Abington Pigotts, Cambridgeshire

St Michael & All Saints was filled with scaffolding and smelt of restoration products so much was covered and even with a full battery I think I would have put this down for a re-visit because it is delightful.

ST MICHAEL. Flint-built; not too near the village, but close to the former manor-house. Aisleless, with Perp W tower, embattled and not high. Chancel rebuilt in 1875 in late C13 to early C14 forms. They correspond to the C18 drawing in Cole MS B.M. Add. 5810. S doorway to the nave C14, S windows tall two-light Perp under four-centred heads. Tall and Perp also the S porch. - Nice angel-corbels to support the tie-beams of the nave roof. - SCULPTURE. In the porch a Norman block decorated with zigzag. It comes no doubt from the predecessor of the church. - FONT COVER. Plain Jacobean, of ogee outline. - PULP IT. Two-decker with various C17 panels stuck on. The sculpture may be Flemish. - BENCHES. Plain, straight-headed, buttressed. - MONUMENTS. Brass to a Civilian, c. 1460, 3 ft figure (chancel floor). - Mary Foster-Pigot d. 1816. Medallion under a weeping willow in front of the inevitable obelisk. By the younger Bacon.

ABINGTON PIGOTTS. It is pleasant with trees and orchards, quaint cottages and thatched roofs, and an old church in the meadows between the old rectory and the gabled manor house, a dignified and delightful home of Queen Elizabeth’s day. Down Hall, a farmhouse on the edge of the village, hides in the trees at the end of a lane, with a moat and a watermill.

A fine avenue of lofty limes brings us to the flint and cobbled church, into which we come by a door which has opened and shut for centuries. The porch in which it hangs is dated 1382 and has bargeboards and roof beams, windows and seats, a coffin stone 700 years old, and a holy-water stoup set on a fragment of Norman carving. An ancient mass dial is on the wall. Indoors is a 15th century oak screen with delicate tracery set in a chancel arch 100 years older. In the tracery of two nave windows are fine old fragments of glass with saints and angels in black and gold, and engraved in brass is the portrait of a 15th century family, showing a civilian in a fur-lined gown with 16 sons and daughters. The two-decker pulpit is made up of Jacobean panels, the modern font has a Jacobean domed cover, there is an old chest, and quaint angels support the old roof beams. The vestry door has been hanging on its hinges for many generations.

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