Gosfield, Essex

I expected St Catherine to be attached to Gosfield Hall, which is now a private school, so blithely drove up the drive only to see the church some distance away on the other side of some fields so did a U turn and followed my nose to the site. On first sight it appears to be a humdrum, run of the mill church but closer inspection reveals what appears to be a double chancel  and the interior definitely returns value for money (had one shelled out).

This is de Vere country and it is no surprise to learn that the first church was built by Aubrey de Vere, 3rd Earl of Oxford, in 1190. As one approaches Gosfield church through the lych gate a silver star can be seen, painted on the corner buttress. It is the de Vere star or mullet of the Earls of Oxford. When the buttress was rebuilt in 1560 the 16th Earl had just paid for a new roof to the chancel, and as a compliment to him his star was placed on the east, the corner of the church which looks towards Hedingham, the seat of the Earl.

In 1435 the church was rebuilt and in the 16th century Sir John Wentworth added the Tudor chapel which leads to the allusion of a double chancel. There is a Purbeck tomb in the chapel is dated 1554 and carries an inscription commemorating 'Sur Hew Ryche' (eldest son of Lord Chancellor Rich - see Felsted) 'who maryed Anne the Daughter and Ayre of Sur John Wentworth knyght'. But there are rivet holes of former brasses and again the tomb is said to be earlier than its inscription.

Above the chapel is a Georgian family pew.It was built in 1736 to commemorate John Knight, MP, by his widow, later Countess Nugent. The memorial pew, with its opening looking into the nave, is now used as a choir vestry. It houses a handsome plaster ceiling and a remarkable memorial (looking somewhat out of place) by Rysbreck, the famous 18th century sculptor. The daughter of Mr and Mrs John Knight married George Grenville, first Marquess of Buckingham, who introduced straw-plaiting as a village industry in 1790. Straw hats were made, and the Buckinghams publicised the hats by wearing them around the village. The Marquess, we are told, "hung his straw hat ostentatiously over the front of the Hall pew". The Marchioness is commemorated in the hatchment on the north wall of the Wentworth chapel. The three hatchments over the Tudor arches in the chancel are to the Sparrow family of Gosfield Place (a house now demolished).


ST KATHARINE. Entirely of the C15 and C16. The most interesting parts are the N chancel chapel and the S side of the chancel with large very domestic-looking Perp windows, straight-headed, of four lights with a transome and arched heads to all lights. These parts are as late as c. 1560. The arcade to the N chapel has a pier with a lozenge-shaped chamfered section and four-centred arches. Of the C15 the W tower with diagonal buttresses and a large transomed W window, and the chancel E window of four lights with an embattled transome and much panel tracery. The C18 made a remarkable addition, a square brick room W of the N chapel with a Venetian window to the W. It is a squire’s pew and at the same time a family chapel. The squire’s family of the name of Knight sat somewhat elevated and could look at the altar from behind a velvet-covered parapet. And the congregation could see, behind the arch of this theatre-box, against the N wall of the room, the large and magnificent MONUMENT to John Knight d. 1733 and his wife d. 1756. It is by Rysbrack (Mrs Webb quotes his sale catalogue and suggests that it may have been begun by Guelfi). T. K. Cromwell in 1818 wrote that the monument was made by Scheemakers under the direction of Pope. The two white marble figures are seated, with an urn between them. The sculptural quality is high. The chapel has a handsome plaster ceiling too. In the N chapel various earlier monuments. Large tomb-chests of Purbeck marble with black marble tops to Sir Hugh Rich d. 1554 and Sir John Wentworth d. 1567. The one has on the chest elaborate quatrefoil etc. panels, the other blank arcading. - all the motifs still entirely Gothic. A third and earlier tomb-chest (with plain quatrefoil decoration) in a recess in the S wall of the chancel. - Thomas Roye 1440 in the robes of a Sergeant-at-Law. Brass on tombchest with quatrefoil panels.-BENCHENDS in the chancel, with poppy heads, probably late C16. - PANELLING with Early Renaissance decoration of a style frequently found in houses, c. 1550, along the back of the chancel seats. - PLATE. An unusually fine set; all gilt. Elaborately engraved Cup of 1604; Cover with steeple top of 1604; large chased Cup of 1610; Cover with steeple top of 1613 (?); engraved Paten on foot 1704; large Flagon of 1704.

The master says:

GOSFIELD. Beautiful with its heritage of parklands, it has welcomed a queen in her glory, housed a treacherous Chancellor, and sheltered a fugitive king. Its cottages blend harmoniously with the scene, some backing on the grounds of its great houses, Gosfield Place and Gosfield Hall.

The hall, with a charming lake of 50 acres, stands in grounds rich in cedars, tulip trees, and spreading shrubberies. Here came Queen Elizabeth as the guest of Lord Rich, of whom we read at Felstead. Wealthy from the spoil of the monasteries, he owned a great part of the county, including the hall which Sir John Wentworth had built. Two wings of Wentworth’s house remain with their stately chimneys and splendid windows, and an entire floor is occupied by what is called Queen Elizabeth’s Gallery, over 100 feet long.

There was an earlier hall here than Wentworth’s, the home of the Rolfs, who 500 years ago built the church in a corner of the park by the lake, where the 17th century vicarage keeps it company, shaded by a great oak. The tower with its lofty arch is 15th century; so are the double doors in a doorway over which a queen and a bishop keep watch in the modern porch; so are the nave and chancel. The north chapel, a century younger, was converted in the 18th century into a raised chamber for the owners of the hall. An altar tomb of 1440 has a brass portrait of Thomas Rolf in the robes of a sergeant-at-law. There are only three such brasses of the period, and this is the most famous of the three for its perfect detail.

In the private chapel, its walls decorated with shields, its ceiling elaborate with plaster foliage, is the monumental tomb by Scheemakers showing the fine figures of John and Anne Knight, he in Roman costume, resting his hand on her shoulder, she touching her brilliantly coloured shield.

A beautiful window in the tower, with St Elizabeth, St Catherine, St George, and the story of the Good Samaritan, is to George Courtauld and his wife, founder of the great silk firm which bears his name. The sanctuary window, with scenes from the life of Christ, is in memory of Susannah Courtauld, who died at the hall in 1879. ln a chancel window are fragments of red, blue, and yellow 15th century glass. There are two other fine tombs, one of which has coloured and enamelled shields, and the chancel walls have Tudor linen-fold and friezes carved with grotesques and mermaids.


Flickr set.

Great Canfield, Essex

St Mary the Virgin is locked but with this sign on the notice board:

Despite the number I didn't phone having had a frustrating day of locked churches wherever I went and so settled for exterior shots only. I'm not sure that I would have been able to gain access on the day anyway, the note sort of implies that you have to book an appointment rather than collect a key and I didn't particularly care for the tone of the note! For all that this is a charming church and an internet search reveals an interesting interior with a nice double headed monument to Sir William Wyseman and his wife (according to Mee there are two further Wyseman monuments - see below), a 13th century fresco of the Madonna and child and several columns carved with pagan symbols and swastikas, so it's probably worth arranging a visit at a later date.

ST MARY. Nave and chancel and belfry with recessed shingled spire. This is of the C15, as is the embattled stone S porch. Otherwise the church is essentially Norman. Norman nave and chancel N and S windows, as in many village churches. In addition a plain N doorway with columns with carved zigzag pattern and a more ornate S doorway with ornamented capitals (the l. one with a bearded face and two birds pecking at it), a tympanum with flat concentric zigzag decoration probably meaning the Sun, roll mouldings and a billet moulding. The remarkable feature of the church is the Norman chancel arch (one order of columns with scalloped capitals and arch with an outer  billet moulding*) behind which, at the E end of the straightheaded chancel, appear three round arches. Those to the l. and r. contain small windows, that in the middle must always have been connected with some form of reredos. It now enshrines a WALL PAINTING of the Virgin and Child seated which is one of the best C13 representations of the subject in the whole country, full of tenderness. It is drawn in red, with some yellow. Other colours have disappeared. The ornamental borders and other decoration around, also in the adjoining windows, is mostly of the stiff-leaf type. The date must be c. 1250 (cf. the Matthew Paris manuscripts). - PLATE. Cup and Paten of 1577. - MONUMENTS. Brass to John Wyseman and wife d. 1558, both figures kneeling, and children behind (chancel, floor). - Brass to Thomas Fytche, wife d. 1588 and children (chancel, floor). - Monument to Sir William Wyseman d. 1684 and wife with demi-figures holding hands, below a segmental pediment. Good. - Also Floor Slab to Lady Wiseman in the chancel floor. Black marble with no words but Anne/Lady Wiseman/1662.

 

GREAT CANFIELD. Behind the church and cottages of this quiet and charming place is a dense clump of trees. They spring from a mound 50 feet high and 280 feet wide, over which the walls of the castle keep of the De Veres rose high in the days of the Normans. Beyond it are the ramparts of the outer defences, which covered seven acres, and all round this great fortress we can walk in a dry moat 45 feet wide at its base and filled in ancient days by water from the River Roding. Aubrey de Vere, Great Chamberlain of England 800 years ago, dwelt here in a castle, probably built of wood, of which nothing remains. But the church by the moat has lost little of the beauty he gave it.

This little shrine is one of the most perfect Norman buildings in Essex. Save for the extension for the bell-turret added in the 13th century its walls stand as the Normans built them. Both the door­ways are richly carved, and in one the mason surpassed himself, the tympanum being filled with zigzags converging in circles, as if flashes of lightning had been transfixed in stone. So hard a stone did he choose that the tiny eyes still peep from the faces he carved on the capitals of the shafts. Two birds peck the bushy beard on one face and rolls of ribbon flow from the mouth of the other. On one of the posts are five fylfot crosses, one of the earliest of Christian symbols, and known to early man, carved on prehistoric monuments found in Italy, and something like the swastika.

The interior of the church is designed in a masterly way, the chancel arch perfect as a frame for a group of arches over the altar. A nearer view reveals a wall-painting as rare as it is lovely, a primitive masterpiece as old as any in our National Gallery and the work of an English artist. The painting shows a Madonna in a yellow robe nursing an infant Jesus; she sits serene on a throne raised on a dais, and experts declare that she was seated quietly here when Robert de Vere set out from the castle hard by to go to Runnymede.

The preservation of this painting is due to an act of vanity. On a side wall is an elaborate monument of Sir William Wyseman, holding the hand of his wife. When the monasteries were dissolved this family became all powerful in Great Canfield, so that there was no one to say nay when they decided to use the niche as a background for this monument. It was not till recent tunes that it was removed and the wall-painting found.

John Wyseman with his wife and their ten children are kneeling at prayer. He had grown grey in the hard business of auditing the accounts of Henry the Eighth, though he seems to have made a fortune for himself. Here, too, is his daughter Agnes with her husband John Fytche, who stands proudly with his head high and the date of Armada year on his tomb.

Flickr set.

Bocking, Essex

St Mary the Virgin is magnificent, and huge and locked. When I arrived there was a mother and toddler group in session and my courage to look round the inside of the church whilst this was ongoing failed me. This was a mistake since when I returned on my way home, having assumed that the mother and toddler group indicated an open church, it was locked. This is a shame since Mee indicates that there are some fine ornaments within.

It dates mainly from the 15th and 16th centuries but was heavily restored in the 19th and is built of flint rubble with limestone dressings. Carvings on the nave roof include the knot of the Bourchier family, the mullet of the de Veres and the leopard head of the Flitch family, apparently. There three brasses, two from the 17th century and one from the 15th. If the exterior accurately reflects the interior, I really regret not having the balls to gate crash the mothers with their toddlers weekly get together, after all the worst that could have happened is that they asked me to leave! Hey Ho I suppose, as my boys would say, I need to grow a pair.

Mee has a lot to say about Bocking but it should be noted that the Courtaulds factory has long since departed:

BOCKING. It has kept much of its ancient beauty and has not sold its soul to industry, but it shares with its neighbour Braintree the prosperity of the great industry in rayon. Here has been developed one of the great ideas of our time, artificial silk, and the fine factory is side by side with the church, old and new together. Bocking was a village when Samuel Courtauld began his work at the beginning of last century; little did he dream that the end of it would be, a hundred years later, the wizardry of transmuting trees into trousseaus.

The Courtaulds were Huguenot refugees driven from France to England in the 17th century. They produced, a hundred years after that, an industrious idealist who was successively silk-weaver, paper-maker, and miller in Kent and Essex, then going to America to die in the attempt to found a perfect community. It was his son Samuel who started his silk factory here. Samuel's brother George returned from America to join the little firm, which linked the manufacture of crepe to the silk business, reached almost worldwide fame, and built up the nucleus of the financial resources from which immense developments were to spring. Courtauld succeeded Courtauld.

Synthetic chemists had long dreamed of copying the silkworm whose caterpillar, eating mulberry leaves, transforms the result into a gummy fluid which, on entering the air by way of its spinnerets, instantly becomes silk. The first man to rival the silkworm was actually Sir Joseph Swan, who patented a process for the con­version of cotton into a sort of artificial silk to serve as the filament of his electric lamp, in the invention of which he beat the famous Edison; and a Frenchman took up the idea and established fac­tories for the production of synthetic yarn by treating cellulose with acid. There were other efforts towards the same end, but the master process was found in that evolved, after 12 years of research, by two English chemists who sold the rights to Courtaulds. Today the rayon process marches with the accuracy and precision of a familiar experiment in a chemist's laboratory. They order their materials, treat them according to formula, and produce silks and fabrics with unerring accuracy. In a Canadian forest in any year of peace are certain spruce trees, 35 years old, which a year hence will be issuing from this factory ready to dress a bride from head to foot and to play a part in furnishing her home.

Such is the wonderful idea which has changed this place from an old-world village to a modern town. It has still a host of old houses, with overhanging gables everywhere. Standing out among them are the three gables of the old Woolpack Inn, built in Elizabethan times with rich beams carved with grotesques and foliage. Close by is Wentworth House, with a 17th century canopy finely carved over the doorway; and on the front of one of the inns there is a carving of a man with a wreath of fruit on his head. At Church End is Doreward's Hall, its splendid Tudor wing impressive with chequered buttresses and magnificent windows. There are farms and cottages that have been here 300 years and more. There is an old post windmill with sails 60 feet long, preserved for ever in a playground for the children; and there is the Deanery, with its 17th century gable and chimneys, so-called because the parson here has the title of dean, the living being what is called a Peculiar, under the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Beside the Deanery is an old barn and a dovecot with 135 nests of lath and plaster, the dovecot interesting because it was built during the residence here of John Gauden, the bishop who imposed a forgery on the world. He created intense interest in a book which was attributed to Charles Stuart - the Eikon Basilike, which pretended to be an account written by the king of his long sufferings, but was actually written by Bishop Gauden. It is believed that a copy was bought the day after the execution, and the volume ran through about 50 editions, calling forth a reply in Milton's Iconoclastes. Gauden, a Bury St Edmunds schoolboy, left a charity to Bocking in memory of his years at the Deanery.

The church, a magnificent 15th century structure, is dwarfed by the factory, which almost touches the Tudor wall round the church­yard; the iron gates on the south side are a peace memorial. The tower is splendid, with pinnacles and double buttresses, niches with carved heads, and rich stone panelling round the base. The fine embattled porch shelters a door covered with ironwork of great beauty, the craftsmanship of a clever smith 700 years ago. The interior is worthy of the impressive exterior, having a remarkable set of old roofs, those of the nave and aisles being 16th century and those in the chancel and the chapels a little older. The bosses show leaves and shields and other carvings. The south chapel has a window with beautiful 14th century tracery, and the net pattern of that period is also seen in the east window, where each space has an angel in modern glass. The lights below are resplendent with portraits of saints and martyrs, among them St Augustine, balanced with a splendid figure of Charles Stuart. Another beautiful window is the gift of two American citizens, Francis and James Goodwin, whose ancestors lived in Booking. The window shows the Annuncia­tion, the Nativity, and the Epiphany, with Bertha, Ethelburga, and other English saints in panels above and below. There are two 17th century chairs elaborately carved, a handsome modern screen, and a Tudor funeral helmet; and on a window shelf when we called was a clock-hand, saying: "From 1731 to 1859 from Bocking tower I told the hour." It had been turning for more than a million hours when it was taken down.

Peeping from under the organ are John Doreward (in the armour worn at Agincourt) and his wife in a horned headdress. Another brass shows Oswald Fitch of Shakespeare's time in his long cloak and ruff, and there is a monument of 1624 with a beautiful figure of Grisell Moore kneeling between fine columns.

Most of the church as we see it would be familiar to the three courageous Bocking people who perished for their faith in the cruel reign of Mary Tudor: Catherine Hut and Richard Spurge, murdered in the name of God at Smithfield in 1556, and William Purcas, who was burned at Colchester in 1557.

Flickr set.

Castle Camps, Cambridgeshire

All Saints was locked with no sign of a keyholder but in this case it is understandable since the church is remote, well remote for an Essex church ("hold on" I hear you mutter "the title says Cambridgeshire", technically it is but in reality it is in a bit of that county that pokes into Essex and as such it feels like Essex).

Since it is locked it's probably not worth going out of your way to visit but if you're passing I'd stop and have a look - well I was and I did.

ALL SAINTS. As the church was built near the castle and the castle has gone, the church lies now impressively alone on an eminence overlooking the country to the S. Flint and stone. W tower with diagonal buttresses (three set-offs), blatantly Victorian W window. Nave much renewed, with a king-post roof, the tiebeams on head-corbels. The chancel S doorway looks earlier: plain double-chamfered surround. - ROOD SCREEN. Only the dado remains. - COMMUNION RAIL. Sturdy turned balusters; late C17. - STAINED GLASS. Canopies in one S window. - MONUMENT. Sir James Reynolds d. 1717, standing wall monument, with short boldly modelled sarcophagus in front of a grey obelisk; vases l. and r.; no effigy.

Arthur is remarkably reticent merely saying:

CASTLE CAMPS. In this pointed corner of the county, surrounded on three sides by Essex, Aubrey de Vere, first Earl of Oxford, built his castle as a defence against all comers. It was held by the de Veres for nearly 400 years after their fighting ancestor died in 1194, and its last remnants fell in the 18th century. Now only the great moat with overhanging trees is left as a reminder of its story, with a farmhouse on the site. The church stands by the moat in glorious isolation, in a lovely bower of trees which crown the hilltop. The best thing about it is the picture it makes as we approach. What it has of old work is chiefly 15th century, with a tower rebuilt after falling last century, and many modern windows. Only the base of the old oak chancel screen is here. The baluster altar rails are 17th century, and there are arms among fragments of old glass.

Flickr set.