ST JOHN THE BAPTIST. The church, as we see it now, appears at first all
of one piece, proud, spacious, clear and a little frigid inside, and
outside dominated by its splendid tall steeple. The spire reaches 181 ft
up; the church is 183 ft long. The material is pebble rubble. Ashlar is
not used; but otherwise, in innumerable details, it is obvious that
much money was spent on the building. It is embattled all round,
pinnacles are used in addition to battlements, decorative friezes of
ornament or figures appear here and there, and so on. The church has
often been restored, but care has always been taken and, except for the
C18 windows of the transept fronts, not much has been changed. The
spire, it is true, was struck by lightning in 1814 and had to be
rebuilt, but the reconstruction was accurate. The tower has setback
buttresses, but the angles are not of 90 degrees. They form two sides of
a polygon. At the top of the tower battlements and panelled pinnacles
connected by flying buttresses to the spire.This is of Northamptonshire
type, with crockets and three tiers of dormer windows. Niches to the l.
and r. of the W door and the W window. The aisle windows are identical
on the N and S sides, with depressed heads and panel tracery - four
lights, and five at the W end. The chancel chapels have longer,
straightheaded windows, again identical on the N and S sides and again
with panel tracery. The E window is huge, of five-lights and has an odd
mixture of Perp detail and intersections. Both porches are two-storeyed,
but that on the S side (the earlier - built between 1362 and 1368) is
slightly less sumptuous. Even so it has a main S doorway and subsidiary
doorways from the E and W, three-light side openings, and a star-shaped
tierceron vault. The N porch vault has liernes as well and many bosses.
This porch is taller than the other, in fact almost as high as the
transept, which is most effective when one looks at the church from the
NW. The doorway has large shields in the spandrels, two upper windows
side by side, with fleuron surrounds, a turret at the NW angle which is
higher than the porch, and a figure-frieze below the battlements. There
are even headstops to the gables of the first set-offs of the buttresses.
A similar figure frieze below the battlements can also be noticed in the
N transept, and there are many more minor enrichments, gargoyles etc.
The
interior in its present form is white and bared of all major
furnishings, though there are plenty of smaller objects of devotion
about, mostly bought in recently. The surprising lightness is largely
due to the fact that clear glass is used everywhere. The arcades are the
earliest element of the church. They date from c. 1340. The piers are
quatrefoil with very thin shafts in the diagonals. The two-centred
arches have mouldings with two quadrants. The hood-moulds rest on
comparatively big headstops. The crossing arch belongs to the same C14
church. The C15 rebuilding proceeded as follows: S transept late C14, N
transept c. 1400, N aisle widened and N porch added C. 1445; steeple
probably late C15, chancel and chancel chapels, crossing arches to N, S,
and E, and clerestory c. 1510. The date of the S transept can be
deduced from the fine blank arcading below the S window, with alternating
pointed and coupled ogee arches, all crocketed richly. The date of the N
transept appears in the corresponding arcading on the N side and the
fine Reredos on the E wall with ogee-headed niches and a frieze above in
which Christ appears between censing angels. The tall tower arch and the
vault inside the tower must be C15. The chancel arcades of c. 1510 have
an interesting very complex pier section: semicircular shafts to the
arches, but to the chancel a combination of thin shafts and thin hollows
not having a capital but turning round to the l. and r. above the
arches to form frames. In the arch spandrels is broad simple openwork
tracery. The roofs of all parts of the church are original, and all are
flat-pitched. Tie-beams are used only in the chancel. The figures at the
brackets and the bosses will repay some attention.
FONT CASE AND
COVER. Case with two tiers of traceried panels hiding the font
completely. Top with buttresses, canopies, finial etc., a little broader
and heavier than at Littlebury. - PULPIT. A fine late C17 piece with
garlands hanging down the angles between the panels. The staircase with
twisted balusters does not belong. - COMMUNION RAIL. With twisted
balusters ; c. 1700. - SCREENS to the N and S chapels late C17, with a
frieze of thick openwork foliage scrolls. - DOOR. In the N doorway, with
traceried panels, C15.- ORGAN. Said to have been made by John Harris
for St John’s Chapel, Bedford Row, London in 1703. - BENCHES. A number
of French (?) benches of the mid C17 with tall ends. - STAINED GLASS.
Many figures and other fragments have been distributed over N and S
windows. The most notable are the early C16 figures of Saints in the N
windows, the late C14 figure in the S transept S window, and the stories
from Genesis, with small figures of c. 1450, in a S aisle window. - E
window and N chapel E window by Kempe, the former 1900, the latter 1907.
- PLATE. Cup of 1562 ; large Cup of 1622 ; Paten on foot of 1632 ;
Almsdish of 1795. - MONUMENTS. Brass to a Priest (chancel), c. 1450. The
dearth of monuments more than anything tends to give Thaxted church
that curious atmosphere of remoteness which one cannot help feeling
directly one enters.
Thursday 23 May 2013
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