Diameter: 22.5" Bell 1 of 2
Founded by Tobias I Norris 1614
Dove Bell ID: 57730 Tower ID: 22178 - View Tower Listed: No Canons: Removed Cracked: No
Morborne: All Saints
Diocese of Ely
Church, 614235
https://www.stiltonchurches.com/This church is on the Heritage at Risk Register (verified 2025-11-06)
View more information about this church on the Heritage at Risk website
Overview
Grid reference: TL 139 915
Although the church is set low in the landscape, its tower forms a landmark amongst the rolling fields. This is of two stages marked by two parallel projecting courses of bricks.
Visiting and facilities
Building is open for worship
Building
Ground Plan Description and Dimensions
Ground plan:
West tower, aisled nave of three bays without clerestory, the eastern bay of the south aisle being replaced by a transept; chancel.
Footprint of Church buildings: 227 m²
Description of Archaeology and History
Although a church is mentioned in Domesday Book, the chancel arch is Norman, the chancel itself mid-thirteenth-century and the nave arcades date from about the same period, the south transept and aisle being a little later than the north aisle. The tower arch is partly fourteenth-century but the present tower is late sixteenth-century, and parts of the aisle walls were rebuilt at this time or later. The north porch was also added at this period. The church was restored in 1846 and 1900 and the east wall and part of the south wall of the chancel were rebuilt at the earlier date, the walls and columns being underpinned and new roofs provided at the later.
Exterior Description
Although the church is set low in the landscape, its tower forms a landmark amongst the rolling fields. This is of two stages marked by two parellel projecting courses of bricks. The diagonal buttresses against the western angles are of ashlar masonry as is the chamfered course of a simple plinth. The buttresses die into the walls at the level of the stringcourse. There are no windows in the north or south walls but the west window, of two round headed lights in a square head, has a pediment which seems to be executed in stucco. The upper stage has paired bell-openings in each direction with three-centred heads under square moulded labels which typify the Tudor style. The battlements have moulded copings and tiny obelisk-like pinnacles at each corner. The pyramidal slated roof within the parapet may just be seen from the ground. Beneath the bell-opening in the south wall is a square sundial set at an angle.
Since there is no clerestory the nave an aisles are roofed together under one long slope each side, making the church appear less tall than it should. The northern approach is now always used, and the existence of a sixteenth-century north porch suggests that this has been so for some centuries. The outer arch of the porch has chamfered jambs and a flat four centred arch within a square head, all of stone. The inner doorway has a reset late twelfth-century two-centred arch of two orders, the outer plain and the inner chamfered and continuous. The outer rests on round shafts with water-leaf capitals, restored abaci and moulded bases.
The north aisle has a single rourd-headed light of sixteenth century date to the west of the porch and a run of four similar lights under one rectangular head to the east. The west wall has no opening but the east wall has two fourteenth-century lights with sixteenth-century rounded heads added. The east wall also has a plinth terminating at the buttress, a feature paralleled on the west wall but absent from the north wall.
A view from the south side of the nave shows perhaps the most attractive grouping of the building, with the projecting transept coming forward (at an angle which bears no relation to any other part of the building) so that its gable balances the bulk of the tower. The south aisle is similar to the north, with a single round-headed light near the west end, then a doorway also of similar pattern but more thoroughly restored. The south transept has three lancets of almost equal height in the gable wall, flanked by buttresses running parallel to the east and west walls. Both these walls are blind.
The chancel is quite long in relation to the nave, and has a two-light window with trefoil-headed lights in the middle of the north wall near which is a small priest's door outlined by a moulded hood. It seems that the lights of the window may once have had heads like the similar two-light window in the south wall which is so placed as to make it a pair to the other. This has simple tracery in the form of a circles between the lancet heads of the two lights, the lights themselves with moulded surrounds and the composition framed within a hoodmould. Further to the west is a single lancet light without a hoodmould but with the stones above arranged as voussoirs which emphasize the head of the window. The eastern part of the south wall is all nineteenth-century, as is all the east wall, the latter pierced by a large round containing a cinquefoil. At the corners are low diagonal buttresses with steeply sloping shoulders and there is a further buttress below the east window.
Interior
Interior Description
Lack of a clerestory makes the interior of the building somewhat dark, but not so much as to obscure its several important architectural features. The nave has plastered walls and the simplicity of the late-sixteenth-century rebuilding of the aisle walls throws into prominence the fine north and south arcades. The north comes first in date, although both have circular piers and capitals of similar dimensions. The north arcade has square bases for the two free standing piers with uncommon spur ornaments in the corners, leaves so stylised as to be unrecognisable as anything natural, resembling rather some primitive form of lamp. The east respond has an attached half-shaft of the same elegant proportions as the free-standing piers, but the west arch dies into the wall. The chamfered label which outlines the arches towards the nave has a rosette, head and mask stops. The arches are of two chamfered orders, the inner of which has a scroll stop like a double volute above the western column.
The south arcade is probably only about twenty years later than its counterpart, and also is of three bays with two-centred arches of two chamfered orders. The moulded label on the north face also has stops similar to those on the north, but the difference may be seen both in the base of the piers, which here are circular and moulded, and in the capitals, which have the additional detail of a band of nailhead ornament. The stops to the inner order of arches occur above both columns of this arcade, but are less flowing and on the contrary rather harshly angular. Part of the base of the eastern pier has been crudely hacked off at some stage, perhaps to accomodate eighteenth-century box pews.
The west wall of the nave was originally pierced by a window, the splay for which may still be soon on the eastern face of the wall, but when the present tower was built this was due to form an arch for access to the tower space. The arcade above is irregularly shaped and the removal of the wall below the window opening has left triangular sills at each side. The nave roof is nineteenth-century, a much stronger design than often, with arch-braced tie-beams and tracery above. The corbels on which the principals rest are entirely renewed. In the south west corner of the nave lies a stone effigy of a priest and there is a cross slab in the south transept. The transept itself is remarkably plain within, with only part of a jamb and head of a blocked recess in the east wall being worthy of mention. The transept communicates with the south aisle through an arch of two chamfered orders resting on the eastern pier of the arcade.
The oldest part of the present building is the chancel arch and an adjoining part of the wall on the south side of it which represents the corner of the contemporary nave. The arch is two-centred (surely the result of later rebuilding), with two orders of roll-moulding, the inner with two further rolls on the underside and the outer with a band of diapered decoration on the eastern face. The responds have shafts corresponding to the roll-mouldings of the arch but of larger size with moulded bases and abaci of simple zig-zag decoration. The cushion capitals has rope moulding round the necks.
Like the nave, the chancel is covered by a late nineteenth century timber roof, but here the arch-braces of the tie beans are supported on plain hammerbeams, themselves resting on plain stone corbels. There are also in addition queen posts with struts running east-west from them, and the same tracery with ogee arches between as found in the nave. In the north wall the first opening is the priest's door, quite plain internally, and then follows the two-light window with cusped heads introduced to bring it into line with a later fashion. The moulded rere-arch is carried on shafts at the angles of the splay. The comparative window in the south wall has shafted mullions and splays, the lines on the mullion continuing each side of the circle in the head to terminate in fleurs-de lys. The single lancet further west has a square-cut recess in the sill which continues to the floor. The east cinquefoil window internally has a horizontal sill below, giving the impression that the window is framed in a round arch, and the east wall is further articulated by a horizontal stringcourse at the level of a dado.
In the south wall of the sanctuary, grouped under two arches with a corbel carved as a head between, are the sedilia and, at a higher level, the piscina. Both have moulded jambs and the piscina has three small arched recesses above. The two arches below these are supported on a central colonette and in the spandrel is a fleur-de-lys. The position of capitals to the two arches is occupied by circular bosses carved as flowers. The single drain is in the eastern bay, with a quatrefoil drain. In the north sanctuary wall are two aumbries, the lower wider and with a stone partition, both provided at the restoration with oak doors and iron hinges.
Fixtures and fittings
Altar
19th Century
The altar is a plain oak table.
Reredos
The reredos takes the form of a Dossal of plain red stuff embroidered with appropriate motifs.
Pulpit
c.1890
The pulpit is of oak, circular, with open ogee traceried arches echoing the design of tracery in the roof, on a stone plinth.
Lectern
Simple wooden pedestal.
Font (object)
c.12th - 13th Century
The font is circular, on a cylindrical plinth, the bowl probably thirteenth-century and the rest renewed; in the transept is a square bowl with chamfored edges, probably twelfth century.
Bells
Diameter: 23.25" Bell 2 of 2
Founded by Henry Penn 1712
Dove Bell ID: 57731 Tower ID: 22178 - View Tower Listed: No Canons: Removed Cracked: No
Churchyard
Grid reference: TL 139 915
Burial and War Grave Information
It is unknown whether the building is consecrated.
It is unknown whether the churchyard has been used for burial.
It is unknown whether 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 | No |
| Solar Thermal Panels | No |
| Biomass | No |
| Wind Turbine | No |
| Air Source Heat Pump | No |
| Ground Source Heat Pump | No |
| Ev Charging | No |
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
Quinquennial Inspections
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