St. John the Baptist, Great Gaddesden.
Flush with busts.
Far prettier than one would expect from Pevsner’s introduction to the village, the church sits behind a Victorian school above the bulrush clogged mill ponds and waterways of the river Gade, here little more than a stream in the picturesque valley north of Hemel Hempstead. A large garden centre draws crowds, but few make it to the church hidden off the road a five minute walk away, only the lych gate giving its existence away. Two gables face down the hill; the chancel flint with flat Norman buttresses reusing Roman brick, and beside it the eighteenth century mortuary chapel of the local big house, built in 1730 for Halsey dead. In the thirteenth century aisles were added, but most of the exterior with a porch and tower now looks fifteenth century, albeit much restored in Victorian times. Large lumps of puddingstone lie around the churchyard and still support many buttresses and quoins. Inside the south arcade bears stiff leaf capitals opposite moulded ones on the north, and above the clerestory is a much repaired fifteenth century tie beam roof, the wall posts given above average angels in around 1914. Both aisles have good stained glass with jolly bright colours by William Wailes, far better designed than much dreary respectable later Victorian work, both examples ignored by the weak sentimental glass recently set into a Tudor tomb surround in the north aisle. Another modern addition is on the wall under the tower, a rare late twentieth century funeral hatchment; of interest for even existing, but again poorly executed without gusto, the heraldry so insipid that even the wolfs’ heads look bored. Just compare the flaccid mantling to the verve of the signature on the charity board beneath from 1790 to see what’s amiss: the modern works lack spirit and self confidence and are an embarrassingly poor legacy to leave from our times.
Flush with busts.
Far prettier than one would expect from Pevsner’s introduction to the village, the church sits behind a Victorian school above the bulrush clogged mill ponds and waterways of the river Gade, here little more than a stream in the picturesque valley north of Hemel Hempstead. A large garden centre draws crowds, but few make it to the church hidden off the road a five minute walk away, only the lych gate giving its existence away. Two gables face down the hill; the chancel flint with flat Norman buttresses reusing Roman brick, and beside it the eighteenth century mortuary chapel of the local big house, built in 1730 for Halsey dead. In the thirteenth century aisles were added, but most of the exterior with a porch and tower now looks fifteenth century, albeit much restored in Victorian times. Large lumps of puddingstone lie around the churchyard and still support many buttresses and quoins. Inside the south arcade bears stiff leaf capitals opposite moulded ones on the north, and above the clerestory is a much repaired fifteenth century tie beam roof, the wall posts given above average angels in around 1914. Both aisles have good stained glass with jolly bright colours by William Wailes, far better designed than much dreary respectable later Victorian work, both examples ignored by the weak sentimental glass recently set into a Tudor tomb surround in the north aisle. Another modern addition is on the wall under the tower, a rare late twentieth century funeral hatchment; of interest for even existing, but again poorly executed without gusto, the heraldry so insipid that even the wolfs’ heads look bored. Just compare the flaccid mantling to the verve of the signature on the charity board beneath from 1790 to see what’s amiss: the modern works lack spirit and self confidence and are an embarrassingly poor legacy to leave from our times.
The late thirteenth century east window of the north aisle is unglazed, and yellow tinted light filters through from the Georgian chapel built beyond. An arcade was only opened between the chancel and this space in Victorian times, through the arches of which appear a gallery of funerary art. Some of this started in the chancel, and one unusually good memorial remains on the south wall, a rumbustious baroque marble with an escutcheon surrounded by fat tear drop scrolls, two cherub heads under a gadrooned shelf on which a bust of John Halsey almost floats between two balloon like urns. This unusual work dates from 1670 and is by the sculptor John Bushnell, his Italian training shining through. Not all of this erratic man’s work succeeds, but this was because he dared to fail, and even his failures are brighter than many a safe sculptor’s success. The walls of the family chapel are full of memorials, the earliest mid seventeenth century. One is a rather shapeless gristly alabaster tablet, the other crisp black and white marble with skulls under a broken pediment. Four feature early Georgian bust under tented canopies framed by pilasters with curved pediments broken by heraldry: three by Giovanni Guelfi, the fourth by Michael Rysbrack. Two mid century memorials by William Tyler have busts carved in relief, and a late Georgian relief set against a coloured marble pyramid shows mother and child being swept up to heaven by an angel. Spaces on the walls are filled with smaller tablets, all bathed in yellow light from the modern tinted glass, a rather Soanian[22] touch. One carving in the round comes as something of a relief amongst all these busts. A cherubic Flaxman angel kneeling on clouds attempts to persuade us of the blessings of death, though the adage “Don’t believe all you read” is what really comes to mind. .
An interesting church, generally open. The local vicar is on 01442 214898.
An interesting church, generally open. The local vicar is on 01442 214898.
[22] Sir John Soane was a Regency architect with a particular penchant for a funerary air who included actual interments in his interiors, and sarcophagi in his cellars. His eccentric house in near Holborn is a splendid museum.
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All rights reserved for this entire site. Copyright reserved to stiffleaf for all text and images, which may not be reproduced without my permission.