ST STEPHEN. Memorable as a completely C13 church. W tower with flat angle buttresses, lancet windows, and bell-openings of two lights with a circular shaft between and under a shafted, still round arch. This is remarkably late for a round arch. Frieze with heads, stiff-leaf, and a horizontal figure. Shortish, simple broach spire with low, broad broaches and two tiers of lucarnes in alternating directions. They are just single-chamfered lancets. The aisle windows are of two lights with circles over (originally they were foiled). The blocked N doorway has a pretty trefoiled head. The S porch entrance is round-arched with a chamfer and a hollow chamfer. In the chancel the E window is of five steeply stepped lancets under one arch, and the S windows have two lights and a trefoiled circle. There are no N windows. A blocked arch in the N wall shows that there was a chapel here. Inside the church, the tower arch is pointed and double-chamfered. The C13 roof-line can be seen above it. The quatrefoil clerestory windows are therefore later (C14?). The arcades, not in axis with the tower arch, are of three bays. Circular piers, circular capitals and abaci (different S from N), pointed double-chamfered arches. Some nailhead ornament on the S side. The chancel arch has two hollow chamfers. PISCINAS in chancel and S aisle. SEDILIA in the chancel, pointed-trefoiled. - PLATE. Cover Paten, 1610.
ETTON. It lies secluded from the world, away from the Peterborough Road, and its life has been going on for many centuries. It has the names of nearly 50 rectors who have served its church since John de Stoke came as priest ten years after Magna Carta; and it has the name of Defoe in its annals, for the parents of Daniel Defoe lived here before they migrated to London.
Two pathetic figures haunt this lovely comer of our countryside, John Clare and Michael Hudson. The poet worked at the manor as a ploughboy, and in one of his letters we read that in wet weather the moat used to overflow the path that led to the house so that the farm folk were obliged to wade up to their knees in water. As for Michael Hudson, his brave life ended in the Civil War - in the moat of the manor house John Clare knew, now called Woodcroft Castle. It is one of three fine houses belonging to Etton. The vicarage itself is modern but magnificent, set in its big garden within a massive wall. Facing the east end of the church is a picturesque 16th century house with attractive gables and a spacious porch of two storeys. Woodcroft Castle, lying a mile away, is believed to have been built in the middle of the 13th century by an abbot of Peterborough.
It stands, this solitary place, half hidden by old yews, never a castle, but a fine example of a 14th century manor house, with a deep moat still filled with water and walls four feet thick. It was built in two wings, and has a tower where both wings meet. A room over the gateway was used as a chapel and has kept its piscina through all these generations. The house itself has been modernised with much care and its ancient beauty is preserved. We found the gardens on each side of the drive gay with flowers.
It was here that Michael Hudson met his tragic fate. He was rector at Uffington, not far away over the Lincolnshire border, when the house was besieged by the Parliamentary troops. It was nearing the end of the war and no Royalist defence could last for long; and at last the defendants were overpowered and forced to yield. Michael Hudson was among them, making a gallant stand on the roof until the soldiers flung him from the battlements. They were bitter days and Cromwell’s soldiers knew no mercy. It happened that the gallant Hudson saved himself by catching hold of the parapet as he fell, whereupon a soldier took his sword and slashed off his hands, so that he fell into the moat; one more martyr for a lost cause.
The church is mostly 13th century except for the 14th century clerestory and most of the timber roofs. The main beams of the nave roof are 14th century. The building comes from the days when the Norman style was changing and the English were turning the round arches of the Normans into pointed ones. The tower has three stages, the lower ones with narrow lancets, the top stage having double openings with columns supporting a round arch, and just above this a corbel table from which the spire slants away. The corbels are fascinating in their variety, with small heads, fleur-de-lys, four-leaved carving, and a complete profile figure of a man.
We come in by the south doorway, 700 years old, and still with part of its original timber built into its massive door. The nave has three arches on each side. The narrow lancet in the west wall of the tower is deeply splayed and throws its band of light through a tower arch above which can be seen the marks of the roof removed by the 14th century builders of the clerestory, which has three quatrefoil windows on each side. The chancel arch leads into a very long chancel, in which is a triple sedilia with four plain columns, a double piscina with three small heads on its moulded arches, and one of the tiniest openings we have seen into an aumbry. On the moulding of a window which has been blocked up are two beautiful heads carved 500 years ago. The back of a seat made from a small octagonal table is an elaborately carved panel of a double eagle, probably 18th century. The plain font is medieval, and there is a 13th century piscina with a trefoiled arch in the south aisle. The priest’s doorway into the chancel is only five feet high.
Two pathetic figures haunt this lovely comer of our countryside, John Clare and Michael Hudson. The poet worked at the manor as a ploughboy, and in one of his letters we read that in wet weather the moat used to overflow the path that led to the house so that the farm folk were obliged to wade up to their knees in water. As for Michael Hudson, his brave life ended in the Civil War - in the moat of the manor house John Clare knew, now called Woodcroft Castle. It is one of three fine houses belonging to Etton. The vicarage itself is modern but magnificent, set in its big garden within a massive wall. Facing the east end of the church is a picturesque 16th century house with attractive gables and a spacious porch of two storeys. Woodcroft Castle, lying a mile away, is believed to have been built in the middle of the 13th century by an abbot of Peterborough.
It stands, this solitary place, half hidden by old yews, never a castle, but a fine example of a 14th century manor house, with a deep moat still filled with water and walls four feet thick. It was built in two wings, and has a tower where both wings meet. A room over the gateway was used as a chapel and has kept its piscina through all these generations. The house itself has been modernised with much care and its ancient beauty is preserved. We found the gardens on each side of the drive gay with flowers.
It was here that Michael Hudson met his tragic fate. He was rector at Uffington, not far away over the Lincolnshire border, when the house was besieged by the Parliamentary troops. It was nearing the end of the war and no Royalist defence could last for long; and at last the defendants were overpowered and forced to yield. Michael Hudson was among them, making a gallant stand on the roof until the soldiers flung him from the battlements. They were bitter days and Cromwell’s soldiers knew no mercy. It happened that the gallant Hudson saved himself by catching hold of the parapet as he fell, whereupon a soldier took his sword and slashed off his hands, so that he fell into the moat; one more martyr for a lost cause.
The church is mostly 13th century except for the 14th century clerestory and most of the timber roofs. The main beams of the nave roof are 14th century. The building comes from the days when the Norman style was changing and the English were turning the round arches of the Normans into pointed ones. The tower has three stages, the lower ones with narrow lancets, the top stage having double openings with columns supporting a round arch, and just above this a corbel table from which the spire slants away. The corbels are fascinating in their variety, with small heads, fleur-de-lys, four-leaved carving, and a complete profile figure of a man.
We come in by the south doorway, 700 years old, and still with part of its original timber built into its massive door. The nave has three arches on each side. The narrow lancet in the west wall of the tower is deeply splayed and throws its band of light through a tower arch above which can be seen the marks of the roof removed by the 14th century builders of the clerestory, which has three quatrefoil windows on each side. The chancel arch leads into a very long chancel, in which is a triple sedilia with four plain columns, a double piscina with three small heads on its moulded arches, and one of the tiniest openings we have seen into an aumbry. On the moulding of a window which has been blocked up are two beautiful heads carved 500 years ago. The back of a seat made from a small octagonal table is an elaborately carved panel of a double eagle, probably 18th century. The plain font is medieval, and there is a 13th century piscina with a trefoiled arch in the south aisle. The priest’s doorway into the chancel is only five feet high.
No comments:
Post a Comment