St. George, Anstey.
Mermen and a musical moat.
The church at Anstey is really something special, and should be better known, not just in the county but the whole of England. You have to drive across some fairly bleak countryside to reach it and in the midst of winter it can seem really cut off. Roads with no hedges run over big open fields and you can see for miles. No other villages lie nearby, we are close to the border with Essex and it feels like no-man’s-land, a gap in the modern world. The church is in the middle of a little village with the tree covered motte of an early castle rising from stagnant waters just to the north. It’s said that this castle is of evil repute, that the land is barren, snow won’t settle, that the strains of a fiddle come up from the wide moat. In 1750 a musician and his dog braved a passage leading under the castle for a bet. Screams were heard, the dog shot out, heavily scorched, and the fiddler was seen no more. Last time I looked, trees capped the snow covered mound; so hell must sleep. During the war, a B17 bomber crashed into the moat, but luckily the explosives on board failed to ignite, or we’d have lost the church.
The hamlet lies across a small rise with the cruciform church at the top, presenting its south face to the road. But the treasures here begin on the path, with a mediaeval tripartite lych gate, one third of which was made into the village lock-up. I did wonder if the attached chain inside was for the town drunk or the vicar’s bicycle. Five hundred years of rain have melted the mouldings of the porch, but the simple Tudor tracery in the aisle has survived unscathed and the restored transept is positively crisp, with its striking circular stair turret hinting at complexities within. It’s that much maligned Victorian architect William Butterfield that we have to thank for such lively details as the jaunty cross-shaped turret window and the unusual rounded buttresses. Some find his work difficult to swallow, especially his uncompromising search for a modern gothic, but his use of geometry is outstanding and could be oddly picturesque at times. Here his hard flint finish acts as a perfect foil for the more battered chancel, which sports beautiful Early English windows to north and south, really high class thirteenth century work with quatrefoil plate tracery.
Mermen and a musical moat.
The church at Anstey is really something special, and should be better known, not just in the county but the whole of England. You have to drive across some fairly bleak countryside to reach it and in the midst of winter it can seem really cut off. Roads with no hedges run over big open fields and you can see for miles. No other villages lie nearby, we are close to the border with Essex and it feels like no-man’s-land, a gap in the modern world. The church is in the middle of a little village with the tree covered motte of an early castle rising from stagnant waters just to the north. It’s said that this castle is of evil repute, that the land is barren, snow won’t settle, that the strains of a fiddle come up from the wide moat. In 1750 a musician and his dog braved a passage leading under the castle for a bet. Screams were heard, the dog shot out, heavily scorched, and the fiddler was seen no more. Last time I looked, trees capped the snow covered mound; so hell must sleep. During the war, a B17 bomber crashed into the moat, but luckily the explosives on board failed to ignite, or we’d have lost the church.
The hamlet lies across a small rise with the cruciform church at the top, presenting its south face to the road. But the treasures here begin on the path, with a mediaeval tripartite lych gate, one third of which was made into the village lock-up. I did wonder if the attached chain inside was for the town drunk or the vicar’s bicycle. Five hundred years of rain have melted the mouldings of the porch, but the simple Tudor tracery in the aisle has survived unscathed and the restored transept is positively crisp, with its striking circular stair turret hinting at complexities within. It’s that much maligned Victorian architect William Butterfield that we have to thank for such lively details as the jaunty cross-shaped turret window and the unusual rounded buttresses. Some find his work difficult to swallow, especially his uncompromising search for a modern gothic, but his use of geometry is outstanding and could be oddly picturesque at times. Here his hard flint finish acts as a perfect foil for the more battered chancel, which sports beautiful Early English windows to north and south, really high class thirteenth century work with quatrefoil plate tracery.
The top of the tower is simple Decorated, finished off with the ubiquitous Hertfordshire spike. It’s always an idea to walk around the outside of a church before going in, unless you’re worried about someone locking up, as it gives you clues to understanding the interior, and it’s easy to miss the odd porch otherwise. Here the north side of the chancel bears the scar of an original vestry: piscina, doorway and all; though the marks of the roofline seem to leave insufficient headroom. Here, as often on the less visible side of a church, there has been little restoration; windows remain blocked and everything is less tidied up, so it’s always worth checking out. The fifteenth century west front is a showpiece, nicely symmetrical about the west door and big window above, with two big buttresses and windows to each aisle, the whole rationally expressing the layout behind. It is obvious that the roofs everywhere have been raised and flattened, necessary with the change from thatch to lead, and allowing old roof timbers to be reused with the rotten ends cut off.
Through the south porch the first fitting seen inside is the famous late Norman font with mermen holding up their double tails. There is a similar one not far off in tiny St. Peter’s in Cambridge; but the significance of the motif is unknown. The narrow nave has wider aisles and spirited arcades, with early fourteenth century quatrefoil piers holding up arches whose sides are almost straight, almost triangular, leading up to the Norman crossing under the central tower. The four round arches here have unusual details, with small scrolls on the capitals, and lots of stone rings holding the mouldings in place. The crossing gives an unexpected complexity to the spaces in the church, as if one could get lost in there despite its small size. Perhaps it’s because each part of the church has a different feel, a different flavour from that next to it. Certainly the crossing acts to separate the nave from the chancel, and both from the transepts, the reason that so many central towers were demolished in the late middle ages and replaced with a western one, allowing the integration of space demanded when congregations wanted to see the mass or hear the preacher. If you look closely at the right hand side of the chancel arch you can see fourteenth century heraldic graffiti with shields and jousting helmets complete with crests, one a ragged staff, another the bridled head of a horse.
The chancel is a wonderful example of its time, rebuilt in the second half of the Thirteenth century just before plate tracery gave way to bar tracery, everything nicely chunky and solid, with carved heads, flowers and dragons on each side of the windows and door. Squints allowed priests at side altars a view from transepts to the main altar, and the stalls remain, with many of the original misericords[6] carved with lush leaves, hooded men and hunting birds. Only the east window has been replaced, and then filled with glass for Victoria’s jubilee.
The transepts originally contained altars, the south becoming a chantry chapel in around 1300, when it was fitted up with a piscina and an ornate tomb. This has a gabled canopy on capitals with realistic foliage held up by the metamorphic monsters so popular at that time. Men with hooded heads, curly tails and the forelegs of animals cling onto each side of the niche over the battered effigy of a robed priest, with the remains of angels beside his pillow. This now lies behind the organ, in an area where all sorts of oddments have come to rest, including old leaping board grave markers and a section of seventeenth century elm water pipe from London. It seems that the transepts originally had rooms over them, reached by the round stair turret and connected through the tower. Many churches had such anomalous details before Victorians imposed the norm. Nowadays access to the tower is by means of a long wooden stair in the north transept, which also houses the vestry behind an old screen. This is a church that is more than the sum of its parts: it feels intricate, layered, and is one of those spaces that are simply a pleasure to be in, to explore and experience. My one dislike is the hanging heaters, an ugly solution to a cold church.
I’ve been back here several times, and would happily return a few more: if you’ve not been, you really do have a treat in store, and it’s open every day. The church lies at the bend in Hare Street, towards the south of the village.
I’ve been back here several times, and would happily return a few more: if you’ve not been, you really do have a treat in store, and it’s open every day. The church lies at the bend in Hare Street, towards the south of the village.
[6] Misericords were tip-up seats designed to support standing men in the stalls during long services; the little ledge became a popular site for scurrilous sculpture. From the Latin word for “pity”.
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