Lolworth, Cambridgeshire

All Saints, open, is a small aisless building although the arcades of both north and south aisles are in evidence. I was pleasantly surprised to find it open and very high Anglo-Catholic.

ALL SAINTS. Not in the village. A small church with a C14 W tower without battlements. Tower arch towards the nave without capitals. Nave and chancel, no aisles, though restoration has exposed the blocked arcades of former aisles. These were of the early C14, and the N aisle windows seem to have been re-used, when the arcades were blocked. The chancel had large N and S windows, now also blocked, and an E window of the C19. For the dating of the church a fragment of a frieze is important which shows ball-flower and flowers strung along a tendril. The motif occurs identical in the splendid church of Over. It belongs to c. 1320. If this date is correct, then the re-dedication of 1406 certainly does not imply major rebuilding. - FONT. Octagonal, Perp, with traceried stem and pointed quatrefoils on the panels of the bowl. - WALL PAINTING. Doubting Thomas, nave N wall, not too easily recognizable; C14. - PLATE. Chalice, Paten and Flagon, made at Exeter in 1740.

LOLWORTH. We may stand on the Roman road and see its medieval tower rising above its thatched cottages. It looks down on a field called Burnt Close (from a fire which bumt down most of the village and the aisles of the church 600 years ago). It has been a small place ever since, never recovering, but it sent a score of men to the war, and in memory of three who did not come back it has restored the church and the old tower. In the tower an ancient door still opens to the belfry, latticed with fine old ironwork. There is a 600-year-old font, an ancient coffin stone, a 14th century wallpainting with small figures of Unbelieving Thomas, and engraved in alabaster in the chancel are two ladies of the Langley family of long ago, their hands at prayer. They wear belts with their low-necked gowns and have butterfly headdresses.

Flickr.