St. Michael, Bishops Stortford.
Misers and misericords.
From afar the spire of this church dominates the small market town: Michael has long been the archangel saint of high places. The shops cluster tightly around the white stucco corn exchange on the steeply sloping market square, a comfortable mixture of timber framed jetties and Georgian brick, running down past coaching inns to the old castle mound and the riverside maltings and grain mills that were the main trade of the town. To the north commerce gives way to wide residential roads of regency stucco and pollarded limes, with big Victorian houses in high walled gardens further out. Where the High Street becomes Windhill the church sits on a mound opposite the half timbered Boar’s Head, both built about the same time.
Misers and misericords.
From afar the spire of this church dominates the small market town: Michael has long been the archangel saint of high places. The shops cluster tightly around the white stucco corn exchange on the steeply sloping market square, a comfortable mixture of timber framed jetties and Georgian brick, running down past coaching inns to the old castle mound and the riverside maltings and grain mills that were the main trade of the town. To the north commerce gives way to wide residential roads of regency stucco and pollarded limes, with big Victorian houses in high walled gardens further out. Where the High Street becomes Windhill the church sits on a mound opposite the half timbered Boar’s Head, both built about the same time.
The church is of flint, but the tower slims down unexpe.ctedly once clear of the nave roof, and continues on up in Regency brick, with only the tracery and angles in stone, until reaching the sky with parsimonious pinnacles and a somewhat stingy spire. Written inside the steeple is a builder’s lament that the wardens were too mean to pay for any ale: in a town known for brewing this must have seemed particularly penny pinching. After this repair had been completed in 1812 the rest of the church was severely cleaned up, and the chancel which had been rebuilt in the Jacobean period gained a clerestory, a chapel, a vestry and a bigger east window, all in the fifteenth century style of the rest. Inside and out most of the spreading building is grey perpendicular, but it’s the rosy silhouette of that slender steeple that sticks in the mind in a way that more conventional stone never could. There’s a graveyard full of the Georgian dead: mechanical mowing of the slope must be too difficult, and thankfully few of their memorials have been cleared away. Plenty of trees break up the stolid exterior, which has the repetitive reasonableness of bourgeois late gothic, the restoration having left little external carving to liven things up. Everything is so unexceptionable that it’s surprising that the tower wasn’t clad in flint at that time.
The two bay north porch leads to a doorway with angels in the spandrels, that on the right holds a censor and trumpet, whilst that on the left sits beside what looks like a flaming comet or shooting star, probably a reference to the last judgement. Under a side bench rests a carving of two heads on a concave moulding, proof that at one time there was more in the way of decorative sculpture. They are not cut in clunch, but some harder stone, and may have come from under an external niche. Through the old doors the white width of the building becomes apparent, the rows of windows now devoid of dark glass. The best of what remains can be found in the south chancel window, brightly coloured work of James Powell and Sons’ of 1855, once in the east window but moved by later Victorians who thought it too brash. Hertfordshire’s own glass designer Christopher Webb was responsible for the 1928 east window in the Lady Chapel, which is pretty enough. The roofs throughout are original, having all been ceiled in at one time, and the corbels are of interest though much cut about by restoration. There are gardeners pruning, foresters pollarding and cooks cooking, as well as beasties and monsters supporting the roofs. If these were recoloured it would make them much clearer; many are now hidden away up in the gloom. There is a splendidly ornate pulpit, carved in 1658 by a local carpenter who was paid £5 for his trouble. The oldest object here is the Norman font, found buried under the floor during a restoration; although there are tales of Saxon royalty in puddingstone coffins in a vault under the church these should be taken with as large a grain of salt as the ubiquitous stories of underground passages linked to the castle. Puddingstone is not found in large enough lumps, and any such passage would require diving equipment. It is truly amazing how many tunnels are claimed to exist under nearly every old building, many of prodigious length, all hidden and of dubious purpose: they generally turn out to be Tudor drains. This one has of course its resident Grey Lady, who seems to pop up all over town.
A story which may have a more truthful basis is that linking the Fifteenth century choir stalls with St. Paul’s cathedral. It is claimed that they were brought here when the cathedral was refurbished in the Jacobean period, the stalls are certainly of a courtly standard, and indeed the living was a possession of a precentor of the cathedral. However, any mediaeval church of this size would have had to have stalls during the mediaeval period , and it seems more likely that these have always been here, though quite possibly paid for by the owner of the living and made in London, perhaps at the cathedral workshops. They are very ornate, with fine figures on the arm rests as well as carved on the misericords, those pop up seats that let clerics rest standing up. Here are an owl and a whale, a lion and a swan, a bird and an angel, bearded men and hooded women. It’s worth getting down on your hands and knees and taking a torch to truly appreciate this beautiful bestiary, as ironically the best carvings in the church are here hidden away. Their meanings can be equally obscure: for us the owl may mean wisdom, but during the middle ages it was symbolic of Jewish refusal to recognise the messiah, and implied quite the reverse. The whale may have been carved as a symbol of Satan, as the deceiving sea tortoise that lures men to their doom. We may not always understand the meaning of what we see, we may not be able to really get inside the heads of pious believers of that time but there are still links to be made: often the love of design and craftsmanship and the expression of common human experiences shines through and transcends the motive, to allow us to see past the religion to what lies beyond. Indeed, this is often the best way to approach England’s churches; you don’t have to believe in fairy tales to enjoy the stories.
A comfortable town church, open daily, up on Windhill above the centre of town.
A comfortable town church, open daily, up on Windhill above the centre of town.
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