Weight: 1099 lbs Diameter: 38" Bell 1 of 3
Founded by John Taylor & Co 1917
Dove Bell ID: 51171 Tower ID: 18446 - View Tower Listed: No Canons: Removed Cracked: No
Blatherwycke: Holy Trinity
Diocese of Peterborough
CCT Church
http://www.visitchurches.org.ukOverview
Grid reference: SP 974 957
This pleasantly remote church stands at the end of a short walk shaded by ancient trees, with the vestiges of the 18th century mansion of the O’Brien family to your left. Beyond its park and lake recently restored. On an adjacent hill can be glimpsed the rather unlikely figure of the Apollo Belvedere amongst a corn field. The church ante dates all this with its Norman west tower, its palimpsest of Early English and Perpendicular architecture, with 17th century improvements. The building was twice restored, 1819 and 1854 which also adds to its charm – stained glass windows by Clayton & Bell, Heaton, Butler & Bayne, and Kemp and Co. The north chapel is almost as big as the chancel and here you encounter the burial place of the Stafford, later Stafford-O’Brien, family who acquired the estate in the 16th century (Humphrey Stafford was also the builder of nearby Kirby Hall) In this church a series of architectural/ armorial wall monuments to them but perhaps the most interesting delicate marble tablet by Nicholas Stone to the poet, Thomas Randolph (1605 -1635) who died whilst a guest here. He was a protégé of Ben Johnson and tipped for the post of Poet Laureate. The inscribed poem contained inside a laurel leaf wreath is by Peter Hausted. The tomb was commissioned by Sir Christopher Hatton.
Visiting and facilities
Building is closed for worship
Churches Conservation Trust open daily to visitors 10am – 6pm.
Building
Ground Plan Description and Dimensions
Ground plan:
West tower, nave with south porch and north aisle; chancel with north aisle.
Description of Archaeology and History
The tower is Norman, as is the south doorway. The north arcade of the nave follows, and is Early English; the north arcade of the chancel is of c.1300 and the chancel is Decorated; the north aisle shows signs of nineteenth-century enlargement, and the whole church seems to have been restored in c.1855.
Exterior Description
The west tower is the oldest part of the building, and is essentially Norman. It is about ten feet square, and does not vary in dimension at any level.
The rest of the church is built to quite a different scale, making the tower look disproportionately small. Seen from the southern part of the churchyard, the nave and chancel are of about equal length. They are virtually roofed in one but a slight change in level, a matter of three inches or less, may be discerned at the midpoint. The nineteenth-century south porch stands near the west end of the nave wall, sheltering a fine Norman doorway with attached shafts each side and a simple round arch above.
Near the buttress which marks the chancel from the nave is a priest's door with two orders of shafts with moulded capitals. The arch over the doorway is neither round nor pointed, but rather between the two.
The two orders of the arch are moulded and have fillets, with a hood mould ending in a wimpled head on the right side and another head, less easy to discern, on the left. The two bays of the chancel are divided by another buttress, and the eastern corners have paired buttresses of the same design. The two south windows have three lights with reticulated tracery and hood moulds which terminate in small capitals over one window and heads over the other. The wall-head is enriched with a band of ball-flowers and paired leaves which in places resemble faces. The east wall has a large four-light window which dates from the mid nineteenth century, when the church was much restored, and has leaf-like tracery over the four main lights.
The north aisle, which is almost co-terminous with the nave and chancel and almost as wide again, was much altered in the 19th century to accommodate a family pew and seating for the servants. The eastern half which corresponds with the chancel seems to be basically mediaeval, although the north wall shows much regular nineteenth-century masonry. In the north wall is a simple doorway and a three-light window, both entirely nineteenth-century.
Building Fabric and Features
Stained Glass
c.1845
The east window has excellent grisaill of c.1845, chiefly red and blue.
Stained Glass
1857
Clayton & Bell. East window, north chapel: the Corporal Acts of hercy, displayed in seven panels of varying shape against a bright grisaille background. The symbols of the Evangelists are shown in the tracery lights.
Stained Glass
1918
Chancel south I: The Marics at the Sepulchre, The Last Supper and Christ with Mary Magdalene in the garden; 1918 by Kempe and Tower.
Stained Glass
c.1940
Chancel South II: Faith, Hope and Charity.
Stained Glass
1937
North aisle I: The Good Shepherd, 1937, by Heaton Butler and Bayne.
Stained Glass
c.1870
West window, north aisle: three lights depicting two men and a woman adoring a shining cross at the end of a new grave; the sun rises over the horizon. Possibly by Mayer of Munich.
Interior
Interior Description
The nave is the oldest part of the building, entered by the Norman south doorway. A Norman arch opens into the tower space; it is entirely undecorated, and rests on imposts with abaci which continue along the walls as stringcourses. The two small windows within the tower are set within deep embrasures, and the floor of the next stage is supported by two crudely shaped beams running north and south. The north arcade is transitional, with big, rather short, cylindrical piers and round arches outlined by a simple chamfer, yet displaying moulded capitals of a more Early English type. The roof (like all the others in the building) is nineteenth century, supported on small half- octagonal moulded stone corbels. The design is simple, with arch braces marking the bays.
The chancel arch is wide and misshapen, with signs of disturbance on the north side which indicate that a rood- stair has once been inserted. The chamfered arch is supported on small attached pilasters which rest in turn on corbels carved as human heads. The prosent screen, a conflation of seventeenth-century turned communion rails and thin nineteenth-century arcading, is fixed into old slots which must have held its predecessor.
The chancel is a stronger contrast to the nave internally than it had seemed outside. The rather heavy nave arcade is here replaced by an Early English arcade of considerable refinement and elegance carried on quadripartite piers with moulded bases and capitals. The double chamfered arches are outlined by hood-moulds with coarsely carved faces above each pier. The south windows are filled with twentieth-century stained glass in the tradition of at least a generation earlier, and the priest's door is seen to be about three feet above floor level. The east window is filled with colourful grisaille of high quality, and is flanked by two niches of slightly differing design. Both have trefoiled heads within crocketted gables, but that on the south is narrower and has an ogee head while the northern niche is given a two-centred arch. The north chancel aisle was the family chapel of the Stafford O'Brien family, from which they had a good view of the chancel.
Fixtures and fittings
Altar
17th Century
The communion table is seventeenth-century, with baluster legs and a restored top.
Rail
The communion rails are of oak, nineteenth-century, on wrought iron supports.
Stall
The choirstalls are of plain oak.
Screen
The chancel screen is in two parts. The lower part is of oak, with boldly turned balusters with base and capping rail which all looks like Jacobean communion rails re-used, and is seventeenth-century; above this, flimsy turned uprights make three openings each side with flat crude tracery of trefoil-headed arches under a simple cresting.
Pulpit
The pulpit, of oak, is square with canted corners and fluted pilasters; the base has a bold ogee moulding, and the whole seems to be mid-eighteenth century, possibly from a three-decker.
Organ (object)
1908
The organ, with a panelled case of oak is a one-manual instrument with eight speaking stops, some of which are enclosed in a swell box, by Conacher of Huddersfield, 1908.
Font (object)
1840
The font is of stone, square with canted corners on a plain cylindrical drum, given 'in memory of a merciful deliverance from drowning in the River Nith, 1840'. There is also a Greek inscription.
Bells
Diameter: 21.13" Bell 2 of 3
Founded by Thomas II Mears 1818
Dove Bell ID: 51172 Tower ID: 18446 - View Tower Listed: No Canons: Removed Cracked: No
Diameter: 17.63" Bell 3 of 3
Founded by Henry II Bagley 1685
Dove Bell ID: 51173 Tower ID: 18446 - View Tower Listed: No Canons: Removed Cracked: No
Churchyard
Grid reference: SP 974 957
Burial and War Grave Information
The church/building is consecrated.
The churchyard has been used for burial.
The churchyard is used for burial.
It is unknown whether the churchyard has war graves.
Environment
Ancient, Veteran & Notable Trees
Caring for God's Acre is a conservation charity working to support groups and individuals to investigate, care for, and enjoy the wildlife and heritage treasures found within churchyards and other burial grounds. Look on their website for information and advice and please contact their staff directly. They can help you manage this churchyard for people and wildlife.
To learn more about all the species recorded against this church, go to the Burial Ground Portal within the NBN Atlas. You can check the spread of records through the years, discovering what has been recorded and when, plus what discoveries might remain to be uncovered.
There are no records of Ancient, Veteran or Notable Trees within the curtilage of this site.
Renewables
| Renewable | Installed |
|---|---|
| Solar PV Panels | N/A |
| Solar Thermal Panels | N/A |
| Biomass | N/A |
| Wind Turbine | N/A |
| Air Source Heat Pump | N/A |
| Ground Source Heat Pump | N/A |
| Ev Charging | N/A |
Species summary
There are no records of species within the curtilage of this site.
Caring for God's Acre is a conservation charity working to support groups and individuals to investigate, care for, and enjoy the wildlife and heritage treasures found within churchyards and other burial grounds. Look on their website for information and advice and please contact their staff directly. They can help you manage this churchyard for people and wildlife.
To learn more about all the species recorded against this church, go to the Burial Ground Portal within the NBN Atlas. You can check the spread of records through the years, discovering what has been recorded and when, plus what discoveries might remain to be uncovered.
'Seek advice' Species
More information on species and action to be taken upon discovery.
Caring for God's Acre is a conservation charity working to support groups and individuals to investigate, care for, and enjoy the wildlife and heritage treasures found within churchyards and other burial grounds. Look on their website for information and advice and please contact their staff directly. They can help you manage this churchyard for people and wildlife.
To learn more about all the species recorded against this church, go to the Burial Ground Portal within the NBN Atlas. You can check the spread of records through the years, discovering what has been recorded and when, plus what discoveries might remain to be uncovered.
Further information
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