stiffleaf's hertfordshire churches
  • Visiting Hertfordshire churches
  • Contact
  • Locked churches, and Mammon and the church
  • Architectural style in Hertfordshire churches.
  • Fonts, glass, woodwork and tiles in Hertfordshire churches.
  • Hertfordshire church monuments.
  • Glossary and links.
  • Architectural timeline
  • Abbots Langley church, Hertfordshire
  • Albury church, Hertfordshire
  • Aldbury church, Hertfordshire
  • Aldenham church, Hertfordshire
  • Anstey church, Hertfordshire
  • Ardeley church, Hertfordshire
  • Ashwell church, Hertfordshire
  • Ayot St.Lawrence churches, Hertfordshire
  • Baldock church, Hertfordshire
  • Barkway church, Hertfordshire
  • Bengeo church, Hertfordshire
  • Benington church, Hertfordshire
  • Berkhamsted church, Hertfordshire
  • Bishop's Stortford church, Hertfordshire
  • Braughing church, Hertfordshire
  • Brent Pelham church, Hertfordshire
  • Broxbourne church, Hertfordshire
  • Caldecote church, Hertfordshire
  • Cheshunt church, Hertfordshire
  • Chipping Barnet church, Hertfordshire
  • Clothall, church, Hertfordshire
  • Cottered church, Hertfordshire
  • Cuffley church, Hertfordshire
  • Datchworth church, Hertfordshire
  • East Barnet church, Hertfordshire
  • Eastwick church, Hertfordshire
  • Flamstead church, Hertfordshire
  • Furneux Pelham church, Hertfordshire
  • Gilston church, Hertfordshire
  • Great Amwell church, Hertfordshire
  • Great Gaddesden church
  • Great Hormead church, Hertfordshire
  • Great Offley church, Hertfordshire
  • Great Wymondley church, Hertfordshire
  • Hatfield church, Hertfordshire
  • Hemel Hempstead church, Hertfordshire
  • Hertford churches, Hertfordshire
  • Hertingfordbury church, Hertfordshire
  • High Wych church, Hertfordshire
  • Hitchin church, Hertfordshire
  • Hunsdon church, Hertfordshire
  • Ippollitts church, Hertfordshire
  • Kings Langley church, Hertfordshire
  • Knebworth churches, Hertfordshire
  • Little Gaddesden church, Hertfordshire
  • Little Hadham church, Hertfordshire
  • Little Hormead church, Hertfordshire
  • Little Munden church, Hertfordshire
  • Markyate church, Hertfordshire
  • Meesden church, Hertfordshire
  • Much Hadham church, Hertfordshire
  • Nettleden church, Hertfordshire
  • Newnham church, Hertfordshire
  • North Mymms church, Hertfordshire
  • Oxhey chapel, Hertfordshire
  • Redbourn church, Hertfordshire
  • Royston church and cave
  • St.Albans churches, Hertfordshire
  • St.Albans cathedral, Hertfordshire
  • St.Pauls Walden church, Hertfordshire
  • Sawbridgeworth church, Hertfordshire
  • Standon church, Hertfordshire
  • Stanstead Abbotts church, Hertfordshire
  • Stanstead St. Margaret church, Hertfordshire
  • Stocking Pelham church, Hertfordshire
  • Thorley church, Hertfordshire
  • Walkern church, Hertfordshire
  • Ware church, Hertfordshire
  • Waterford church, Hertfordshire
  • Watford churches, Hertfordshire
  • Watton-at-Stone church, Hertfordshire
  • Weston church, Hertfordshire
  • Wheathampstead church, Hertfordshire
  • Wyddial church, Hertfordshire
  • Wormley church, Hertfordshire
All Saints, Datchworth.

The village here has no real centre, being held together by long footpaths as much as by roads. The houses are scattered widely around a loop of quiet lanes, a pleasant 15 minute walk from Knebworth station.  A Victorian spire tops the little church, and the church was obviously much rebuilt at that time. It sits in a tree-girt graveyard opposite a picturesque Victorian cottage, complete with bargeboards on its dormer window and patterned tilework on the path.  It just about gets away with the terracotta dragon without over-egging the pudding.

Inside the porch is what appears to be a Norman doorway, but it seems to date entirely from about 1850. The lower half of the tower looks old enough, and there is even a small round blocked window that could be twelfth century. The font is fifteenth century, and the arcade thirteenth.
Picture

Picture

Picture

Fifteenth century windbraces pattern the plastered nave roof, and fleurs-de-lys form the tiny capitals of the arcade responds of the solitary aisle. A battered cross slab from the early fourteenth century lies in a new niche in the nave, and there’s a nice Jacobean brass in front of the altar showing a dove in glory over a serpent-wrapped tree, but what makes a visit really worthwhile is the outstanding glass in the east window, which  oddly enough repeats the serpent theme.
Picture

PictureC13th capital

Picture

This is possibly by either Bolton or Clutterbuck from around 1849, showing Old Testament scenes in a pictorial way, not holding back on either colour or detail. A companion window by the same designer is found at Watton on Stone nearby, from where these panels originated . Watton’s loss is Datchworth’s gain, though this window’s antetypes obviously relate to the three New Testament subjects in the east window there. Visit both, and remember to spot the little Lamb of God above the Passover scene here. It's probably worried that it's next for the knife.
PictureC17th brass.

PictureArts and crafts glass of the sower.

PictureClutterbuck's east window.

PictureClayton and Bell glass c.1860


Open, and a place to somehow lift the spirit, even if you don't have one.

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