Radclive, Buckinghamshire

St John the Evangelist was, disappointingly, locked, but with a keyholder listed, to protect against prior theft and vandalism which is a shame as it's an interesting building with Romanesque features, some old glass and a good Norman south door arch.

RADCLIVE. Lying in a sharp bend of a valley rich with elms, where the Ouse receives a stream which comes down the slopes from Gawcott, it has much beauty and many cherished possessions. Between the church and the river the gabled manor house, with handsome chimneys, has a fine old oak screen, whose columns support a moulded cornice with carved spandrels; and the original staircase, with ornamental sides like pierced parapets, still runs up to the attics. On the other side of the church is the timbered Grange,with an avenue of beautiful trees ending in a delightful garden, shaded by a copper beech and a giant cedar.

A battlemented tower which has watched the slow tide of change for 600 years looms over a Norman church with a beautiful English doorway. The Norman font remains. In the porch we found two 15th century benches with elaborately carved poppyheads. A chancel arch 500 years old rests on Norman capitals, the round columns set in a framework of chevrons. Above the arch, under original stones reset, the lion and the unicorn rest on corbels which once supported the rood screen. Two double lancets in the sanctuary are interesting examples of the style immediately before the beginning of tracery. A nave window has fragments of 14th century glass, showing under golden canopies a careworn Madonna carrying the Child, with an Apostle. The most notable woodwork is the altar table, actuallya 16th century chest, its boldly carved panels set between uprights carved with figures. Among them are two bearded heads with halos, one with the hair arranged like the rays of the sun. Rich and elaborate carving covers this extraordinary chest. Another chest, occupying considerable floor space under the tower, is of mahogany, with drawers and brass fittings, a rare piece of 17th century work; and to the same period belong the altar rails, with their pierced banisters, and the plain canopy of the modern pulpit.

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Stowe, Buckinghamshire

Returning to Buckingham I passed by Stowe and stopped. The longest (it's got to be two miles), and straightest, drive leads you up to a triumphal arch and then in the distance lies the house.

If you need more you'll find it here.

STOWE. A wonderful place it is to come upon, even in our countryside of wonder, for it has that famous house to which so much genius has paid tribute - Sir John Vanbrugh, Sir John Soane, Robert Adam, and Grinling Gibbons; and it is a rich experience to come to it by the three mile avenue from Buckingham or the avenue with broad green verges from the village of Water Stratford.

If We come from Buckingham the stately arch designed by Lord Camelford brings us into the park of 800 acres with classical buildings dotted about - an obelisk in memory of General Wolfe, an ornamental bridge across a lovely lake, a column with the prows and sterns of Roman galleys projecting from it and a Roman lady crowning it. On a small hill is what is known as the Queen’s Temple, now restored in perfect taste as a temple of music, with a fine Roman mosaic eight feet square in the floor.

Stowe House has saved itself from the disaster of these days by becoming a great public school, in many ways one of the luckiest in
England, for it has no space problems. Its front must be about a quarter of a mile long, and its gardens (in which Capability Brown learned gardening) seem to have no end.

The house is impressive on either side and marvellous indoors and out. On both sides are great colonnades and sculptures; on one side a statue of George the First and on the other a central colonnade of six huge columns is approached by 30 steps, guarded by a lion. Great columns flank windows to right and left, and everywhere are statues and sculptures and plaster reliefs. The colonnade leads us into an immense round hall, impressive with columns of coloured marble. Above them runs a frieze with hundreds of figures in a triumphal Roman procession, and above this rises a dome with diamond-shaped panels. To right and left of the hall are the common rooms of the school; where the society gossips of the Georges whispered scandal, we find today a splendid library, a great reading room, and dining halls. On the walls are portraits by Peter Lely and Godfrey Kneller.

A little apart stands the chapel designed for the school by Sir Robert Lorimer, creator of the national memorial in Edinburgh to the Scots who fell in the Great War. The west front of the chapel has four great columns, and over the door is a square tympanum with a relief in wood of David killing the lion. The lofty interior has fluted columns on each side, with stalls between them richly carved and bright with painted shields. Here is panelling from the old chapel, some of it originally from the home of the Grenvilles in Cornwall, and let into the panelling are some little masterpieces of Grinling Gibbons. Every chair on the floor is carved with the name of a scholar. High on the walls are angels in stone, all looking to the altar, and high above the altar is a small round window glinting with rich glass.

Surprising, it seems, to come upon a medieval church in this great park, but here remains the 13th century shrine at which worshipped the village folk of Dadford, Boycott, and Lamport, hamlets round the park. The tower is 14th century, and over its doorway is a 14th century crucifix. We come in through a 15th century porch guarded by a statue of a man removed from a tomb and set up here on his feet.

It was in the 16th century that the owners of Stowe built their chapel here. In it is a lovely altar tomb on which lies Martha Penystone, with her feet resting on a hound appearing ready to spring. On a shelf at the foot of the tomb, her small hands loosely laid on her dress, her mouth about to break into a smile, lies Martha’s little daughter Hester, born in the summer of 1612 to die in a few short weeks. The portrait of another little child, an Elizabethan boy, shows him in complete Tudor costume as if he were grown up, and the brass is curious for its inscription which tells us that he was born on October 31, 1592, and died on January 1, 1592. It is quite correct for New Year’s Day was then in March. On another brass is Alice Saunders in the butterfly headdress fashionable about 1480.

Above the altar of the chapel is a window in memory of the last Duke and Duchess of Buckingham, who passed away towards the end of last century. The light of the window falls on to a reredos standing out with all the beauty given to it by a Jacobean craftsman; it appears to have been an overmantel, and has two arches carved with bearded figures having cloaks over their shoulders.

The Procession of Life in a Great House.

STOWE has seen a remarkable procession of men within its walls. It was Sir Richard Temple who built it, the forgotten inspirer of a never forgotten line in English poetry. Who but for Pope would ever recall him now? To his own generation (he died in 1749) he was a sturdy patrician, turning from peace to war, and from war to government, with brave integrity. Today he owes the fact that he is remembered to the poet he housed and befriended at Stowe. As a wealthy young baronet he shared in the campaigns of Marlborough, and distinguished himself in battles of which posterity, like little Peterkin, asks what they were all about. He deserves to be held in remembrance for having revolted against the corruption of Walpole’s ministry, for having endured dismissal from high military command, for demanding the prosecution of the ring-leaders of the South Sea Bubble, and for having lifted up an unappeasable voice against the subservience of British interests to the Hanoverians, and the sending of English soldiers to fight in Hanover’s quarrels.

All this tumult and vexation happened in 1733, which explains the significance of the date set out in heavy type above the dedication of the first of Pope’s Moral Essays, inscribed to Temple. The dull but fiery poet had a genuine aflection for the soldier-statesman, and added to his own reputation by having so considerable a national figure among his intimates. The political storm passed, and Temple was made Viscount Cobham and a Field Marshal and died beloved and widely mourned. The public memory is short, and the Cobham of social and political history receded into oblivion, so that today it is only in Pope’s lines that we remember him:

And you, brave Cobham! to the latest breath
Shall feel your ruling passion strong in death.

Of the three Dukes of Buckingham who lived at Stowe the first two exhausted their resources in collecting treasures, bringing about a bankruptcy for the third to redeem. Richard Grenville, elder son of the Marquis of Buckingham, was born in 1776, and for a quarter of a century was known as Earl Temple, by which title he sat for 16 years in the House of Commons, sometimes supporting and sometimes opposing his cousin Pitt. He married the only child of the third Duke of Chandos, and at 46 was created Duke of Buckingham and Chandos. He poured out wealth on pictures, statues, books, and manuscripts, entertained the royal family of France. with princely munificence, and impoverished himself so much that he had to seek seclusion abroad. Returning after two years, he wrote an account of his travels, became Steward of the Household, and spent his declining years among his treasures, grieved at having to sell many of them to keep the wolf from the door.

His son Richard Grenville was the second duke, known for many years as Marquis of Chandos. He so consistently opposed Free Trade as to gain the title of the Farmer’s Friend. The rent-roll of his estate was £100,000 a year, but the property was deeply encumbered; yet he continued to buy land, and to entertain like a prince. While owing his creditors over a million, he added to his liabilities by prodigal hospitality to Queen Victoria; it was on a visit here that the Queen first met Disraeli privately. Two years later bailiffs took possession of the house, and dealers from all parts of Europe attended the 40-day sale of pictures, china, plate, and furniture. The library was dispersed, the manuscripts were sold, and the duke was censured by The Times as a spendthrift. He died in 1861.

The third duke, an upright and honourable man, laboured to repair the ruin of the family fortunes, and succeeded in paying off the bulk of the debts. He was a humane and brilliant Governor of Madras during a period of terrible famine, a successful railway chairman, and chairman of committees in the House of Lords. He died in 1889.

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Lillingstone Dayrell, Buckinghamshire

Taking advantage of a football tournament in Buckingham I took time out to visit what I suppose could be called our ancestral church (my grandparents, great grandparents and gg grandparents are all buried at St Nicholas and their monuments and various memorials are extant).

My GG Grandfather, Abraham John, largely paid for a refurbishment in 1868 and it was pretty thorough but interest is retained with some fine Romanesque features, both the chancel and tower arches are particularly good and the Easter sepulchre and sedilla are worthy of note and the Dayrell monuments (to which family I also connect) are generally interesting - the older ones more so. Sadly the glass is execrable and mostly installed by my family on what looks like the cheap - they were after all Bankers. Best of all are the medieval tiles in the chancel, which were impossible to photograph properly due to the light (too much).

Architecturally I found it a bit odd but that's mainly down to a different building material - I'm used to flint and clunch - and the spireless tower; the setting, indeed the county, is stunning and (setting family affiliations aside) this is a gem of a church.

LILLINGSTONE DAYRELL. The house of the Dayrells, Old Tile House, has fallen from its high estate but still bears over the porch the arms of the family who lived in this place for 500 years and watched over the little church set down in the fields near a lily pond. The park of Stowe school now runs close to the boundary.

The church was already old when the first Paul Dayrell and his wife were laid to rest here in 1491, in an altar tomb with their brass portraits on the top, Paul in elaborate plate armour with his feet on a lion and Margaret in a fur-trimmed gown. A grand tomb in the middle of the chancel reminds us of another Paul and his wife who died 75 years later, when it was the fashion to build gorgeous memorials with Italian columns and ornate designs. Small figures of their nine sons and six daughters are shown on the sides of the tomb, kneeling. On the top lie Paul and Dorothy, imposing figures, he in armour, Dorothy very grand in an embroidered robe, fur tippet, and pulled sleeves. Hanging from the wall is a faded red velvet curtain embroidered in gold and white, bearing the Dayrell motto Do Well, and the date 1659. Near it are two helmets with little goats in wood, the Dayrell crest. The last Dayrell remembered in the church served as vicar for 51 years. A wall tablet tells that he was buried here in 1832.

Time has dealt gently with the church. Its walls, built soon after the landing of the Conqueror, still stand, and we see the alterations made when the early Gothic builders repaired the Norman work. The tower and chancel arch are untouched. In the tower the 13th century men cut a long lancet window, and we can stand today on the floor of the church looking through it to the little window that lighted the priest’s room, where he sat with a look-out on the altar. The engraved headless figure in brass of one of these priests, who was rector in 1493, is set in the middle of a huge black stone under a broad arch in the chancel wall, opposite the stalls (divided by round columns with beaded capitals) in which he sat with his choir men.

We cross the chancel reverently, for here are tiles laid by workmen to whom great beauty was an everyday sight. They are very rare, some with crowned heads at the corners. A few were made in the 14th century, others earlier, baked in the time of Magna Carta, when an aisle was added to the nave and the chancel was rebuilt. The chancel has a steep-pitched roof, a 13th century Easter sepulchre, and stone seats for the priests.

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Boadicea

also known as Boudicca.

Wickham Bishops, Essex P2

St Peter [in the care of The Friends of Friendless Churches] is redundant and now in use as a stained glass studio which seems rather appropriate; much better than conversion into domestic use.

Pevsner incorrectly names St Peter:

ST BARTHOLOMEW. 1850 by Ewan Christian. Quite ambitious, of freestone with a tall steeple with spire. With the erection of this church the old church became superfluous.

ST BARTHOLOMEW. The old church stands 1 m. SW of the new. It consists of nave and chancel with a small belfry. The only remaining feature of special interest is the SE quoin of Roman bricks, evidence of the Early Norman origin of the church.

WICKHAM BISHOPS. In the fields, a few yards from the 15th century doorway of a cottage, we came upon an ill-used and deserted church with a shingle spire on a wooden turret. The Normans built it, using Roman bricks for the corners of the chancel and Roman tiles for a doorway. The doorway has been replaced with a medieval brick porch, and there is still hanging in it a door 500 years old. We found the tie-beams of the 15th century roof still strong, but the rest was a picture of desolation, with the pavement broken round the font, which had a lid 500 years ago to prevent the holy water from being stolen for black magic. On the altar is a gravestone with the word Resurgam, and we may hope it will be prophetic for the old church. Only its 600-year-old chest has been moved to the new church with the lofty spire.

Still ringed round with its moat is Wickham Hall, a timbered Stuart house with 15th century glass painted with lively little birds.

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Pevsner on Waltham Abbey

WALTHAM ABBEY is no more than a fragment of what it was: a Norman nave, a C14 chapel, a C14 W wall, and a C16 W tower.At the E  end at least two thirds of the building have gone, and nearly all the monastic buildings have gone. The abbey was founded in 1030 as a collegiate church of secular canons. It was built or rebuilt with some pomp by Harold and consecrated in 1060. We have no date after that, until we come to 1177, the re-foundation as an abbey of Augustinian Canons In 1184 it was given the dignity of a ‘mitred abbey’, and it soon became one of the most prosperous and important abbeys e in the country. It is teasing for the historian that for the main part of the surviving building no dates exist to guide him. In addition, until 1938, no guidance existed either as to the extent and character of the work which followed the re-foundation of 1177. The extent is now known, though not yet the character. The one is due to excavations carried out in 1938-9, the other to their limited scope. The Early English abbey meant the addition to the Norman nave and crossing of a whole church, that is a choir longer than the Norman nave, an E transept bigger than the Norman transept and a long and large retrochoir. It must have dwarfed the Norman parts completely, and may have looked something like Canterbury Cathedral before the nave was rebuilt in the C14. But we do not know the style of 1177 etc. at Waltham. The E parts of the abbey were pulled down after the Dissolution.

The Norman crossing which had been left standing in 1177 was then also pulled down. So all that survives of Norman architecture is nave and aisles, a nave, no more than seven bays long. It seems, except for C14 adjustments at the W end and C19 adjustments at the E end, to be all of a piece, but reveals to the attentive observer many puzzling irregularities. The present E wall is an infilling of the CI9 across the W arch of the crossing and the aisle arches into the transepts. This is clearly visible from the outside, where also one S transept W window can be noticed, which now leads into the C14 chapel (see below). Below it is exposed coarse rubble masonry, laid herringbone-wise.

The exterior of the nave is simple: aisle windows with nook-shafts, circular gallery windows, and clerestory windows with nook-shafts and some zigzag decoration - all much renewed. The Norman S doorway of two orders, with an upcurved lintel and zigzag in the arches is in its surface, it seems, wholly C19. The inside is much more impressive. It has something of the sturdy force of Durham Cathedral, though neither its size nor its proportions. The system of elevation which applies throughout is that of nearly all major Anglo-Norman churches: arcade-gallery-clerestory. It is baffling, though only for a moment, that the gallery is deprived of its floor so that the aisles are now much higher than they were meant to appear. The arcades have supports alternating between superordinate composite piers, and subordinate round ones. The gallery openings are large and un-subdivided. The clerestory has the usual English arrangement of a wall-passage and, towards the nave, an arcade of three arches for each bay, with the middle arch wider and taller.

In detail the most striking of all features of Waltham is the deeply grooved circular piers - a detail familiar from Durham, and also from Norwich, nearer Waltham. These piers are spiral-grooved in the first circular pair from the E, zigzag grooved in the second, and left plain in the third. The composite piers have a buttress-like broad flat projection to the nave with a demi-shaft attached, and this projection with its shaft runs up to the ceiling without any break. The capitals are big and heavy, single- or double-scalloped. Above the first circular pier from the E they project a little more boldly than above the others. These first circular piers have also different bases, and the E respond (as also the E arch of the S aisle), is different in one detail from the W responds. Of the four capitals of the three respond shafts, the middle one is a little deeper on the E side. In the arches a difference of a similar nature can be detected. The arches have all zigzag ornamentation on the faces, but in the E ones the inner zigzag goes fairly deeply into the soffits as well - again a sign of a bolder, more three-dimensional treatment. It finds its parallel in the W crossing arch high up.* Again, looking at the arcade from the aisles, it will be noticed that in the W parts each pier, including the subordinate circular ones, has attached demi-shafts, introduced no doubt to carry transverse arches on which to support groined vaults or simply the gallery floors. Only the eastern-most circular pier has no such attachment. Finally, looking at the same pier once more from the nave, a small corbel-head will be noticed, on the N as well as the S side, immediately above the column, as if to support a wall-shaft, never built. The wall-shafts start only at gallery level, as they do in the W parts as well.

Now for the gallery. Here the E bay piers have three shafts towards the arch openings, the W bays only two. The existence of these shafts incidentally indicates that the gallery openings were originally subdivided or meant to be subdivided. In the W the arches themselves have billet-decorated hood-moulds; in the E these are absent. Another distinction on the level of the gallery refers to S as against N. The corbels on which the wall-shafts between the arches rest are plain on the S side, but carved into heads on the N. Perhaps that shows no more than that carving of such details, where it was done, was done aprés la pose.

In the clerestory there are even more differences. The W bays on the N side have round piers between the arches and a plain moulding of the stilted centre-arches in each group of three. The capitals are scalloped with a little decoration between the scallops. On the S side the piers are quatrefoil in plan, and the middle arches stand on a short second tier of shafts. The arches themselves have roll-mouldings. The N and S E bays however have an alternation of circular and octagonal piers and on both sides the subsidiary shafts and roll-mouldings. .

Now what does all this minor evidence indicate of the building history of the Norman nave? Taken together it can mean only one thing: that the E double bay was built later than the bays further W. That is surprising, because of the familiar fact that medieval churches were built from the E to the W. It is however quite conceivable that Harold’s chancel of 1060 was allowed to remain, when a new nave was begun and that only in the course of building the decision was taken to renew the E parts as well. As for dates, the earliest grooved columns seem to be those at Durham of c. 1095-1100. Those at Norwich are datable before 1119. The plain, heavy ground-floor capitals at Waltham Abbey look more C11 than C12. But the arches have zigzag decoration from the beginning, and zigzag does not occur anywhere in England before c. 1105-10. So that date may mark the beginning of the W parts including their gallery. The clerestory was then erected on the N side, then that on the S, and then finally the E bays were tackled and erected including their clerestory and the arches to the crossing and transept. They may well belong to the mid C12 or even a little later.

Of the C13 - this has been said with regret before - nothing can be seen and little said, before excavations have been resumed and concluded.

The early C14 added a S chapel, W of the W transept. It is now the Lady Chapel. Externally it has flint and stone bands, a very unusual W window, of three times two-lights, with a straight head and Dec tracery, three fine three-light S windows, also with Dec tracery and buttresses between them enriched with recesses. The chapel itself stands on a vaulted undercroft of two bays with chamfered ribs and small windows decorated by head-stops. The chapel is not vaulted. Inside the W window is a delightful detached three-light arcade with pierced spandrels. Also early in the C14 the W end of the church was rebuilt. To this rebuilding belong the westernmost windows of the aisles with the pretty niches against the W buttresses, the arches replacing the arches of the Norman gallery inside towards the W end, the last bay on the S side of the clerestory and the W front. The remains of this are now only visible inside the tower. The portal is single. It is deep enough to allow for a very shallow vault which is carried on four columns. The outer columns are a normal order of portal columns, the inner are placed on diagonal seats which form the sides of the little vaulted portal niche. The jambs and arch of the doorway are decorated with fleurons. Above the doorway is a gable and in the spandrel a circle with a quatrefoils placed. To the l. and r. of the doorway are the beginnings of blank shafted niches as they were so usual in English church fronts. The outer W portal of the tower is of the same date and apparently re-used. It has three orders of columns with foliated capitals and fleurons in the arches, all very defaced. In date all this work seems a little earlier than the S chapel, as ogee arches do not appear anywhere.

The W tower was added after the Dissolution in 1556-8, as a characteristic sign of the change-over from monastic to parochial.+ It has irregular flint and stone chequer-work below, and ashlar facing in the often restored upper parts. The stones were taken, it is said, from the crossing tower which had collapsed in 1552. The buttresses are placed diagonally and carry square pinnacles also in a diagonal position. Each side has two two-light bell-openings. The E wall was re-modelled by W. Burges in 1859-60 with all the robust ugliness which that architect liked. Extremely short columns with thick shaft-rings and thick crocket capitals, plenty of carved figure work and a big wheel window above - astoundingly loud after the silent severity of the nave.

FONT. Of Purbeck marble, octagonal, C12 or C13, absolutely plain. - PULPIT. Good, mid C17. At the angles tapering pilasters, in the panels elaborate frames crowned by open segmental pediments. This pulpit is now kept in the S chapel. The new pulpit was designed by Burges and made in 1876. - SCREEN, at W end of N aisle. The heavy construction and the simple tracery indicate a C14 date. - REREDOS. With four big carved reliefs. Designed by Burges. - SCULPTURE. Exceedingly fine small early C14 figure from a former reredos, at the E end of the S aisle. - PAINTING. On the E wall of the Lady Chapel. Doom; CI4, very faded. - Ceiling of the nave, in the style of the original work at Peterborough; by Sir Edward Poynter. - STAINED GLASS. The E window by Burne-Jones, 1861, and made by Powell’s, in its vigorously stylized composition and figure design and its glow of colour amongst the best glass done in the C19, much bolder than most Morris & Co. glass and much richer in the scale of colours used. Almost as remarkable and as daring the E window of the S aisle by Henry Holiday, 1864. - The recent glass by A. K. Nicholson looks very anaemic in comparison. - PILLORY and WHIPPING POST now kept in the S chapel. - PLATE. Paten on foot of 1561, with bands of ornament; large Cup of 1633; large Paten on foot of 1674. -
MONUMENTS.- BRASSES with wood and stone surrounds of 1555 and 1576 (S aisle). - Sir Edward Denny d. 1599 and wife. Standing wall monument. Two semi-reclining effigies, the man behind and a little above the woman. Shallow coffered arch and flanking columns. In the spandrels figures of Fame and Time. Strapwork cartouche against the back wall. By Isaac James and Bartholomew Adye (Mrs Esdaile). - Lady Gray d. 1619. The stiff figure only is preserved. - Capt. Robert Smith d. 1697. Tomb-chest with a relief of trophies and a ship, called Industria. To the l. and r. arms and cherubs’ head used instead of volutes. - James and Hester Spilman d. 1763. Fine monument with the usual cherub standing by a sarcophagus against a grey obelisk. Two portrait heads in profile at the foot. - Caroline Chinnery d. 1812. Plain, elegantly shaped urn on a pillar. On the urn in good lettering the one word Caroline. - Thomas Leverton (the architect) d. 1824. By Kendrick. The usual design with a woman weeping over an urn.

The Cloister of the monastery lay N of the long E.E. choir. All that remains of it is a PASSAGE which led N from the NE angle of the cloister. It is of two bays, rib-vaulted on shafts with waterleaf capitals, and must belong to the late C12. In addition the Abbey GATEHOUSE survives, N of the W front of the church. This is of the later C14 and has to the outside a wide entrance for carriages and a small one for pedestrians. The large one has angels as label-stops. Of the angle turrets only one is preserved. The S wall should be examined with care, as it seems to have brickwork contemporary with the building, that is of exceptionally early date. The BRIDGE leading to the gatehouse is also attributed to the C14.

* Another parallel is in the exterior in the clerestory windows, where the E. bays have windows starting lower down, and zigzag etc. going into the arch soffits.
+ Another parochial feature introduced at an unknown date is the rood-beam, the sawn-off ends of which can still be seen above the second piers from the E.

Pevsner on Thaxted

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.