I liked the exterior - it's a stolid foursquare building, a maiden aunt of a church. Unfortunately the interior is a disappointment being over-restored and over carpeted - having said that I rather enjoyed it since, architecturally speaking, it's so diffeent from what I'm used to.
ST MARTIN. The avenue of chestnuts to the N porch almost blots out the view of the church from the road. Pierce the veil, however, and there is a spacious early C14 building, the walls of ragstone, septaria, and flints looking like currant cake. Nave, with aisles continued as chapels almost to the E end of the chancel. Outstandingly fine and substantial NW tower, broad for its height, with angle buttresses carried up to the top. Three stages, the lowest banded with squared flints and ragstone blocks, and lit by a large three-light window on a deeply undercut string-course. Intersecting tracery over trefoiled ogee lights. Within the intersections, encircled ogee cinquefoils at the lowest level, then ogee quatrefoils, and a trefoil at the apex. Pairs of tall trefoiled lancets higher up. Internally the tower is vaulted, the filleted ribs descending to shaftlets on splendidly lively heads. The tower is open on arches to the E and S, and these are given triple circular shafts, one forward and two recessed, with continuous filleted double-wave mouldings between them. Wave mouldings on the arches above the shafts. Altogether the effect is very strong and sumptuous. Colossal moulded relieving arch towards the nave, to reduce the wall thickness, on lion heads and trefoiled squinches. The rest of the church is not a match for the tower, though the N arcade seems to be of the same date, with the same arch-moulding, on slender octagonal piers. S arcade a little later, of five bays, the capitals less undercut, two hollow chamfers round the arches. Mutilated early C14 chancel arch. Chancel chapels, with two-bay arcades, of the same form as the nave S arcade. Cinque-foiled PISCINA; three embattled SEDILIA, with ogee arches foiled nine times. E window of five lights, grand in scale and a most interesting transitional pattern from Dec to Perp. The main feature is a large circle enclosing six ogee quatrefoils in circles. That is the vocabulary of the tower window; but the side pieces are filled up not with mouchettes but with vertical trefoiled panelling. This, like all the N and S windows, has been renewed. The pattern of the N and S aisle window tracery is Dec. Nave W window equally large, with a transom, a Perp insertion. Perp remodelling of the S chapel. The two-storeyed N porch with two stoups can be documentarily dated 1350. Late Perp N chapel windows. - FONT. Perp. Thick, panelled stem. The shields of arms on the bowl date it c.1405—14. - STALLS. All c19, except seven fine poppyheads. — STAINED GLASS. The ‘Suffer the little children’ window of c.1874 in the N aisle shows C19 glass-painting at a nadir to which it rarely sank. - ARMOUR. Fine helm in the chancel. - PLATE. Almsdish, inscribed 1726, but probably C17. - BRASSES. Peter Halle, c.1430. Knight and lady clasping hands. 34 in. figures. - John Darley. 36 in. figure, c.1460, of a priest in academicals. ‘Flos philosophorum’ is what the inscription calls him. - Cristine Phelip d. 1470. Delicately engraved figure, 28 in. long. - (Elizabeth Fyneux d. 1539. Local work.) - John Sea 1- 1604. 22 in. figures. - MONUMENTS. Sir William Thornhurst d. 1606. Small alabaster hanging monument with the usual kneeling figures. - Robert Knowler d. 1631. Heavy tablet. Small kneeling figures. Segmental pediment. - Christopher Milles d. 1700. Standing architectural monument. Putti at the top hold up curtains from the cartouche of arms. - Samuel Milles d. 1727. Fine black and white sarcophagus. Back0plate missing. - Gilbert Knowler d.1737. White and yellow marble tablet. Scrolly open pediment on Ionic columns. - Charles Milles d. 1749. Oval tablet, probably erected after 1773. - Nicholas Ridley, bishop and martyr. He was once vicar of Herne. Memorial erected in 1857, carved by Seale to Ashpitel’s design. Statue in a canopied niche.
HERNE. Four things has the snug village of Herne that every traveller will wish to see: a tower, a screen, a chair, and a collection of brasses.
The chair is that of Nicholas Ridley, who sat in it when he was vicar here. He made this church famous by ordering that the Te Deum should be sung in English, and in these walls there was first heard in the music of our mother tongue those majestic words:
We praise Thee, O God, we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord.
All the Earth doth worship Thee, the Father everlasting.
O Lord, save Thy people, and bless Thine heritage.
Govern them and lift them up for ever.
This beautiful church was one of the last things that came into Ridley’s mind when he gave away his shirt to some poor man and walked into the fire at Oxford. Farewell, Herne," he said, "thou worshipful and wealthy parish, the first whereunto I was called to minister God’s word. I bless God for all that godly virtue the Lord did kindle in the life and heart of that godly woman there, my Lady Fineaux." She lies near the altar where he stood so often, and her brass is over her. It shows her in a flowing dress lined with fur, carrying a gold ball for holding spices to keep off plague. Her lord lies in the nave at Canterbury, having been a man of some importance in his day. His family came to England in a curious way. An English officer imprisoned in the French wars made friends with his gaoler, who helped him to escape on being promised some lands in Kent. He came home and the Frenchman followed him. His name was Fineaux, and he settled near Herne. There are four other brasses in the chancel and the lady chapel. On the right of the altar, by Lady Fineaux’s brass, is that of John Darley, who was vicar in 1450; he has a lion at his feet. Sir John Sea, who lived in the time of Shakespeare, is here with two wives; Lady Phelip, whose husband supplied the jewels for the coronation of Edward the Fourth, is on a brass of 1470, with much rich embroidery and a girdle and rosary; and the brass of Sir Peter and Lady Halle was made in 1420.
The church is worthy of its beautiful possessions. Its nave and its aisles have all good screens. The ancient screen is very finely carved with tracery, a grape vine running along the top, and the modern screen is a splendid copy. The 14th-century font is beautiful with heraldic panels. There is an attractive stone figure of Ridley in a canopied niche. The chancel has magnificent choir stalls, with misereres. On a wall above the sanctuary kneels Sir William Thornhurst, Captain of the Guard of the Archbishop’s palace at Ford, where Cranmer retired on the death of his royal master. He has been here since 1606, and has a friendly little dog on his helmet, which hangs above his tomb.
The church has a deed going back to 1154, an Elizabethan almsdish, and a brass inscription to Samuel Weller May before which thousands of visitors have stopped. He was a friend of Dickens, who borrowed his Christian names and made it impossible for the world to forget them.
The architectural gem of Herne is its flint tower - one of the very few perfect things in the world, said John Ruskin. Inside and out it is beautiful. It has a vaulted roof with a fine stone face at each corner, and a window extremely unusual and remarkably graceful.
Outside, it crowns the west end of the church as a thing of unforgettable beauty. It rises in layers of brown stone and black flint approached by an avenue of horse chestnuts. Close by is a fine old yew, with a sculpture of the Baptism of Christ looking down on it.
Herne has a windmill which has been a lovely sight from the Island of Sheppey for something like two hundred years.
I feel a re-visit is in order since I saw none of the brasses (although they may have been over-carpeted) nor the misericords - this is OK as I'll be going back down in a month.
The chair is that of Nicholas Ridley, who sat in it when he was vicar here. He made this church famous by ordering that the Te Deum should be sung in English, and in these walls there was first heard in the music of our mother tongue those majestic words:
We praise Thee, O God, we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord.
All the Earth doth worship Thee, the Father everlasting.
O Lord, save Thy people, and bless Thine heritage.
Govern them and lift them up for ever.
This beautiful church was one of the last things that came into Ridley’s mind when he gave away his shirt to some poor man and walked into the fire at Oxford. Farewell, Herne," he said, "thou worshipful and wealthy parish, the first whereunto I was called to minister God’s word. I bless God for all that godly virtue the Lord did kindle in the life and heart of that godly woman there, my Lady Fineaux." She lies near the altar where he stood so often, and her brass is over her. It shows her in a flowing dress lined with fur, carrying a gold ball for holding spices to keep off plague. Her lord lies in the nave at Canterbury, having been a man of some importance in his day. His family came to England in a curious way. An English officer imprisoned in the French wars made friends with his gaoler, who helped him to escape on being promised some lands in Kent. He came home and the Frenchman followed him. His name was Fineaux, and he settled near Herne. There are four other brasses in the chancel and the lady chapel. On the right of the altar, by Lady Fineaux’s brass, is that of John Darley, who was vicar in 1450; he has a lion at his feet. Sir John Sea, who lived in the time of Shakespeare, is here with two wives; Lady Phelip, whose husband supplied the jewels for the coronation of Edward the Fourth, is on a brass of 1470, with much rich embroidery and a girdle and rosary; and the brass of Sir Peter and Lady Halle was made in 1420.
The church is worthy of its beautiful possessions. Its nave and its aisles have all good screens. The ancient screen is very finely carved with tracery, a grape vine running along the top, and the modern screen is a splendid copy. The 14th-century font is beautiful with heraldic panels. There is an attractive stone figure of Ridley in a canopied niche. The chancel has magnificent choir stalls, with misereres. On a wall above the sanctuary kneels Sir William Thornhurst, Captain of the Guard of the Archbishop’s palace at Ford, where Cranmer retired on the death of his royal master. He has been here since 1606, and has a friendly little dog on his helmet, which hangs above his tomb.
The church has a deed going back to 1154, an Elizabethan almsdish, and a brass inscription to Samuel Weller May before which thousands of visitors have stopped. He was a friend of Dickens, who borrowed his Christian names and made it impossible for the world to forget them.
The architectural gem of Herne is its flint tower - one of the very few perfect things in the world, said John Ruskin. Inside and out it is beautiful. It has a vaulted roof with a fine stone face at each corner, and a window extremely unusual and remarkably graceful.
Outside, it crowns the west end of the church as a thing of unforgettable beauty. It rises in layers of brown stone and black flint approached by an avenue of horse chestnuts. Close by is a fine old yew, with a sculpture of the Baptism of Christ looking down on it.
Herne has a windmill which has been a lovely sight from the Island of Sheppey for something like two hundred years.
I feel a re-visit is in order since I saw none of the brasses (although they may have been over-carpeted) nor the misericords - this is OK as I'll be going back down in a month.
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