Weston, frequently referred to the fabric of the Church of Sutton St.
Mary and to the interesting Transitional work it contains.
The origin of the church is clearly shown by a charter, given at the
close of the twelfth century (about 1180), by which the site was conveyed
to the monastery of Castle Acre in Norfolk.
“Know all men present and to come, that I, William son of
Erneis, by the permission of Nicholaa, my wife, give and grant
and by this my charter confirm, to God and S. Mary of Acre and
the monks serving God, three acres in Sutton, in the field
which is called ‘the old fenland,’ near a road, to build a
parish church, as a free and perpetual gift for the salvation
of my soul and of Nicholaa, my wife, and for the soul of my
father, Robert son of Erneis, and the soul of my mother, and
for the souls of all my ancestors, and for the soul of Richard
de Haia, and for the souls of all his ancestors. And I desire
that the previous wooden church of the same town, as soon as
the said new church is built, be taken away, and the bodies
there buried be carried into the burial ground of the new
church and there reinterred, and the old burial ground utterly
destroyed.
“Witnesses: John the Chaplain, Doun Bardolph, Radulph Travers,
and others.”
It appears that Robert de Haia, about half a century previously, had come
into possession of the manor of Sutton, in Holland, through his wife, and
had built the small church referred to in the charter.
It is probably through Nicholaa that the monks of Castle Acre were
enabled to find the funds to build the Transitional-Lancet work in the
present church, as she was a large benefactress to the abbey.
John of Gaunt possessed the manor of Sutton through marriage with Blanche
of Lancaster, but whether he contributed to the funds for enlarging the
church there is no evidence to show, but one may assume the lords of the
large manor of Sutton aided the monks.
The Guild of St. Thomas of Canterbury, founded in the reign of Henry IV.,
had a chapel in the church, in which masses were said for the souls of
Henry IV., his Queen, and John of Gaunt.
Viewing the church from the exterior, one sees no signs of any part of
the early Transitional church—the Rectilinear work completely covers it;
but on entering we at once observe the interesting early Transitional
work of the nave and lower clerestory.
The seven compartments of the nave (ground and clerestory) remain nearly
perfect, but in a somewhat altered condition, for the nave walls and roof
having been raised, and higher aisles added, the Transitional clerestory
now only serves as a blind storey to the later Rectilinear superstructure.
The piers and pier arches should be compared with those at Whaplode,
Moulton, and Weston, with which they make an instructive lesson.
The tower and spire are quite early Lancet work. Mr. Sharpe remarks:—
“Unquestionably one of the earliest and most remarkable
designs of the Lancet Period in the kingdom—scarcely clear of
Transitional influence, erected indeed at the very commencement
of the period, and standing originally completely clear of the
church on four noble arches, crowned, moreover, by a lofty
wooden lead-covered spire flanked by four similar wooden
lead-covered pinnacles—it must have been, at the time it was
erected, one of the most striking structures in the country.
“It is especially valuable to us as conveying an idea of the
manner in which many of the towers of our cathedrals and parish
churches of this period, now deprived of their spires, were
originally finished; and it is remarkable as one of the very
few which, having escaped fire and decay, remains still in its
original position.”
The westmost part of the south aisle, with its windows, is of the
Curvilinear Period, so is the small building at the north-east corner of
the chancel.
In the following period (the Rectilinear) are the lofty side aisles and
the north and south porches.
The font is the original Norman one, though it has been new-worked.
THE CHURCH OF ST. ANDREW, HECKINGTON
BY W. G. WATKINS, A.R.I.B.A.
Five miles east from the market town of Sleaford, just where the rolling
uplands dip down into the great fen stretching out to Boston and the
Wash, lies the village of Heckington; it is mentioned in Domesday as
Heckintune, where one Gilbert de Gaunt held land, and there was a priest
and a church. This same Gilbert de Gaunt had accompanied William the
Conqueror to England, and for his services was rewarded with large grants
of land in this and many other counties; he rebuilt the Abbey of Bardney,
on the banks of the river Witham, about nine miles from Lincoln; richly
endowed it; and was there buried in 1094, leaving his son Walter to
further enrich the abbey, amongst other endowments, with all the tithe
of corn and hay of his land in Heckington. In 1345 it is recorded that
Roger de Barrowe, the then Abbot of Bardney, obtained a royal licence to
appropriate the Church of Heckington; and it is interesting to note that,
among other tomb slabs revealed by the excavation of the abbey church
in 1909, was that of this same Roger de Barrowe, while the foundations
of the choir and transept showed that they were part of the same Norman
church which the piety of Gilbert de Gaunt had raised.
At the time Roger de Barrowe was obtaining his licence one of those waves
of building activity that swept over certain localities in the Middle
Ages seems to have reached the district round Heckington. The naves of
Sleaford, Silk Willoughby, Billingboro, Swayton, and Helpringham, and
the whole Church of Ewerby, were rising white from the masons’ chisel in
the new and graceful Curvilinear style; but it was at Heckington that
this local school, through the resources of the rich and powerful abbey,
were able to crown their work by one of the finest and most complete
parish churches to be found in this or any other one period. The exact
date at which the work was commenced is uncertain, but it appears that
closely subsequent to the appropriation of the church by the abbey in
1345 the old fabric was swept away, and the foundations of the new
structure laid. Richard de Potesgrave, presented to the living by King
Edward in 1307, was the then vicar; his effigy lies under an arched
recess on the north side of the chancel, the usual position for the
founder’s tomb, and an inscription, now lost, recorded that he built the
chancel of the church in honour of the Blessed Mary, St. Andrew, and All
Saints, which may not necessarily mean that he provided the funds, but
that the work was done under his care, just as we say that Bishop Hugh
built the choir of Lincoln Cathedral.
Except in the great Perpendicular structures of East Anglia, it is
comparatively rare to find a parish church built at one effort, in one
style, and untouched by subsequent accretions, as at Heckington—so rare,
in fact, that the picturesqueness and irregularity arising from the
association of various styles and dates in the majority of our churches
has almost come to be looked upon as an essential part of our Gothic
architecture, and one of its leading characteristics; and though it is
true that the mediæval builder excelled in the charming _naïveté_ with
which he superimposed his own work upon and adapted it to that of his
predecessors, yet when the opportunity occurred of starting _de novo_, he
built with dignity and symmetry, and devoid of intentional irregularity
or straining after what we call picturesqueness. So at Heckington
Church we find a perfectly symmetrical and dignified plan of apparently
orthodox cruciform type, and with a western tower; while a more critical
examination shows that the transepts are not in their usual position
immediately west of the chancel, but separated therefrom by a short bay
of aisleless nave, being, as a matter of fact, not really transepts at
all, but attached chapels. And their position is therefore logical, for
here the tower is, very properly for a small parish church, at the west
end, while the true cruciform plan demands, nay requires it, on the
crossing.
How well this apparent eccentricity and departure from the orthodox
was justified by results is shown as the church is approached from the
south-west, whence the nave may be seen continuing through and past the
transepts, which are kept on a lower level than the nave, and thus break
up the structure into a beautiful piece of grouping, without in any way
detracting from its apparent length.
The tower and spire, 97 feet high to the parapet, and 182 feet to the top
of the vane, is an interesting example of the transition stage between
the early broach spire and the pinnacle and flying buttress treatment
of the Perpendicular Period; for here are both pinnacles and broaches,
the former hexagonal in plan, and attached to the broaches by gablets,
through which openings are pierced, forming a continuous walk behind
the parapet. The pinnacles are too high and the general grouping at the
base of the spire too heavy for its height, and it seems likely that the
architect used the proportions he had been accustomed to in a broached
spire and parapetless tower as at the neighbouring Church of Ewerby
(possibly by the same hand), and failed to allow for the shortening
effect of the parapet and pinnacles. The outline of the spire has no
“entasis” or swelling to counteract the drooping effect of the converging
straight lines, but the same result has been achieved by the gablets of
the eight “lucarnes,” or spire lights, which add bulk, and at the same
time break the continuity of the outline; at Ewerby, which has no spire
lights, the entasis is distinctly noticeable. Sometimes this refinement
was carried to excess, as at Leadenham in this county, where the result
has been to produce a grotesque resemblance to a sugar-loaf. No doubt
the elaborate crocketing of the angles of later spires was another
expedient to the same end.
[Illustration: _St Andrews Church. Heckington. Lincolnshire._
Ground Plan.]
In the flowing tracery and foliage of the south porch gable are three
interesting shields—Edward the Confessor, a cross patonce between five
martlets; St. Edmund, three crowns two and one; and the royal arms of
England, three lions passant gardant. The figure in the apex of the gable
is missing, but, from the adoring angels on either side, it was probably
that of the Virgin and Child. The whole of the south side is a perfect
example of Curvilinear art; the flowing lines of the window tracery and
pierced parapets, buttresses with niches and pinnacles enriched with
foliage and carvings of vigorous yet refined workmanship, the bold and
lofty staircase turrets at the east end of the nave, all disposed in
perfect harmony and proportion, and tied together by the admirable group
of mouldings sweeping round the base. Here is English Gothic at its
zenith—vigorous, yet refined; luxuriant, yet restrained. The priests’
door on the south side of the chancel cuts rather clumsily into the jamb
and sill of the window, owing to lack of space between the latter and
the adjoining buttress. The writer recollects a church in Suffolk where
a similar difficulty had been surmounted by throwing the buttress clear
of the wall on a flying arch and placing the door beneath it—a pretty
instance of the manner in which the mediæval builder created a virtue out
of a necessity. The east end is perhaps the most pleasing part of the
exterior—admirably proportioned, vigorous, and graceful, the seven-light
window one of the finest in the whole country; were this the only portion
of the church left to us, it would yet have proclaimed the unknown
architect a master of his craft.
The interior is at first disappointing; the arches only chamfered, not a
moulding or a piece of carving visible; rood-screen, pews, pulpit, and
every scrap of old woodwork swept away. But walk into the chancel, turn
to the north wall, where Roger de Potesgrave, in eucharistic vestments,
lies under an arched recess, and a little farther east appears a mass
of tracery and sculpture, like an elaborate aumbry; it is the Easter
Sepulchre, perhaps the richest in England, except one of the same date
at Hawton, near Newark. Below, in canopied niches, sleep four Roman
soldiers; next, the sepulchre itself, a small recess, with figures of the
three women and the attendant angels, and above this the risen Christ
attended by adoring angels. For richness and delicacy of execution it is
beyond praise. Easter sepulchres in stone (often they were of wood, and
have been swept away) were designed as a permanent receptacle for the
celebration of a rite marking the advent and holiness of Easter. On Good
Friday the consecrated host was deposited in the sepulchre, where it was
continually watched until Easter morning, when it was again placed on
the altar. In the articles of inquiry issued by Cranmer in 1547 one is,
“Whether they had upon Good Friday last past the sepulchre with their
lights, having the sacrament therein?” On the south side of the chancel
are fine sedilia in three compartments, in design and execution equal
to the Easter Sepulchre; the seats are covered by groining and trefoil
arches with gables, above which are sculptured Our Lord, the Blessed
Virgin, SS. Barbara and Katherine, and St. Michael; the cornice bears
figures of angels crowning the saints below and swinging censers. A
recent writer on English mediæval figure sculpture says: “The stone of
these pieces is the Lincoln and Ancaster oolite, and they are insertions
in the body of the building, so they are probably importations from the
Lincoln or Stamford workshops. Of coarser texture than the carvings of
clunch at Ely, they have less freedom and incisive cutting, but their
composition has the same quality of decorative story-telling.”
[Illustration: ST. ANDREW’S, HECKINGTON, SOUTH TRANSEPT AND PORCH.]
From the north wall of the chancel several steps lead up into the vestry,
which has a double piscina, and below which is a vaulted undercroft,
known as the “scaup” (skull) house. The south transept, known as the
Winkill Aisle, from the local family who were probably benefactors to
the church, has sedilia and a double piscina.
The architectural features of the church are beautifully illustrated by a
series of forty plates in Bowman and Crowther’s _Churches of the Middle
Ages_, but the full story of its connection with the Abbey of Bardney
still waits investigation from the patient historian, and would probably
prove of great interest.
[Illustration: ST. ANDREW’S CHURCH, HECKINGTON, EAST END.]
BOSTON CHURCH
BY G. S. W. JEBB, M.A.
HISTORY
Botulf (_i.e._ Ruling Wolf) is said by Bede to have been born in the
seventh century of a gentle Saxon family, and to have studied with his
brother Adulf on the Continent. On his return (Adulf remaining to preside
over a monastery at Utrecht, and becoming Bishop of Maestricht), Botulf
begged permission of Ethelmund, King of East Anglia, to found a monastery
in some retired and desolate spot, and chose Icanho (Ox Island) beside
the Witham, probably the site of Boston. At Icanho he died on 17th June
655. The monks’ huts were burnt by the Danes in 870, but the relics of
the saint had been safely translated, part to Ely, and part to Thorney,
and the site of Boston was in later Saxon times included in the wapontak
of Skirbeck. After the Norman Conquest the greater part of the parish of
Skirbeck, with its two churches, one of which presumably stood on the
site of Boston Church, was granted as part of the honour of Richmond in
Yorkshire to Alan Rufus, who, shortly before his death in 1089, obtained
the ordination of the rectory of Boston, and granted the patronage to the
Benedictine Abbey of St. Mary at York, the monks of Boston constituting
a priory of that abbey, and the church, which was probably of wood,
apparently serving both the parish and the priory. A new church of stone
was built at once. It consisted of a nave 25 feet by 60 feet, with aisles
each 12 feet wide, a chancel, and a western tower 9 feet square; the
floor level was about 4 feet below the present floor. The foundations
were exposed in the restoration, 1851-53. The priory buildings were on
the north side of the church. In 1309, when the fervour excited by the
preaching of the friars was still felt, and the prosperity of the town
was at its height, the pious gratitude of the burghers led them to begin
the present magnificent church, the foundation-stone being laid on the
Monday after St. John Baptist’s Day by Dame Margaret Tilney, assisted
by Richard Stephenson, merchant, and John Truesdale, the rector. This
church originally consisted of a nave of seven bays with aisles, a
chancel originally of three bays, and a south porch. In the Perpendicular
Period the chancel was lengthened by two bays, when Fleming, formerly
rector of Boston, was Bishop of Lincoln; and the magnificent tower was
added outside the former west window. A chamber was also added over the
porch, and there were six subsidiary chapels (all but one of which have
now been destroyed), besides, at least, two others (those of St. Mary
and SS. Peter and Paul) at the east ends of the south and north aisles
respectively, screened off within the church itself. The whole was
probably completed about 1500; as it now stands the church is, in cubical
content, the largest purely parish church in the kingdom, and is only
surpassed in floor area (20,270 square feet) by those of St. Michael,
Coventry (24,015 square feet), and of Yarmouth (23,265 square feet).
In 1480 the Knights Hospitallers, who had a commandery in the parish,
founded by the De Multons about 1230, purchased the advowson from St.
Mary’s Abbey, and made the parish church their collegiate church. They
also obtained an appropriation of the rectory, and a vicarage was
ordained. The Knights maintained a college of ten priests, living in a
house in Wormgate (_i.e._ Withamgate). The old church of the Knights was
deserted, and was eventually pulled down in 1626, the material being used
to repair St. Botulf’s. After the sale of the advowson the priory became
of small importance, and was dissolved in 1536. The Order of the Knights
was dissolved in 1540, and its possessions confiscated by King Henry
VIII., who, in 1545, sold the endowment of the rectory and the patronage
of the vicarage to the newly-created corporation of Boston, subject,
however, to the payment of the vicar’s stipend, and to the duty of
repairing the chancel. At the Reformation the screens were broken away,
and the church despoiled of its furniture and decoration.
During the great rebellion it was used as a cavalry stable, the horses
being tethered to iron rings fixed in the pillars. The Antipædobaptists
then had a congregation in Boston (which was revived and endowed in 1756,
and is still flourishing), and were influential in the neighbourhood;
this led to the destruction of the mediæval fonts in Boston and many
of the neighbouring churches. The brasses also were torn up, and what
remained of the stained glass and stone imagery was broken, and the
chapels and other buildings encircling the church were gradually removed
during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
On the resumption of the Church services at the Restoration of Charles
II., some slight attempts at improvement were made, a new font and
reredos and a beautiful pulpit and altar rails being provided. Towards
the end of the eighteenth century the present ceiling was put up. The
original ceiling of the nave was a flat wooden one, doubtless elaborately
carved and gilded, nailed on the under surface of fifteen huge beams
which cross the church between each pair of clerestory windows. The
ceiling seems to have been injured by fire, and the beams themselves
became rotten at the ends, and tended to sag in the centre, and were
therefore supported by uprights nailed against the wall with trusses
at an angle of 45°; these uprights and trusses were then concealed by
panelling which was made to resemble the springers of a sham vault,
and was painted a dirty yellow. The lean-to roofs of the aisles were
similarly concealed by sham vaulting, and the chancel, hitherto covered
with a semi-octagonal roof, divided by boldly moulded ribs into panels,
had a sort of sham tunnel vault at a much lower level, so low, indeed, as
to have to be tilted upwards to bring it above the crown of the chancel
arch. An organ was provided and placed in the chancel arch, having in
front of it a gallery supported on oaken columns (now in the Roman
church in Boston). The western portion of the church was shut off by a
high screen with wrought-iron gates, and the remaining portion of the
nave arranged with the pulpit in the centre, and square pews gradually
sloping upwards so as to be level with the sills of the windows. The
chancel was used only for the quarterly communion. In 1835 the Municipal
Reform Act vested the patronage in the Bishop of the diocese, who twice
collated under this Act, but the corporation was permitted to sell, and
in 1853 did sell, the advowson to Mr. Ingram; he devised it to his widow;
she, in turn, devised it to Sir E. Watkin, her second husband, whose
representatives in 1906 conveyed it to the Bishop of Lincoln in right of
his see. The restoration of the church was begun in the middle of the
nineteenth century, about £11,000 being spent under the direction of Sir
G. Gilbert Scott. The fabric was put in good repair generally, the stone
vaulting of the tower was inserted, a new font was erected, the pews were
replaced by oaken benches, the organ placed in a chamber to the north
of the chancel, the east window provided with new tracery and filled
with poor stained glass, a new altar table with a good red frontal,
and some new plate, were purchased, and canopies, copied from Lincoln
Cathedral, were added to the stalls; provision was also made for lighting
and warming the church. An offering from the Bostonians of America was
devoted to restoring the sole remaining chapel, which is situated on the
western side of the south porch. The church was re-dedicated in 1853.
Since then there have been a few slight improvements; six of the sixteen
windows in the aisle have had stained glass inserted, and it is generally
good. The chapel has had three of its windows fitted with stained
glass, and has been furnished with an altar and reredos, and a screen
separating it from the church provided; two additional frontals have been
given for the high altar, and it is backed by an elaborate, though as yet
incomplete, reredos of carved oak, designed by Weatherley. The church is
still much disfigured by the ugly ceiling, and has a cold unfurnished
look, to remedy which screens, stained glass, and colour decoration would
be required; unfortunately, the church is so large that nothing can be
done which does not involve a considerable expenditure.
GENERAL DESCRIPTION