Milton, Cambridgeshire

All Saints was locked with no sign of a keyholder and the ugliest hall attached to the body of the church that I have ever seen. The church has been over restored and from what I could see I wasn't missing much. Although...

ALL SAINTS. Norman chancel arch with one order of columns towards the nave. The arch is entirely unmoulded. The S doorway has also a round arch, but in its present form it is C17 rather than Norman. But it might be re-cut. Then comes the early C14 with the three-bay arcades: square piers and semicircular shafts, arches with two quarter-circle mouldings, hood-moulds. Also early C14 the S aisle E window and the adjoining Piscina, and the W tower - see its arch to the nave and W window. Not early C14 however the chancel E window which is entirely the work of the restorer of 1847 who rebuilt the chancel, except for the S wall. The S porch appears to be of the C19 too; so is the N aisle. Perp nave and chancel windows. Pretty Perp Sedilia in a straight-headed frame. - COMMUNION RAIL. A C17 chinoiserie almost. Panel framing without any infillings and on the rail little obelisks. The rail comes from King’s College Chapel. - CHANCEL STALLS. Only four altogether. Fronts with Elizabethan panels set in. More in the vestry door. - STAINED GLASS. S aisle W window, Jacob’s Dream, signed by Constable of Cambridge and very incompetent. - BARREL ORGAN of 1840. - MONUMENTS. Brass to William Coke d. 1553 and wife; still entirely the traditional medieval type; 2 ft figure. - Mrs E. Knight d. 1800, by Flaxman. With standing young woman raising her arm and swaying backwards towards another just rising to heaven.* - Samuel Knight, 1829 by Chantrey.

* A replica of this monument is at Kingsbridge, South Devon, illustrated in The Buildings of England, South Devon, pl. 54.

MILTON. It has thatched cottages leading to a church in a lovely bower of trees, with quaint gargoyles on its 13th century tower. The nave has old tie-beams and bosses in its roof, and 14th century arcades leading into aisles lighted by windows with flowing tracery and fragments of medieval glass, Flemish roundels of St Margaret and St Catherine among them. The chance] has a Norman arch, a double piscina with a pillar crowned by a floral capital, and lovely sedilia with slender pillars between the rich canopies and the head of a woman at each side. The lovely 17th century altar rails and the stalls with figures of a bishop, a man, and lion heads on the armrests are said to come from King’s College, Cambridge. The oak door of the vestry has Jacobean panels. Among the old monuments are a coffin stone, a Flaxman sculpture of two draped women in  memory of Elizabeth Knight, and a Chantrey memorial to Samuel Knight with a descending dove. But far the finest is a 16th century brass set in a floorstone, showing Sir William Coke in his judge’s robes and mantle, his wife with a pretty flowered headdress and a gown with puff sleeves, two sons, and three daughters. Another 17th century brass on the wall is in memory of John Harris, and shows four sons in tunics and three girls dressed like Little Red Riding Hood; all these children passed away before their father, but the inscription tells us that the widow had ten others to console her.

The brass alone makes this locked status a shame.

Flickr.