great amwell church, hertfordshire

St. John the Baptist, Great Amwell.

Old source for a new river.

In 1609 Sir Hugh Myddleton chose the group of springs below the church as a major source for a far sighted engineering project, no less than a clean source of drinking water for the entire city of London. The construction of a canal which had to hug the contour line in order to flow gently downhill to town was no simple job, requiring surveying and mapping knowledge- to say nothing of practical engineering abilities- unseen since Roman times. Even 200 years later the New River project was recognised as an outstanding feat and suitably commemorated by the company surveyor and builder of the time, William Mylne, one of a long line of Scottish architects. In 1800 he set up an urn made of Coade stone on a plinth standing on an island near the source, with celebratory poems cut into stones nearby, the whole romantically embowered amongst weeping willows within view of the churchyard above.

Local poet John Scott wrote the ode to the New River on this monument at its source.

Early Norman apse with much obvious Victorian restoration.

Coade stone plaque on the Mylne mausoleum of c.1800

Set on the side of a steep hill, the graveyard contains many large monuments including the Mylne family mausoleum of 1800, an obelisk of 1728 to the Plomer family, and a Grecian tomb under a Doric canopy within iron railings for the Cathrow family. Mylne’s cubicle is decorated with Coade stone plaques and an urn, this composite stone being a favourite of many architects of the time. With similarities to terracotta, these details were made from a secret recipe including pre-fired pots and crushed flint in the Lambeth factory of the redoubtable Eleanor Coade; here they are neo-classical, showing a mourning wife seated besides empty grecian armour, but they were eventually available in every styles. Their crispness after two centuries differentiates them from stone. All around the church the trees press in closely, with rows of yews leading up to the low tower. If you walk around to the north side there are glimpses of the pools beneath, and a muscular Victorian organ chamber and vestry hiding in the gloom.

C17th pulpit.

Hannah Mylne's 1885 memorial.

The rest of the church is old, with an early Norman apse at the east end and a basic chancel arch inside. Both the simple arch and one window with equal splays inside and out show the influence of a Saxon mason, only the plan revealing the post-conquest date. The English preferred a square east end, and changed most Norman apses as soon as they could. There are round arched squints on both sides of the arch, probably formed from later altar niches. Few changes were made over the years other than the addition of a west tower in the fifteenth century, and the later enlarging of windows. Royal arms of George III painted on canvas hang in the nave, which is dark with Victorian glass. The Jacobean pulpit is a swagger piece originating in the Archbishop’s palace at Croydon, and has the unusually ornate detail of caryatid terns holding up the angles, and on the east wall of the nave behind it is a memorial to Mylne’s wife, carved with a big grieving angel seated head in hand looking at the congregation with an arrogant gaze perhaps more suited to Lucifer than to Raphael, as if seeking someone to blame. This is not a big church, and is over restored, but the immediate environment makes it well worth visiting, and it sits at the head of widespread wildlife reserves and walks up to Ware through watercress beds, a survivor for close on a thousand years.

Open on Sunday afternoons in the summer. The vicarage office is manned Mon-Thurs. in the mornings on 01920 870115; other times leave a message.

Early C19th Georgian royal arms.

C19th organ chamber and vestry.