St. Mary, Albury
Home is where the heart is....
The area of Hertfordshire close to the border with Essex has rich pickings for the lover of churches, though inexplicably Pevsner describes the north east of the county as dull. Often the borders between counties are the least fertile land, unless marked by a river, and this area - if no wilderness - still has a marginal feel to me. Villages are small and thinly spread, but very bucolic, little different from those nearby in Cambridgeshire and Essex.
This is a fine church outside and in, with very unusual Decorated tracery in windows with tops almost triangular in shape. Groups of mouchettes[4]thrust upwards like birds in flight; Pevsner called them heavy and ugly, but whenever he hates something I know it’s worth a look: it’s bound to be interesting or outrageous. This mason’s grasp of his craft was solid enough to allow him to experiment, and his maverick tracery is a success. The arcades have the chunky pillars of the fourteenth century, each of four fat round shafts; the chancel has thirteenth century lancets, and the late mediaeval tower is topped by a Hertfordshire spike, the short thin needle spire native to the area.
Home is where the heart is....
The area of Hertfordshire close to the border with Essex has rich pickings for the lover of churches, though inexplicably Pevsner describes the north east of the county as dull. Often the borders between counties are the least fertile land, unless marked by a river, and this area - if no wilderness - still has a marginal feel to me. Villages are small and thinly spread, but very bucolic, little different from those nearby in Cambridgeshire and Essex.
This is a fine church outside and in, with very unusual Decorated tracery in windows with tops almost triangular in shape. Groups of mouchettes[4]thrust upwards like birds in flight; Pevsner called them heavy and ugly, but whenever he hates something I know it’s worth a look: it’s bound to be interesting or outrageous. This mason’s grasp of his craft was solid enough to allow him to experiment, and his maverick tracery is a success. The arcades have the chunky pillars of the fourteenth century, each of four fat round shafts; the chancel has thirteenth century lancets, and the late mediaeval tower is topped by a Hertfordshire spike, the short thin needle spire native to the area.
There’s a rood screen across the chancel arch that hasn’t suffered much restoration, with rows of elevation squints along the dado, to allow kneeling parishioners to view the elevation of the host at the climax of the mass, and a big royal arms of 1838 for Victoria, with an odd blank escutcheon as if the artist wasn’t too sure whether to add the Hanoverian arms of the previous reign or not.
In the north aisle the windows were enlarged in the mid sixteenth century, with the simplest of mullions. At the east end is the big chest tomb of c.1400 bearing the effigy of Sir Walter de la Lee in ornate armour next to his elegant wife. Once finely detailed, the effigies have taken a battering over the years, but repay a close look. She wears a long sleeveless gown which accentuates her slender body, her hair done up in a jewelled net. His head rests on a heavy helmet topped with an angel crest, his heart in his hands, the only part of him to reach home. It was ironically common practice for saints, criminals and the aristocracy to be buried in bits, the first as a blessing, the second a warning, the last to show affiliation: Queen Eleanor had three tombs, traitors had four quarters, saints multiple shrines.
In the north aisle the windows were enlarged in the mid sixteenth century, with the simplest of mullions. At the east end is the big chest tomb of c.1400 bearing the effigy of Sir Walter de la Lee in ornate armour next to his elegant wife. Once finely detailed, the effigies have taken a battering over the years, but repay a close look. She wears a long sleeveless gown which accentuates her slender body, her hair done up in a jewelled net. His head rests on a heavy helmet topped with an angel crest, his heart in his hands, the only part of him to reach home. It was ironically common practice for saints, criminals and the aristocracy to be buried in bits, the first as a blessing, the second a warning, the last to show affiliation: Queen Eleanor had three tombs, traitors had four quarters, saints multiple shrines.
There are a handful of brasses, with a nice Elizabethan one to John Scroggs; the best is a mannered couple of around 1475, the knight in the spiky armour of the time, his wife with a butterfly headdress. His outsize feet rest on an outsize greyhound. The Victorians built an organ chamber, and the fourteenth century window blocked by it was left as an unglazed filigree of loops and flames, all cusped and sub-cusped in ogival patterns I’ve not seen elsewhere. It’s also worth looking for the grotesque little heads with which the mason ended his mouldings. A light church despite the one-sided clerestory, aided by its position on top of a low hill looking over the patchwork of fields stretching south to Bishop’s Stortford.
This pleasant church is at the eastern end of the hamlet, always open during the day.
This pleasant church is at the eastern end of the hamlet, always open during the day.
[4] Mouchette; a dagger or flame like opening in curvilinear tracery.
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