Stow Longa

If truth be known St Botolph, open, is externally almost impossible to photograph and internally dank and dark. The stand out feature here is the priest door with its crude tympanum and the grotesques.

ST BOTOLPH. The church is outside the village. It is quite large. The Norman tympanum of the priest’s doorway is more barbaric than almost any other. The centre is a mermaid, and l. and r. are quadrupeds. Coarse zigzag surround, wildly detailed capitals of the colonnettes below. W tower with pairs of transomed two-light bell-openings. No spire. The tower can be dated c.1500 from an inscription to Robert Becke (S wall) and the arms of Bishop Smith of Lincoln (1496-1514; W wall). E.E. S doorway with three orders of colonnettes with very damaged stiff-leaf capitals. Arch with hollow chamfers. The arcades are E.E. too, N being a little earlier than S. Four bays, round piers, double-chamfered arches, those of the S arcade with broaches. The N aisle was never widened. The aisle windows partly straight-headed Dec, partly Perp. E.E. again the chancel arch. The respond shafts start high up; there was probably a stone screen here. - FONT. Octagonal, but the round support made up of two E.E. capitals. - SCREEN. Perp, with wide one-light divisions. - REREDOS. This incorporates one panel with reticulated tracery brought in from an Oxfordshire church. - (STALL END. One, with a poppyhead. GMCH) -  SOUTH DOOR. With a little tracery. - SCULPTURE. One stone with interlace, rather from a coffin lid than a cross; C11 or C12.- STAINED GLASS. Small bits in two N aisle windows. - BELL. One bell by Henry Jordan, i.e. c.1450-60. - PLATE. Paten with head of Christ engraved; hallmarked 1491-2. This is the oldest known London hallmark. - Cup of 1577-8. - MONUMENT. Tablet to Sir Thomas Maples d. 1634. Stone surround and brass indent.

LONG STOW. We heard of this village that it has a mermaid who has never seen the sea and a fox that has never heard the huntsman’s horn. We may add another and prouder distinction, for it has the oldest piece of altar plate in the county.

The fox is on a weathervane gaily turning near the green, on which stands an ancient cross. The mermaid is in the priest’s doorway leading into the chancel of the church (Syrens and demons shall dance there, and Centaurs shall take up their dwelling in their houses, says Isaiah). There is a doorway built by the Normans with simple pillars and a richly carved arch. It was the Norman mason’s fancy to put the picture of a mermaid between two terrifying beasts, her arms raised and her hands spread out as though beseeching all who come to save her, though 30 generations have left her to her fate. The old piece of altar plate is a paten, less than five inches across and engraved with a portrait of Christ; it was made about 1491.

But a treasure-house of ancient wonder is this church, tucked away down a lane for centuries. Its chancel, nave, and aisles are 13th century, its chapel 14th, and its clerestory 15th. Its Tudor tower, guarded by four gargoyles, has a 15th century bell.

The walls have two old sundials and fragments of stone with knot-work carved by Saxon sculptors. The tracery in the oak chancel screen and the stalls in the choir are 15th century. The poor-box was carved out of an oak post which helped to keep up the ancient roof for centuries. The old holy table is built into the main altar. An oak chest has iron handles and ornamental buttresses made 400 years ago, and the altar table and the reredos have carved panels three centuries old. The south doorway has three pairs of shafts and capitals carved about 1270, and in it still swings a door panelled with tracery by a carpenter of the days of Columbus.

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Easton

St Peter was in use as a polling station and so was technically open, but is normally locked with a keyholder listed. If I'm honest I didn't have the balls to ask if I could photograph the interior whilst voters were doing their thing and it didn't seem likely to contain much of interest; so exteriors only.

ST PETER. The W tower is of especially fine proportions. Set back buttresses, pairs of two-light transomed bell-openings, a top frieze and a spire with low broaches and three tiers of lucarnes. The S arcade is of c.1300, four low bays, round piers and double-chamfered arches. Perp nave N side with a large three-light and a large two-light window, both transorned. Perp three-light clerestory. Good nave roof with the date 1630. In the N wall, built in, the head of a small Norman window. - SCREEN. Perp, of broad one-light divisions. - BENCHES. Three old ones remain. - PULPIT. C18, of mahogany with a little inlay. It comes from South Shields. - PLATE. Cup with bowl and foot, without a stem; 1669-70.

EASTON. Looking down on a few old cottages is Easton’s church, its grey spire rising above chestnuts, its walls touched by the hand of time. It has 12th century stones in its walls, but its chancel, nave, and tower are chiefly 14th century, and the spacious porch was built when the clerestory was raised in the 16th. A very simple building, it has a fine roof with pendants hanging from great Jacobean beams, a font 600 years old, and a door with fragments of ironwork beaten by a smith a hundred years before Agincourt. The oak chancel screen is 15th century, two altar tables have 17th century craftsmanship on them, there are two old chests, some old pews and some old benches, and a coffin lid of the time of Magna Carta.

Two vicars Easton will long remember. John Bligh preached here for nearly half of last century, and Samuel Leonard was here 56 years from 1681, while five monarchs ruled in England.

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Ellington

St Peter, open, is all spire, graceful and visible for miles around, but here matched with a fine nave and chancel. The churchyard is small but not without interest and the interior, though stripped back, has good roof angels and is light and airy. Another Huntingdon church that persuades one to admire the locale vernacular.

ALL SAINTS. A very fine, slender Perp W tower with set-back buttresses, pairs of two-light transomed bell-openings, a top frieze, and a broach spire with low broaches and three tiers of lucarnes in alternating directions. Inside, it is evident that the tower was built independent of the church. The start of a vault in the tower is preserved. The chancel is later C13, i.e. the Victorian geometrical tracery of 1863 (by Scott) represents the style correctly. Original are the shafts of the E window, the chancel arch with stiff-leaf capitals, a little of the sill-frieze, and the priest’s doorway. Of the same date approximately is the re-set N aisle doorway. But the aisle itself and the S aisle, both embattled, and the embattled clerestory and the N porch (with leaf spandrels to the entrance) are all Perp. The four-bay arcades have piers with the standard moulded section and arches with two sunk-quadrant mouldings. Good nave roof with carved braces, embattled collars, angels against the feet of the secondary principals, and figures against the wall-posts. The N and S aisle roofs are similar, but also have ornamented bosses. - FONT. Octagonal, Perp, with quatrefoils and one other simple motif. - STALLS. Victorian, and, curiously enough, in the E.E. style. - BELL. One by John Walgrave, c.1420-30. - PLATE. Cup of 1725-6. - MONUMENT. Badly defaced effigy of a Lady, C14, the effigy carved on a coffin lid and the coffin preserved too.

ELLINGTON. It has thatched cottages that have been here 300 years, and a tree-shaded green with a pond. It has a stream flowing to the Alconbury Brook; we may be sure that Pepys knew it, for his father lived here and here the diarist’s sister, Paulina, found a husband in John Jackson. “We must find her one,” he wrote, “for she grows old and ugly.”

The fine church he would know has a tower and spire of the 14th century and a chancel arch of the 13th. The finely panelled font is 500 years old. There are bits of old red and yellow glass in the windows, and traces of a Doom picture were fading over the chancel arch when we called. An oak chest with three locks is 17th century, and another is older still and has simple ornament. Two bells have called the people to church as long as America has been known.

There is a 13th century coffin in the north aisle, and the lid of another has been used as a coping-stone on the churchyard wall. Here is kept one of the rare long hooks for drawing thatch off a burning roof, reminding us of some we have seen in Kent and Sussex.

It is delightful to find so many angels in Ellington. A fine company they make on the roofs of the nave and aisles, the work of clever 15th century carvers. We counted eight with outspread wings above the nave, and ten figures who are perhaps apostles. Other time-worn saints and angels look down on the aisles, and among the bosses of the north aisle are still more angels, with much foliage and a swan.

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Brampton

St Mary Magdalene, open, is a surprisingly rural church in an urban setting and was like nothing that I was expecting, nor for that matter was Brampton itself. Like Godmanchester its got something for everyone and I liked it a lot.

ST MARY. Perp mostly. But the chancel is late C13, with geometrical tracery, Y-tracery, and similar forms in the windows which are framed inside by giant blank arcading. The coarse PISCINA is late C13 too. The W tower is Dec, though the date 1635 appears over the door. It has set-back buttresses, a doorway with continuous mouldings, pairs of transomed two-light bell-openings, a nice frieze over, and no spire. The arch towards the nave has castellated capitals. Dec also the S doorway, with continuous mouldings too. But the arcades of five bays are Perp, with piers of the standard moulded section and two sunk waves in the arches. Also Perp the four-light aisle windows with uniform panel tracery, the clerestory windows, and the ornate s porch with niches l. and r. of the entrance and a small third niche above the entrance arch. The latter contains the lily-pot of the Annunciation. Good nave and aisle roofs with stone corbels. - FONT. Octagonal, with pointed quarrefoils etc. - ROOD SCREEN. Dec, of one-light divisions, the doors each with two ogee arches carrying a circle with flowing  tracery. - The STALLS have MISERICORDS, the best in the county. They represent (a) a man writing - a Knight and lady with a shield - an animal, (b) a carpenter - a man and a woman haymaking (wool-combing?) - a sheep shearer, (c) a woman gleaning - a man reaping and a woman with a sickle - sheaves of corn. - COMMUNION RAIL. Jacobean. Imported into the church. - SOUTH DOOR. With bold Dec tracery. - STAINED GLASS. Much of Kempe & Tower; none of much interest, considering the late dates. - PLATE. Cup of Britannia silver, 1721-2; Cup, 1724-5 ; undated Paten on foot; undated Plate; Flagon, 1743-4; late C16 German brass Almsdish with the Annunciation and stags and hounds, engraved. --MONUMENTS. Sir John Bernard Robert d 1679. According to Gunnis by William Kidwell, c..1690. It has a remarkably good bust on top. - J. and T. Miller d 1681 and 1683. Cartouche tablet in the tower. - Mrs Jackson d 1689. Slab in the S aisle. She was Pepys’ sister, the last of the Pepys family in the parish.

BRAMPTON. It leads us on to the ancient county town, but it bids us pause on the way. It has delightful cottages, a 17th century inn, and a stately house in a hundred acres of woodland where Hannah More would often walk with Lady Olivia Sparrow. But whoever comes here is thinking of our most famous and charming busybody, and of the things he saw when he found time to run away from London and come to Brampton for a quiet day.

He was Samuel Pepys. He was born in London, but his uncle Robert (and later his own parents) lived at Pepys Farm, the white gabled house with tiny dormers near the church, home of John Drinkwater in our time. In this lovely spot the Diarist’s parents sleep. The house he knew as a boy and as a man has something of the 16th century, and the garden has rare memories of him, for it was here he dug up £1300 he had buried when London was a heap of ashes and everyone was afraid of a Dutch invasion. Of this gracious place he writes in his immortal diary that he came to see the garden with his father and he blessed God he “was like to have such a pretty spot to retire to.” Though he did not come to end his life here, he spent many happy days at Brampton, and there is a quaint entry in his diary telling us that he was here in the summer of 1661 and that he walked up and down the garden talking with his father about a husband for his sister. “We must endeavour to find her one now,” he says, “for she grows old and ugly.”

We may be sure Pepys never came to Brampton without, chatting with everyone he chanced to meet. He would ask for the news, and would enquire about crops and cattle, and talk about the great doings in London; and, being a regular churchman, he must have heard a few sermons in the church. He would walk about in the great barn next door, and must have stood a thousand times to stare at the scene from the road, with his own house, the old barn, and the lovely church tower beyond. The church is magnificent. There is much here almost as Pepys saw it. Its chancel is 13th century and its nave 15th, and it stands nobly by the river Ouse, its 17th century tower among the limes. The arcade has lofty arches, the nail-studded north door is 15th century, and the timbers of the south door are enriched with a moulding of flowing tracery 400 years old.

The beautiful oak screen is 14th century; so is the font, on which is carved a rose and a shield. In the chancel are three 14th century stalls. The roofs over the nave and aisles are 15th century and have faces of men and animals among foliage, the beams resting on stone corbels with angels looking down. There is a 16th century almsdish engraved with the Annunciation, and a border round it showing hounds chasing stags. The altar rails are 17th century. On a monument is Sir John Bernard in his Stuart wig.

One of the chapels has an altar frontal with flowers, birds, and cherubs painted on wood by a 17th century Italian artist; and among the beautiful work of our own time is the chancel floor with its grey and white crosses planned by an architect who copied the design from one he saw as a boy in Ypres Cathedral. An oak screen has been made by village craftsmen, a fine piece of work with the shields of the Montagus, one of whom was the first Earl of Sandwich kinsman and friend of Pepys. There is much modern glass, one window in memory of Brampton’s heroes, with figures of Richard Lionheart, Gabriel, Michael, and Joan of Arc, and small scenes of the War below; and a noble Jesse window in memory of the 8th Earl of Sandwich, showing David with his harp, a Madonna, Edward the Confessor, St George, Hugh of Lincoln, and Etheldreda.

Brampton rightly treasures its three 14th century stalls, for they have come back after being for a long time in a Cambridge museum, one more example of the happy tendency for museums to return things to their proper places. It may be that Pepys sat in one of these stalls. Certainly he must have seen them and thought them very odd. They have misereres, and among the queer carvings is a monk with an  inkpot, a- man and wife reaping with sickles, and a gleaner with a pile of sheaves. One of the most remarkable is a man mowing with a scythe, his wife gathering up the hay with a rake. Another shows a woodcarver at his bench, and another has a weaver with a roll of cloth, his shears as big as himself.

Pathetic is the inscription to Paulina Jackson, who died in 1689.She was the last Pepys to live at, Brampton, and was the ugly sister for whom Samuel tried to find a husband. He seems to have been successful, for Paulina was married to John Jackson of Ellington, and it was to her son that Samuel left his fortune.

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Godmanchester

St Mary the Virgin, open, is a vast building with a bit of everything - good gargoyles, misericords, bench ends and poppyheads, a brass and some good monuments - and even on an overcast day was full of light. It is a treat to visit and very rewarding both inside and out.

ST MARY. The W tower is exceptionally interesting, as it is Perp in appearance and yet of 1623, though with the use of the materials from the C13 tower which is recognizable by the stiff-leaf responds of the arch towards the nave. The Stuart modifications of the Perp style come out in the W doorway and the windows above it. But the pairs of two-light transomed bell-openings and the recessed spire with its three tiers of lucarnes are Huntingdonshire Perp obviously. The tower is ashlar-faced, the rest of the church is of brown cobbles. Perp are the N and S windows, the big two-storeyed S porch with a broad entry flanked by niches and the not so big N porch, and Perp also the original chancel windows. But the chancel is an E.E. piece; this is shown by the buttressing and the exquisite MASS DIAL on one of them, in the form of an incised rose-window with trefoiled arches between the spokes. The vestry lancet could be re-set from that chancel. The arcades are Perp as well, with a complex continuous moulding to the nave and capitals only to the shafts towards the arch openings. But the E bay of the arcades stands in place of a crossing tower. The two small lancets above the present chancel arch prove that. They were in the tower E wall. The tower no doubt soon turned out to be unsafe and so was replaced by the W tower. - REREDOS and ROOD SCREEN are by Bodley, 1901. - STALLS with a good set of MISERICORDS, said to come from Ramsey Abbey. They show e.g. a WS referring to William Stevens, vicar in 1470-81, a fox and goose, a wyvern, a falcon, a cat, a dog, a rabbit, a monkey, a lion, a horse. - STAINED GLASS. One S aisle window by Morris & Co., c.1896; nothing special. - Much by Kempe (S aisle S 1889; S aisle W 1894; N aisle NE 1896; chancel S 1901; S aisle SW 1903; N aisle NW c.1911). - PLATE. Silver-gilt Cup and Cover Paten 1559-60; Elizabethan Cup. - MONUMENTS. Brass to a Civilian, early C16, a 14 in. figure. - Tablet, d 1696, in the S aisle, rustic but attractive.

GODMANCHESTER. It has one of the proudest names in England, and is worthy of it. It is linked with Cromwell’s town by one of England’s noblest bridges, and it has a link with Alfred and Caesar, for it is said that its name, partly Roman, comes also from a Danish chief with whom Alfred made a treaty of everlasting peace.

We feel as we walk about this serene little town that Time has brought little change to its old-world loveliness. The bridges and the weathered buildings charm the traveller. White houses with ancient timbers and elegant gables look down as they have looked for centuries. There are far too many to pick them out; we walk among them with continual surprise at the scene of beauty that passes before us.

Half town, half country, it is a part of England’s green and pleasant land that would have delighted William Blake as it has delighted our kings on passing through. The people would surge round the royal processions, bringing up their horses and ploughs as the symbol of their energy and prosperity; it is recorded that when James the First passed through on his way from Hinchingbrooke, where his entertainment had been such as he had never seen, they gave him ten teams of horses and two fair ploughs. It is said in an ancient document that Godmanchester was set by as fruitful and flowery meadows as this kingdom yieldeth, and the most spacious of any one parish in fertile tillage. No place in England, said Sir Robert Cotton, had so many stout hinds or employed more ploughs.

The traveller standing on what is called the Chinese Bridge, looking like a scene from a willow pattern plate, will think it a little rural paradise that lies about him. The waters of the Ouse divide themselves and the little wooden bridge leads us over them, from Godmanchester’s small town hall and its Elizabethan school, to the great meadow the town shares with its neighbour. It is known as Port Holme, and it has been called the biggest meadow in Europe, or the widest stretch of grass in any town without a tree. It is a wonderful 300 acres, and looking across it with the backs of the houses on the waterside we may think ourselves in Holland.

We have been into the town hall, in the delightful chamber where the mayor and corporation sit, and have seen in its strong room a great collection of ancient documents. One of them is kept in a tiny leather box, and it was thrilling to open it and find it nothing less than the charter granted by King John two years before the sealing of Magna Carta. On the walls are the long lists of names of mayors for centuries. In a case is the silver mace made in 1745, and in another is the mayor’s gold chain of office. He has the right to proclaim a new sovereign, riding through the streets on horseback, taking the corporation with him; and so ancient are the rights of the people of this town that in certain cases if a man would sell his house or land he must take his wife with him, and she must pass a glove to the mayor as witness that she gives up her own rights in them.

What is called the Causeway is the raised road (shaded by a fine avenue of limes at one end) linking Godmanchester with the medieval bridge at Huntingdon, a stone recording that the Causeway was rebuilt in 1637 by Robert Cooke, who narrowly escaped drowning while crossing the low meadows when the river was overflowing; here still are the two bridges he built to allow the flood waters to run through. Off the Causeway, by the town hall and the Chinese Bridge, is Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School, much changed but with many stones that have been here since her day, and still a delightful little place. Godmanchester’s most famous son would pass it every day when the walls were new and he was young; he was Stephen Marshall, who used to go gleaning in these fields before he was Chaplain to Parliament in the Civil War.

Schools, bridges, houses, inns, pretty gardens, flowing waters, and pleasant landscapes, we may yet think the great clerestoried church is best of all. It is a spacious spectacle as we come to it, with its soaring spire rising from a 17th century tower which is said to have been refashioned with stones from Ramsey Abbey, Huntingdon Priory, and Hinchingbrooke Nunnery. The chancel is 13th century, the lofty porch is 14th, the nave arcades and the clerestory are 15th. On the outside wall of the chancel is a buttress which has carved on it a beautiful and unexpected piece of ornament by a craftsman of 700 years ago; it is a wheel-panel over six feet. round, with eight trefoiled compartments like leaves radiating from the centre. It is not clear for what purpose it can have been intended, as it could not have been useful as a sundial.

The door in the south porch has a massive lock made by a blacksmith who may have seen the monks turned out of the abbey when Thomas Cromwell and his master seized the monasteries, and above the outer doorway is a sundial carved with fleur-de-lys.

The interior has a fine simplicity, free from fussy memorials, and ancient stone heads of men and angels keep watch on nave and chancel. The font has worn into odd shapes with the centuries, and the 16th century brass portrait of a civilian has lost two wives and two groups of children. There are two 17th century chairs, an altar table of the same age, two Elizabethan chalices, and a chained oak poor box which was damaged last century by a thief who forced it open and threw it into a pond.

But it is for its woodwork that this church is famous. There are modern pews in the nave with 15th century panels of grotesques, birds, fishes, and foliage, and in the chancel we come upon such work as would be the pride of any place. Here are some of the most remarkable choir stalls in England, believed to have been in Ramsey Abbey in its great days. They are 15th century, and have fascinating carving on their heads, their arm-rests, and under the seats. There are 20 of these 15th century stalls, and on the arm-rests are such carvings as a king’s head, a cat with dragon’s wings, a lion’s head with a flowing mane, a jester with a cap and bells, a winged angel on clouds, a crouching beast, and flowers. The carvings under the seats have among them a fox running off with a goose, a fawn rubbing its nose with its foot, a bird on a tree, a hare basking in the sun, a monkey, a demon’s head with horns and his tongue out, an eagle with a scroll, a crouching cat, and an odd little dog asleep on a cushion. There is a masterly carving of a cat with a mouse, and one of the rarest carvings is of a horse lying down.

On the west wall are two stones to a Darby and Joan of Godmanchester known as John and Mary; they lived to be 82 and 93 and their house was by the church. We read that they lived together for 58 years and never at any one time, even for the short time of 40 days, were separately absent from their happy home. It is remembered that when one of their sons followed them, his wife having already been laid in their vault, his brother was preparing the vault for the coffin when the coffin of the wife was accidentally disturbed and her face was revealed, perfect as in life. The uncle of the children in the house across the way hurried across to them and cried “Come and look at your mother”; but they were too late, the form had crumbled into dust. '

In the churchyard is a stone which most travellers pause to read, with one of those grim stories of the countryside so often recorded  about a hundred years ago. It tells us that Mary Ann Weems became acquainted with Thomas Weems, and that their acquaintance led to a compulsory marriage, which, being unhappy, led in time to his desertion of her and his marriage to another woman. In time, we read, the wretched man piled up the measure of his iniquity by resolving to murder his first wife, and, pretending to be reconciled, he invited her to travel with him to London, killing her on the road in 1819. In two months he was executed, and the moral of the story ends the long inscription with these lines:

Ere crime you perpetrate survey this stone
Learn hence the God of Justice sleeps not on His throne.

The Gleaner in the Fields

A POOR gleaner in the fields at Godmanchester, Stephen Marshall once filled a grave in Westminster Abbey, his bones being dug up and thrown out with Cromwell’s. The witty malice of old Thomas Fuller represents Marshall as a Presbyterian prototype of the Vicar of Bray: “He was so supple a soul that he brake not a joynt, yea, sprain not a sinew, in all the alterations of times.”

As Marshall was successively Dissenter, Churchman, Presbyterian, Independent, and Presbyterian again, and was thanked by the Commonwealth Parliament for a pamphlet written against the Baptists, there may seem some justification for the gibe, but Marshall was an honest man, seeking to direct the torrent of creeds in which he was caught up, with evangelical religion as his aim, to be groped for in one path after another.

He was a menial in the fields here before he managed to make his way to Cambridge. For a short time a Nonconformist lecturer, he entered the Church as vicar of Finchingfield, Essex, a living worth £1000 a year in our money. He was, however, a Puritan in heart and practice.

His gifts of exposition attracted the attention of Parliament, and, while always retaining his vicarage, he became immersed in the Civil War, and by his eloquence exercised great influence. He is a towering figure in the controversies between Anglicans, Presbyterians, and Independents, and while Fuller was preaching and publishing to the Cavalier forces Marshall was kindling the zeal of the Cromwellians, preaching from regiment to regiment, from one battlefield to another. With his duties in camp and council he combined the part of favourite preacher at St Margaret’s, at six o’clock each morning, and at Westminster Abbey. Marshall was with Laud after his conviction, and with Charles at Holmby House and in the Isle of Wight after his arrest. He preached a magnificent sermon in the abbey at the funeral of Pym, and, dying in 1655, was himself laid with splendour in Henry the Seventh’s Chapel. Six years later his remains were dug up and flung into a pit in St Margaret’s churchyard.

Great preacher though he was, Marshall loved to read a play, and in this connection it is interesting that his wife was a granddaughter of Edmund Alleyn, the actor and friend of Shakespeare.

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Hemingford Grey

St James, open, sits besides, and I mean literally, the east bank of the Ouse and inside is suitably dank and musty. This is definitely one of my favourite Huntingdon churches thus far if only for the setting though it has to be said that it's an interesting interior as well - it's hard to disagree with Simon Jenkins description of it as "cosy".

ST JAMES. The W tower faces the Ouse. It is a pretty position. The history of the building begins with the N arcade. The middle arch is round with one step and one slight chamfer. The piers are round and sturdy, the abaci square and nicked at the corners. The capitals have small decorated scallops. That makes it c.1180. E bay and W bay are later, late C13 and late C14 respectively. The meeting of two responds W of the E bay deserves a good look. The S arcade has one arch almost identical with the earliest on the N side, but probably some twenty years later. The piers now have round abaci. The E and W bays are as above. The S doorway is over-restored but matches the S aisle. The chancel is mid C13 - see the two N lancets and the lovely DOUBLE PISCINA with its intersecting not only arches but mouldings). The arches stand on Purbeck shafts. Opposite a plain DOUBLE AUMBRY. Finally the details of the Perp W tower. Clasping buttresses, turning diagonal higher up. Ball finials of the C18 on the buttresses, and a truncated recessed spire also crowned by ball finials. The rest of the spire was blown down in the hurricane of 1741. - STAINED GLASS. One window of the S aisle by Kempe, 1906 (still without his future partner Tower). - PLATE. Cup and Paten on foot, 1684-5. - MONUMENTS. Enjoyable cartouches, one inside d 1682, one outside d 1715.

HEMINGFORD GREY. ‘The delicate loveliness of this part of England is here at its best, with fine timbered cottages older than the Armada, and an enchanting peep of the church along the river. One of Nature’s beautiful places, it was the home of two sisters famous for their beauty, and the chosen place of an artist whose pictures will keep his name alive. He gave us a new Thursday and Friday. .

He was Dendy Sadler, who chose to live in this lovely country where the Ouse flows gently by green meadows. He must have loved the old watermill, believed to stand on the foundations of a mill which was here in the days of the Crusades. It was here that he painted his famous pictures called Thursday and Friday, one showing a company of jovial monks fishing in the Ouse, the other showing them enjoying the dinner they had caught the day before. The artist chose most of his models from the village, and truly an artist might choose here scenes for a lifetime of painting. Still the spirit of Dendy Sadler was living in his house when we called, for here we found a lover of Art and Nature getting up at five in the morning to paint his flowers superbly, Mr A. F. Hayward.

The two beautiful sisters lived in the manor house, which has shared the centuries with the church and is still here for us to see; it is the oldest inhabited house in the county, much of it built by the Normans. Some of its walls are three or four feet thick, and one of its gabled fronts, with a Norman mullioned window under a zigzag arch, is a gem.

Here Elizabeth and Mary Gunning grew in beauty side by side, and it was here that the poet Cowper saw them as he was walking by the Ouse one day with his little dog:

Two nymphs adorned with every grace
That spaniel found for me.

A gravestone in the chancel of the church has the names of two younger sisters of the beautiful ones, and most of the church is as it was when the eyes of the congregation would turn aside to see the beautiful sisters step into their pew. The north arcade is Norman, the south is 13th century, and the clerestory belongs to the 15th century, when our English way of building was at its best. The roof timbers are 400 years old and there is a 17th century chest with three locks. The 500-year-old tower has lost its spire, which was blown down about 200 years ago and is said to be lying at the bottom of the river.

The village has a beautiful thatched and timbered cottage which has been inhabited since Queen Elizabeth’s day, and it is interesting for having on its roll of honour of vicars a Charles Dickens who was preaching here long before another man made the name immortal, and a Joseph Banks who was rector here for 54 years while his famous namesake was president of the Royal Society.

The Talk of Half Europe

IN a way it may be said that John Gunning made history when, quitting Ireland for England with his wife, a daughter of Lord Bourke of Mayo, he settled down here. Four little Gunning girls were born here, and of these Mary and Elizabeth became the talk of half Europe, so perfect were they in figure and features. They live in literature as The Beautiful Miss Gunnings.

They were brought to London in 1751 when Elizabeth was 17 and Mary a little older. Society became crazed over their charms. Crowds followed them in their daily walks; no scene in Congreve’s comedies matches the reality of the furore they caused. Soon hearts and coronets were at their feet. The sixth Earl of Coventry laid siege to Mary; the sixth Duke of Hamilton desperately wooed Elizabeth.

Horace Walpole tells us how Hamilton sat at cards one night, neglecting the game and losing hundreds of pounds by making love to Elizabeth, who. was at the other end of the room. In 1752, when she was 18, Elizabeth promised to marry him in the following spring. But he would not wait. He sent late at night for a clergyman and bade him marry them. The minister protested against such haste and irregularity, but at last he was prevailed upon, and half an hour after midnight, with a curtain ring for a wedding ring, the marriage took place at Mayfair Chapel. Three children were born, of whom the daughter became Countess of Derby and two boys became in turn Duke of Hamilton.

Widowed at 24, Elizabeth married a year later the Duke of Argyll and became a mother of two other dukes. Four dukes this mother had for her sons. She was much at Court, she showed great bravery during the Wilkes riots, was made Baroness Hamilton of Hambledon in her own right, and died in 1790. Mary, who is said to have been even lovelier than Elizabeth, married Lord Coventry and lived happily with him for 18 years, dying of consumption in 1760.

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