ST MARY THE VIRGIN. With a total length of nearly 200 ft Saffron Walden
is one of the largest parish churches of Essex. It 1s also one of the
most lavishly designed - in a style entirely E from across the border,
East Anglian of the Suffolk and even more the Cambridge brand. There are
indeed certain features which make connexions with King’s College
Chapel and Great St Mary more than likely. The whole church was re-built
between c. 1450 and c. 1525, with the exception of a crypt partly below
the S aisle and partly below the S porch, and the arcades from the
chancel into the N and S chapels, and from these chapels into the
aisles. These parts are of the C13 and indicate a church with crossing
and transept, narrower aisles and a S porch, corresponding to the crypt.
The CRYPT is divided into four bays and has single-chamfered arches and
ribs springing from semi-octagonal responds. The chancel arcades have
quatrefoil piers and moulded capitals and arches. The rebuilding started
with the chancel and ended with the chancel arch, the nave clerestory,
alterations to the chancel chapels, and the completion of the tower.
The
exterior of the church is as follows. The W tower has setback
buttresses, decorated battlements, and at the corners big panelled
polygonal pinnacles like turrets. The tall octagonal stone spire with
crockets and two tiers of dormers, the lower one of two lights with a
transome, was added in 1831 to the designs of Rickman & Hutchinson,
the architects, at the same time, of New Court, St John’s College,
Cambridge. The aisles, clerestoreys and chancel chapels of the church
are all embattled and have pinnacles. There are large, wide four-light
windows in both aisles with elaborate but not very interesting panel
tracery, equally large windows of different, somewhat closer panel
tracery in the chancel chapels, a C19 five-light E window dating from the
restoration by Butterfield in 1876, and three-light clerestory windows.
At the E end of the nave clerestory are two polygonal turrets with
crocketed stone roofs clearly dependent on King’s College Chapel as
completed in 1515. The S porch is of two storeys, also embattled and
pinnacled. It has an upper window of four lights. The N porch has only
one storey. That is the only external difference between the two sides.*
The church lies indeed in such a commanding position, on a hill, higher
than the surrounding streets, that it can be seen as prominently from
the N as the S.
Now for the interior. The arcades of seven bays
are very tall with lozenge-shaped piers enriched by four attached shafts
and with hollows and finer connecting mouldings in the diagonals. Only
the shafts towards the arches have capitals. The shafts to the nave run
on unbroken (except for a thickening at the main horizontal course) to
the springers of the roof and only there have capitals. The diagonal
members have no capitals at all. The spandrels of the arches are closely
decorated with tracery as at Great St Mary’s Cambridge and of course
also at Lavenham and other Suffolk churches. The horizontal course has
fleurons, the clerestory mullions are carried down in panels to the
string course. The roofs are original everywhere, low-pitched and
adorned variously with bosses, tracery, badges etc. As for other
enrichments, the three bays of the N aisle have blank wall-arcades with
different intricately carved heads. Especially the easternmost bay is
worth studying. The figures in the spandrels represent King David, St
John, Doubting Thomas, the Virgin, the Scourging of Christ, the Agony in
the Garden. They are clearly earlier than the aisle and must for some
reason be re-used material - FONT. Octagonal, C15 to early C16, with
quatrefoils and shields. - SCREEN. 1924 by Sir Charles Nicholson. -
ORGAN casa. The one side still in the pretty Gothick state of 1825, the
other re-done by Bodley in 1885. - PAINTING. Copy of Correggio’s “The
Day” by the Rev. W. Peters. -SCULPTURE. Small piece of a C15 alabaster
altar in the S porch, N wall. - STAINED GLASS. Good Shepherd, Samaritan
etc. S aisle, 1858, whom by ? - Four Evangelists S aisle by Lavers &
Barraud, 1859. - N aisle windows (East Anglian Saints, Four Musicians)
by Powell. - N Chapel E window by Burlison & Grylls, 1904. - PLATE.
Silver-gilt Cup, Paten, and Flagon of 1685; silver gilt Cup and Paten
given 1792.
MONUMENTS. All the brasses with figures are collected
against the N wall of the N aisle: three Women of c. 1480-90; Priest,
perhaps Richard Wild Jr 1484; Civilian of c. 1500; Civilian and wife of
c. 1510; Woman of c. 1530; Civilian of c. 1530; Thomas Turner d. 1610
and wife. - Monument to Thomas Lord Audley, Lord Chancellor, d. 1544.
Black marble tomb-chest decorated with wreaths round medallions and
ornamented pilasters in the taste of the tomb of Henry VII in
Westminster Abbey; back-plate with splendidly carved coat of arms
between pilasters (S chapel). Done probably by the same workshop
responsible for the Vyvyan monument at Bodmin, Cornwall, the effigy of
Lord Marney at Layer Marney, the Oxford Monument at Castle Hedingham and
the North Monument at Kintling, Cambridgeshire. - Tomb-chest for John
Leche d. 1521, with lid and inscription but no figures (N chapel). - One
side of a tomb-chest, N wall, N aisle.
* Internally the S porch
vault is more elaborate than that of the N: a two-bay fan-vault with two
bosses (cf. Cambridge customs of the early C16) as against a simple
one-bay tierceron vault of star shape.
Wednesday 22 May 2013
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