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.
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.
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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.
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 C13th capital
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This is by Clutterbuck from around 1849, showing Old Testament scenes in a pictorial way, not holding back on either colour or detail. More glass by this artist is found at Watton on Stone nearby, and these panels originated from there. 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.
 C17th brass.
 Arts and crafts glass of the sower.
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 Clutterbuck's east window.
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 Clayton and Bell glass c.1860
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Open, and a place to somehow lift the spirit, even if you don't have one.
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