St. Cecilia, Little Hadham.
Model-T church
This little church has a big hidden neighbour in the Hall over the hill, built in 1575 as a quadrangular Elizabethan house of which little more than the entrance range survives, with an older gatehouse range to its west. It is now a school, the fate of several of the larger Hertfordshire houses. The church lies near what was once the Hall’s farm, down a road that becomes a farm track. There is the tower of 1400, looking out over the valley, with a headstop making a face by pulling at his mouth and - almost obligatory in the county - a Hertfordshire spike up on top. The timber south porch looks to be on its last legs until you look at the drawing done by the Victorian architect John Buckler and see it had the same dangerous tilt in the 1850s, and has yet to collapse. If you haven’t been around the outside, the early c17 brick north transept comes as a surprise; its big four centred arch wide enough for the interior to read as T-shaped, especially as the box pews throughout the church face towards the good three decker pulpit of 1633 against the south wall. This protestant preaching box plan is still common in Ulster and Scotland, but fell out of fashion in England in Victorian times; here the chancel was cleared of pews and the layout is now a compromise between high church and low. The transept has brick windows, one with intersecting tracery, looking early Jacobean rather than Tudor. It once held a gallery which when removed revealed painted texts.
Model-T church
This little church has a big hidden neighbour in the Hall over the hill, built in 1575 as a quadrangular Elizabethan house of which little more than the entrance range survives, with an older gatehouse range to its west. It is now a school, the fate of several of the larger Hertfordshire houses. The church lies near what was once the Hall’s farm, down a road that becomes a farm track. There is the tower of 1400, looking out over the valley, with a headstop making a face by pulling at his mouth and - almost obligatory in the county - a Hertfordshire spike up on top. The timber south porch looks to be on its last legs until you look at the drawing done by the Victorian architect John Buckler and see it had the same dangerous tilt in the 1850s, and has yet to collapse. If you haven’t been around the outside, the early c17 brick north transept comes as a surprise; its big four centred arch wide enough for the interior to read as T-shaped, especially as the box pews throughout the church face towards the good three decker pulpit of 1633 against the south wall. This protestant preaching box plan is still common in Ulster and Scotland, but fell out of fashion in England in Victorian times; here the chancel was cleared of pews and the layout is now a compromise between high church and low. The transept has brick windows, one with intersecting tracery, looking early Jacobean rather than Tudor. It once held a gallery which when removed revealed painted texts.
|
 C15th porch
|
A Tudor rood screen divides the chancel from the nave; the pomegranates along the top of the dado were the badge of Catherine of Aragon, and help date the screen. Some late fourteenth century tiles were saved during the restoration and were reset in the chancel, more hang on the wall. Also in the chancel on the wall are displayed some remaining brasses: a lady wearing a pretty butterfly headdress (though her face would sink a thousand ships), and an armoured knight with an elegant hunting dog at his feet. Between the screen and the pulpit some late mediaeval glass remains in the window tracery; the prophet Isaiah holds a scroll with his name and St. Lawrence has his attribute of a gridiron, upon which he was martyred.
 The prophet Isaeas (Isaiah).
|
 C17th triple decker pulpit.
|
 St.Lawrence.
|
The nave roof rests on some sculpted corbels, several are the usual angels, but there are also a headless St. George, figures probably representing the apostles, and a couple of lions, one of which has his mouth open as wide as possible, roaring his heart out. This little church had its parish amalgamated with that of Much Hadham in around 1300, becoming a mere chapelry of the greater church, but it retained its civil status as a parish, with separate vestry and wardens and visitations, and after six hundred years it regained its rights. The parish system still retains meaning and loyalty more than a thousand years after its inception, and even here so close to London such boundaries are seemingly immutable, and the parish retains point beyond its original purpose.
This church is open daily, and is to the east of the village on a track leading north from the A120, to the west of the hall.
All rights reserved for this entire site. Copyright reserved to stiffleaf for all text and images, which may not be reproduced without my permission.
This church is open daily, and is to the east of the village on a track leading north from the A120, to the west of the hall.
All rights reserved for this entire site. Copyright reserved to stiffleaf for all text and images, which may not be reproduced without my permission.
