Keyholders are listed but I have a suspicion that gaining untrammeled access here is difficult if not impossible - to quote Phil Draper when he visited "I find when I am accompanied around a church I miss things or do not explore everywhere. The chap was perfectly friendly and informed..." quite.
The churchwarden let me look around but had made it clear that he needed to leave quite soon (perfectly reasonable) so it was all a bit rushed and not totally satisfactory. Having said that there is plenty of interest here; it's also probably the highest, as in high Anglican, church I've yet visited.
PARISH CHURCH ST GILES. Chancel (C13), W tower (C14), and nave (C15) of flint, N aisle (early C16) of brick, refaced by G. E. Street, who also added the S porch. The church was in existence in 1136. The tower has diagonal buttresses, battlemented parapet, and a stair-turret higher than the parapet in the SE corner. The nave is of modest dimensions with octagonal piers and octagonal concave capitals. The arches are four-centred. A staircase to the former rood loft is preserved in the S wall. The N chancel chapel is separated from the N aisle and the chancel by wooden screens (early C16) of fifteen and ten bays. Each bay ends in a steep gable with slightly concave sides. The W door has a richly cusped ogee arch. Aisle and chancel have simple contemporary roofs. The chancel chapel is a chantry endowed by Henry Frowyk in 1527. He probably also financed the building of the aisle. The Frowyk family were successful City merchants. In the aisle windows are fragments of GLASS, two of them dated 1526, showing groups of kneeling figures in blue, mauve, amber, and a little green; no red. - DOOR in W tower, nail-studded, C15. - CHEST in nave, of elementary hutch-type, may be as old as C13: anyway the earliest piece of furniture in the county. - FONT. Four short C13 shafts support an absolutely plain, big, square bowl. - PLATE. C17 Set re-cast by Keith’s in 1890. - MONUMENTS. The chief pride of South Mimms church are its Frowyk tombs: the brass to Thomas Frowyk d. 1448, his wife and nineteen children in the W tower, and the two splendid canopied monuments in the chancel and the N chancel chapel. The latter is earlier in its style and supposed to represent Henry Frowyk the Younger, who died before his father, Henry the Elder, probably buried in the chancel monument. Both have tomb-chests with quatrefoil panels, corner posts with shaft-rings, and canopies with four-centred arches. But whereas the tomb in the aisle chapel is purely Perp, the probably only slightly later one in the chancel has a Renaissance top cornice and corner posts developing in their upper parts into bulbous, leaf-covered Renaissance balusters (a remarkable example of the gusto with which craftsmen at some distance from the Court threw themselves into the new Italian fashion). The tomb looks as though it might be of c. 1540. - In the churchyard Cavendish-Bentinck Mausoleum, c. 1900, by Weir-Schulzz, a cool, correct Doric temple in arzis.
SOUTH MYMMS. Six miles from St Albans, it is pierced by Telford’s turnpike road of a hundred years ago, and by one of our arterial roads. Just withdrawn from Telford’s highway is the old part of the village, with the church. The White Hart Inn near the church was built about the end of the 17th century and in some of the rooms is 18th century plaster panelling, with enriched ceilings and carved fireplaces. A mile away, off the road to North Mymms, is Mymms Hall with some remains of the 16th century, and fragments of its old moat. Near Potters Bar station is Wyllyot’s Manor, a delightful rambling old house with walls of brick and timber and roofs of mellow tiles. Built probably about 1600, it incorporates part of the barn which comes from earlier in Elizabethan days, and is used now for the civic purposes of Potters Bar.
Near the site of the Battle of Barnet, where the Kingmaker was killed, are the 286 acres of Wrotham Park, with a house built by Admiral Byng, who, after his trial by courtmartial, was shot on board the Monarque at Portsmouth in 1757. Sheltered by great trees, the house has a balustraded parapet and a dome. The fine iron gates at the entrance to the park are between stone pillars with the lion and the unicorn holding shields. Sir John Austen, who was three times knight of the shire in the Admiral’s day, lies in the churchyard, under a tomb carved with a skull and cross-bones. A crucifix in the churchyard, in memory of one who fell in the Great War, was carved at Oberammergau, and a curious Celtic cross, carved with many animal and human figures, is to a village schoolmaster who died in 1916.
The church has a fine 500-year-old tower with a big corner turret, a 14th century nave, and a 13th century chancel with a 600-year-old doorway. The lofty north arcade of the nave and the lower arcade of the chancel are early 16th century, the time of the aisle and the chapel to which they lead. Both have their old roofs, and that of the chapel is painted red and white, its beams dotted with flowers. The oak screen dividing the chapel from the aisle and chancel is also original, and is one of the most beautiful in the county. It has over a score of traceried bays, divided by buttresses, and two fine doorways with leopards on the cusps. The modern chancel screen is similar in style, and has a coloured roof loft with figures of the Crucifixion. The rood stairs climb to a doorway in the splay of a nave window, leading to a passage in the wall.
A 13th century piscina niche has a trefoiled head. The font of the same time has a square bowl on four round shafts, and a central shaft on which tracery was carved a century later; its modern cover has eight pillars and a top gleaming with gold. The grand old chest may be 600 years old. The west doorway of the tower and two doorways in its turret are 15th century. Distinction is lent to the north aisle and the chapel by the Tudor glass shining red, gold, purple, and blue in the foot of the windows, with groups of kneeling men, women, and children believed to represent the builders and their families; behind a man in civilian dress, in the chapel, is a crowd of 12 children.
On a handsome canopied tomb in the chapel, with banded pillars like buttresses at the corners, lies an armoured knight of the Frowyk family, believed to be the last of them, who died about 1540. His gauntlet is beside him, his head rests on a helmet, and the lion at his feet has a very curly mane. At his knee, his shoulder, and his elbow, and on the monument itself, are more leopards. The roof of the canopy has tracery and flowers, and the tomb is enriched with tracery and shields.
In the chancel is another handsome canopied tomb looking rather like a small four-poster bed, remarkable for the rich decoration of acanthus leaves on the baluster-pillars, and the arches and cornice of the canopy, which has a traceried roof. Golden flowers are in the quatrefoils on the tomb. The monument is believed to be that of Henry Frowyk of 1527, who wished to be buried here in the chancel.
Elizabeth Frowyk lies in brass on the floor of the tower, wearing draped headdress and a flowing gown with a tiny dog in its folds. With her are groups of six sons and thirteen daughters, but the portrait of her husband has gone. He was Thomas Frowyk who died in 1448, leaving money for the upkeep of the tower. There is a brass shield on the chapel floor only six inches wide, but remarkable for its elaborate engraving, a lion in the upper part, and below it a high-pooped ship with an anchor, cannon peeping from its sides, and pennants streaming, Above a 17th century wall-monument, showing a sarcophagus and a tiny recess with a skull, is one of the next century, carved with four cherubs.
Near the site of the Battle of Barnet, where the Kingmaker was killed, are the 286 acres of Wrotham Park, with a house built by Admiral Byng, who, after his trial by courtmartial, was shot on board the Monarque at Portsmouth in 1757. Sheltered by great trees, the house has a balustraded parapet and a dome. The fine iron gates at the entrance to the park are between stone pillars with the lion and the unicorn holding shields. Sir John Austen, who was three times knight of the shire in the Admiral’s day, lies in the churchyard, under a tomb carved with a skull and cross-bones. A crucifix in the churchyard, in memory of one who fell in the Great War, was carved at Oberammergau, and a curious Celtic cross, carved with many animal and human figures, is to a village schoolmaster who died in 1916.
The church has a fine 500-year-old tower with a big corner turret, a 14th century nave, and a 13th century chancel with a 600-year-old doorway. The lofty north arcade of the nave and the lower arcade of the chancel are early 16th century, the time of the aisle and the chapel to which they lead. Both have their old roofs, and that of the chapel is painted red and white, its beams dotted with flowers. The oak screen dividing the chapel from the aisle and chancel is also original, and is one of the most beautiful in the county. It has over a score of traceried bays, divided by buttresses, and two fine doorways with leopards on the cusps. The modern chancel screen is similar in style, and has a coloured roof loft with figures of the Crucifixion. The rood stairs climb to a doorway in the splay of a nave window, leading to a passage in the wall.
A 13th century piscina niche has a trefoiled head. The font of the same time has a square bowl on four round shafts, and a central shaft on which tracery was carved a century later; its modern cover has eight pillars and a top gleaming with gold. The grand old chest may be 600 years old. The west doorway of the tower and two doorways in its turret are 15th century. Distinction is lent to the north aisle and the chapel by the Tudor glass shining red, gold, purple, and blue in the foot of the windows, with groups of kneeling men, women, and children believed to represent the builders and their families; behind a man in civilian dress, in the chapel, is a crowd of 12 children.
On a handsome canopied tomb in the chapel, with banded pillars like buttresses at the corners, lies an armoured knight of the Frowyk family, believed to be the last of them, who died about 1540. His gauntlet is beside him, his head rests on a helmet, and the lion at his feet has a very curly mane. At his knee, his shoulder, and his elbow, and on the monument itself, are more leopards. The roof of the canopy has tracery and flowers, and the tomb is enriched with tracery and shields.
In the chancel is another handsome canopied tomb looking rather like a small four-poster bed, remarkable for the rich decoration of acanthus leaves on the baluster-pillars, and the arches and cornice of the canopy, which has a traceried roof. Golden flowers are in the quatrefoils on the tomb. The monument is believed to be that of Henry Frowyk of 1527, who wished to be buried here in the chancel.
Elizabeth Frowyk lies in brass on the floor of the tower, wearing draped headdress and a flowing gown with a tiny dog in its folds. With her are groups of six sons and thirteen daughters, but the portrait of her husband has gone. He was Thomas Frowyk who died in 1448, leaving money for the upkeep of the tower. There is a brass shield on the chapel floor only six inches wide, but remarkable for its elaborate engraving, a lion in the upper part, and below it a high-pooped ship with an anchor, cannon peeping from its sides, and pennants streaming, Above a 17th century wall-monument, showing a sarcophagus and a tiny recess with a skull, is one of the next century, carved with four cherubs.
No comments:
Post a Comment