St. Lawrence, Abbots Langley.
Old pope’s home.
The most striking aspect of the church of St. Lawrence is the south east chapel; the rest of the church seeming to hide behind its fourteenth century bulk. Built for the guild of Corpus Christi in about 1300, it is patterned with a chequerwork of flint and stone and has satisfying geometric tracery in the windows. Hunkered down behind it are the Norman nave and aisles with one original window remaining amongst later work. The thirteenth century tower is massive but low, in its shadow the dull gleam of green copper marks a group of Art Nouveau graves. Buttresses of many dates prop the church up from all angles, and brick and puddingstone add to the variety of colours. The too-tidy churchyard looks onto a handful of mediaeval and Georgian cottages on the high street, but is surrounded by acres of commuter housing. We can never forget we are inside the M25, which rumbles perpetually at the base of the hill, but there are fields all around, and lots of trees in the little dormitory town.
Old pope’s home.
The most striking aspect of the church of St. Lawrence is the south east chapel; the rest of the church seeming to hide behind its fourteenth century bulk. Built for the guild of Corpus Christi in about 1300, it is patterned with a chequerwork of flint and stone and has satisfying geometric tracery in the windows. Hunkered down behind it are the Norman nave and aisles with one original window remaining amongst later work. The thirteenth century tower is massive but low, in its shadow the dull gleam of green copper marks a group of Art Nouveau graves. Buttresses of many dates prop the church up from all angles, and brick and puddingstone add to the variety of colours. The too-tidy churchyard looks onto a handful of mediaeval and Georgian cottages on the high street, but is surrounded by acres of commuter housing. We can never forget we are inside the M25, which rumbles perpetually at the base of the hill, but there are fields all around, and lots of trees in the little dormitory town.
Steps lead down into the cement covered porch, with a surprising Regency Gothick plasterwork ceiling where egg and dart mouldings mix with mediaeval quatrefoils, with coats of arms and St. Lawrence’s gridiron[1] on the walls. The church belonged in the middle ages to the Abbot of St. Albans, given to him by Edward the Confessor. The Saxon church was replaced by an ornate Norman nave and aisles in 1154, the zig zag arches of both arcades bouncing down the nave on big round piers. One southern column was re-carved with stiff leaf in the next century, when the tower arch was built with even richer foliate capitals. Early fourteenth century arches divide the chancel from the wide south chapel, in which wall paintings of St. Lawrence with his gridiron and Thomas Becket can be seen, as old as the chapel, but much restored by Professor Tristram[2], who had a monopoly on such matters in the 1930s. There is some bright early Victorian glass, and the patron saint Lawrence appears again in a fifteenth century window in the chancel. A font of the 1400s stands in the north aisle with lively signs of the evangelists carved on its bowl, which retains much colour.
Local boy-done-good Nicholas Breakspeare is remembered with a tablet here: in 1154 he became the first and only English Pope. As Adrian IV he aided English trade and policy, giving Ireland to the English with the wonderful results we know so well. You’d think that later pontiffs would learn from his mistakes, and stay out of politics, but you’d be wrong, and the (relatively recent) claim to infallibility means that they can’t be, so that’s that. A similar belief in God’s approval lay behind the divine right of Stuart kings too; their 1678 royal arms hang over the south door, a rather tardy recognition of the restoration of the monarchy.
Local boy-done-good Nicholas Breakspeare is remembered with a tablet here: in 1154 he became the first and only English Pope. As Adrian IV he aided English trade and policy, giving Ireland to the English with the wonderful results we know so well. You’d think that later pontiffs would learn from his mistakes, and stay out of politics, but you’d be wrong, and the (relatively recent) claim to infallibility means that they can’t be, so that’s that. A similar belief in God’s approval lay behind the divine right of Stuart kings too; their 1678 royal arms hang over the south door, a rather tardy recognition of the restoration of the monarchy.
There’s a scatter of monuments throughout the church, and two in the south chapel deserve a mention. That of 1714 to Dame Anne Raymond shows her seated in a white marble shroud; holding the bible she looks somewhat perturbed at what she reads; whilst below her feet is a row of cradles in memory of grandchildren that failed to survive. On the opposite wall is the colourful gilded memorial to Anne Combe of 1640, she kneels in black dress and white lace bracketed by excellent figures of Death and Time. The two biggest tombs stand at the west end of the aisles. The self satisfied judge resting on a pile of books is the Lord Chief Justice, first Lord Raymond, +1732; carved by Sir Henry Cheere in the lord’s lifetime it shows him holding a scroll in one hand whilst making a grab for a coronet with the other as Fame looks on. His son died in 1756 and has a monument by Peter Scheemakers showing Hope and Plenty seated beside a black obelisk. Both once stood in the chancel: their being moved in this ignominious way saved them from the arson attack that destroyed all the furnishings there, leaving the chancel an unused space but allowing light to flood into this solid if rather battered church.
[1] St. Lawrence was roasted to death, and is identified by the instrument of his demise.
[2] E.W.Tristram brought out several books on wall paintings in English churches, working with the wonderfully named Tancred Borenius. Professor Tristram was the first to take the murals seriously, though both his books and his restorations show more enthusiasm than science, and whilst he probably saved works from destruction, his use of waxes was particularly harmful
3 In 1660 the law compelled every church to show the royal arms in a prominent place; Victorian piety removed many, but the statute remains.
[1] St. Lawrence was roasted to death, and is identified by the instrument of his demise.
[2] E.W.Tristram brought out several books on wall paintings in English churches, working with the wonderfully named Tancred Borenius. Professor Tristram was the first to take the murals seriously, though both his books and his restorations show more enthusiasm than science, and whilst he probably saved works from destruction, his use of waxes was particularly harmful
3 In 1660 the law compelled every church to show the royal arms in a prominent place; Victorian piety removed many, but the statute remains.
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