches on that day's journey.

What a pleasure it was then to find it open and welcoming, with an interesting exterior and a wealth of interior interest: corbels, brasses, monuments et al. If 139 photographs reflect its interest then Barkway must be up in the top flight of Hertfordshire churches!

Simon Jenkins is rather dismissive of the Hertfordshire style but I'm an admirer and found great satisfaction from this visit.

ST MARY MAGDALENE. A big, broad, spreading out church with a W tower (diagonal buttresses; tower arch Perp), rebuilt in 1861 with pinnacles (not a Herts pattern). The S porch is also C19. The chancel is the oldest part, C13, as proved by the lancet windows (E window tracery C19, chancel arch Perp). The N and S aisle arcades are characteristically Late Perp with piers consisting of semi-octagonal shafts and hollows in the diagonals. Characteristically Late Perp windows with very depressed, almost straight-sided, two-centred arches at the tops and elementary ‘panel’ tracery. - FONT. Octagonal, Perp, with fleurons on the coving. - STAINED GLASS. Remains of a Jesse window (E end S aisle): In the centre light four kings above each other, surrounded by leaf scrolls; other figures in the side lights; late C15. - PLATE. Chalice, Paten, and Flagon, 1714 ; small Chalice, 1807. - MONUMENTS. Brass to Robert Poynard d. 1561 with wives and children (S aisle wall). - Standing wall monument to Sir John Jennings, Rear-Admiral, a Governor of Greenwich Hospital, Ranger of Greenwich Park, M.P., etc., d. 1743 (against the tower W wall). For the great London man the most successful London sculptor was engaged: J. M. Rysbrack. The monument is signed. Tall broad base with inscription and very classical, typical Rysbrack detail. On it bust on plinth with two fine putti l. and r. - Several earlier epitaphs, e.g. Judith Chester d. 1702, signed Stanton; Mary Chester d. 1703, Stantonish; Thomas Smoult d. 1707, signed according to Mrs Esdaile by R. Hartshorne (Stanton workshop). - James Andrew d. 1796 and Thomas Talbot Gorsuch d. 1820, both epitaphs by P. Chenu and done as pendants. They are also placed side by side. The earlier with a seated figure of Hope, the latter with Father Time. The change of style in the details is instructive. - John Baron Selsey d. 1816, epitaph with a draped urn and bits of willow branches behind; by Kendrick.

Barkway. The way over the hill the Saxons called it, and we found their way from the North a lovely avenue of beeches and chestnuts. The long wide street has some old houses and thatched cottages 300 years old, with steps leading to their doorways raised out of danger of storm-filled gutters. One cottage, Berg Cottage, with 1687 over the porch has been restored and presented to the National Trust; its interior is typical of the best cottage craftsmanship in the country. Several inns remain from the days when Barkway was a convenient stop for coaches from Ware to Cambridge. At the south entrance is the turnpike house and clock and at the north a worn milestone six feet high, one of those set up in 1725 to show the way to Cambridge. They were all marked with the crescent of Trinity Hall, for they were paid for with money left for this purpose by two Elizabethan Fellows of Trinity, Dr Mouse and Robert Hare.

The medieval church, surrounded by trees and a high yew barricade, makes a fine group with the Jacobean manor and its barns. It is one of those rare churches fitted with a medieval system of amplifiers, acoustic jars being embedded in the chancel walls to add resonance to the voices. The chancel is 13th century and is now the oldest part. Aisles were added in the 15th century at the same time as the tower which has been rebuilt stone for stone. The old font rests on a tree stump and a new one has taken its place. There is a 13th century piscina, some fragments of a 15th century Jesse window, an Elizabethan family in brass (Robert Poynard, his two wives, and four daughters), and some extraordinary stone figures which, after 500 years, continue to support the new roofs, angels and crouching men and grinning faces, and here is a great toad, and here a rabbit half scuttling down one of the pillars. Over his elaborate marble tomb is Rysbrack’s bust of Admiral Sir John Jennings who helped Sir George Rooke to capture Gibraltar in 1704.

The moated mount on Periwinkle Hill is now a little wood in a ploughed field, and in another wood close by was found the Roman statue of Mars which we have seen in the British Museum.

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